‘It must never be unpatriotic to support your country against your government. It must always be unpatriotic to support your government against your country’. Steven T Byington

I see chaos before me and confusion all around – the future is dark and hope illusive. People have become irrelevant – their needs immaterial, the judiciary an accessory to crime, the government an accomplice to anarchy; it is why I am reminded of the famous saying when, ‘one party is shameless the other cannot afford to be spineless’.

The PTI, the most popular party, entrusted with the hopes and expectations of the people, is slowly becoming irrelevant. PTI has erred, as it blundered in response to machinations of the PDM and their supporters. The resigned from the National Assembly allowing the PDM to play a one-sided match, then they resigned from the Punjab and KP Provincial Assemblies, they halted the Azadi March and now they have volunteered to go to jail. These are valid steps that are taken in a conventional political environment where moral appeal has weightage.

The PDM has no such qualms about being labelled as liars, cheats and thieves – you cannot insult a cockroach by calling it a cockroach. Their speciality is blackmailing through illegal, clandestine videos made on all those individuals and their families who have anything to do with the judiciary, the police, government regulators, law enforcement or anyone of any official consequence.

The people of this country are now hostage to bribery, extortion, coercion and threats by their own government. Any probability of a wrong being addressed or righted through a moral, ethical, judicial, administrative or an act of governance, is highly remote and next to impossible. So who can the people appeal to, calling on their sense of propriety, honour and principles. No such people and no such office exists today in this Land of the Pure that prides itself in the label that it has accredited to itself, ‘The Islamic Republic of Pakistan’. It is far from being an Islamic entity and even farther from being a republic of any kind. It must rename itself, proudly revealing its true character; ‘The Lawless lands of Crime and Corruption’, with its coat-of-arms changed to display the three proverbial monkeys –  see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. The nation today lives in a so-called democracy, where the media is muzzled, opinions considered to be libellous and any criticism labelled as a terrorist threat.

The blatant lies of the government, though so transparently public, still suggest and insist, that they only took this government position to provide relief to the people. That a 6% growth in GDP has floundered to less than 2 % and inflation has reached over 40 % has no appeal to anyone’s conscience. The government, in an unprecedented exhibition of callous perfidy, unmoved by the misery that they caused to people of this country, brazenly and shamelessly, amended laws so as to extricate cases against their own past theft and corruption – the only thing that this government managed to achieve. They then proceeded to accommodate the largest cabinet in the history of this hapless nation; 76 ministers of which 23 do not even have a portfolio since there were no ministries left. Thus, the political responses and the so called peaceful reactions of the PTI, may look reasonable and reflect a high moral pedestal but will remain ineffective and fly in the face of an artificial government structured on deceit, deception and treachery; that is totally oblivious to doing the right thing – holding a general election as soon as possible, so that the voice of the people can be heard.

So are there any corrective measures for such an aberration? I cannot find any conventional steps that can shake the conscience of the government or the powers that be, other than the integral power of the people. It is the people who are sovereign. It is the people who first make up the State and its territories and who then agree to be represented by a government that is representative of the majority; it is the people who then approve the Constitution which is a document limiting the powers of the government thus protecting the people from their own government.

If the ethos of State is lost, some people begin separatist movements and the country is plagued by insurgencies. When the Constitution is violated, it leads to tyranny where injustice prevails. If the government is incompetent, vested, indifferent or incapable to govern, then economic collapse is inevitable, leading to social inequalities and anarchy. Insurgency, anarchy, economic instability and injustice are the ingredients that make a ‘failed State’. Is Pakistan a failed State?

The people and the leadership can see all of these things unfold before them, they stand testimony and witness to history being written in their presence. Yet no one’s sheds a tear, there is no sign of remorse and there is total indifference in the air as people go about their business as if nothing has happened and what may happen may pass them by. It will not. The ship is sinking and we are all going down with it. Yet the country struggles to remain afloat, as it is disowned by its own people, abandoned and set adrift in an ocean flooded by disloyalty, corruption and selfishness. One wonders, who could measure up to the task of saving the State – is there anyone who can stand tall, above board, with courage and moral standing to do so?

The only chance to get out of this unfortunate situation that we are all wallowing in today, may lie in the hands of the PTI. They need to understand that their Centre of Gravity is the people of this country – a very powerful tool. The State belongs to the people, it’s their property and belongs to them – to protect, develop and defend. The people matter and it is they who define Pakistan – not some ruling elite, dubious bureaucrat, self-righteous mullah or government mandarin. If these people, the multitudes that follow PTI, are not organised to come out on to the street to express their outrage, nothing will happen and it will lead to political failure and PTI’s undoing.

It does not matter how many of the PTI workers go to jail – in fact the more, the merrier. Resigning from the parliaments will not affect anybody or awaken anyone’s moral conscience. No press conference or TV show will shame the shameless, no accusation will be considered worthy of enquiry or consideration. It’s now, when all else has failed, only the people on the street, can make a difference. Unless a physical display of anger, frustration and resentment is projected, the political preferences as being assessed and measured, will never be translated into reality.

The Government has to be overwhelmed by the shock and awe that huge crowds can affect and be forced to step down from their high pedestal. If this is not to done, then business as usual will remain, where rhetoric in response to any accusations, will rubbish all the charges or simply ignore all the claims against the ruling elite; lies will prevail and deceit will rule where Pakistan will have the dubious distinction of being a State comprising of an irrelevant people.  So as the saying goes, ‘when one party is shameless, the other cannot afford to be spineless’.

‘Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable’ John F Kennedy