The burden of responsibility

In 2003 when space shuttle Columbia disintegrated on re-entering the earth’s atmosphere, killing all seven astronauts onboard, its Mission Launch Integration Manager N Wayne Jr didn’t wait for the outcome of an enquiry commission. He stepped right in front and accepted responsibility in these famous words:
“I had the opportunity and the information and I failed to make use of it. I don’t know what an inquest or a court of law would say, but I stand condemned in the court of my own conscience to be guilty of not preventing the Columbia disaster…The bottom line is that I failed to understand what I was being told; I failed to stand up and be counted. Therefore look no further; I am guilty of allowing the Columbia to crash.”
There was no such feeling in the conscience of officials at the helm of affairs either in Karachi or in Islamabad to accept responsibility as the Karachi death toll crossed 1100 within a spate of a few days and is still rising. There was unashamed mutual recrimination of blame for this huge tragedy. To make things worse, officials appeared in attires more suited to ultra cool environments rather than the scorching heat being experienced by the people.
It just didn’t occur to anyone that surely someone, somewhere should accept responsibility for this unprecedented disaster. The so-called people’s representatives were not seen in hospitals trying to assess the situation regarding urgent needs of the affected. There was shortage of ambulances in the city hospitals – in sharp contrast to the ugly display of wealth in the number of vehicles in the entourage of the rulers.
The National Disaster Management Authority, a constitutionally established body meant for such situations, was conspicuous by its absence. There was no water in the city’s water supply system but tankers with water from illegal hydrants were doing a roaring business. The city’s mortuaries as well as those of the charity organisations were full with no capacity to accept any more. There was shortage of space in graveyards to bury the dead. But anyone who was anything in the city’s administration was abroad on vacations.
The heatwave should have been predicted and appropriate actions taken; but predictions about disasters is not on our priorities. In a few weeks time the unusual heavy monsoon rains will be upon us but it is highly unlikely that actions required after previous year’s floods have been taken to reduce damage to crops, livestock and human lives. Cynics joke that the only people making preparations are the revenue department officials who have now mastered the art to make the best of aid distribution in a flawed system.
It is not only Sindh where there is no culture of anyone accepting any responsibility for acts of commission and omission. In Punjab someone has yet to take responsibility for the Model Town tragedy – as far as it is known, not a single FIR has been registered so far. In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the province refuses to accept responsibility for the disorder in the recent local bodies elections. In Balochistan, any notions for responsible governance have been blinded by the dazzle of Riko Diq’s gold under the earth.
The nearest to accepting responsibility of sorts after recent deaths in Karachi came from Lt General Qadir Baloch who admitted rather vaguely that ‘we are all responsible’ for this tragedy – and yet he failed to name anything specific for which either the federal or the provincial government would be at fault. This stark dishonesty of our leaders not to accept responsibility for their failures is now hurting.
One wonders why our people find it so difficult to accept responsibility when their failures are glaring enough for all to see. It would appear that at the core, we are all ego-driven people. In the formative years we develop a self-concept or self-image of ourselves where we consider ourselves to be better than others. In adolescence, when the gap between this cherished self-image and our performance is challenged by others, we suffer from tension and mental discomfort.
The higher the moral, financial and emotional stakes, the more our self-concept is threatened and the harder it becomes to admit our mistakes. That’s why the ego of our rulers goes into hyper-defence mode the moment someone asks for their resignation. Just see the tension on Khawaja Asif’s face as he puts up a hopeless defence of the water and power ministry. To seek relief from this tension, they take the easy road and avoid taking responsibility. Others – like the chief minister of Sindh or Punjab’s law minister, to name only two – have perfected the art of simultaneously handling tension and shirking responsibility.
Another favourite mode of not accepting responsibility by men in power is to go into denial, the classic example of which in recent times was during the height of Monica Lewinsky scandal. That is when former President Bill Clinton uttered a famous sentence about ‘that women’ on prime time TV and nearly half of America fell off their seats in askance – did he just say that? The American public had seen their president caricatured more often with his trouser dropped to the knees than fastened at the waist, so they knew the truth; they were just not prepared to see the truth masked under oath. In the end Clinton was impeached for felony rather than the original sin of conduct unbecoming.
That’s like Nawaz Sharif and Zardari denying their involvement in financial corruption or someone claiming that all defence procurement deals are clean. Or Imran Khan denying that he does not have a skeleton of a different kind in his closet, which every Pakistani suspects he has. Or our clerics denying that they have any links with the Taliban.
The BBC’s recent report didn’t cause anyone to fall off their chairs in Pakistan as people here knew the truth for a long time. In the case of Zehra Shahid, where the PTI had directly blamed Altaf Hussain for her death, the MQM wasted no time in announcing that it would sue Imran Khan for defamation.
The reason was simple – it saw it as a successful method to deflect public attention in Pakistan. Its lawyers are now taking forever to sue the BBC because they know that in the UK it could mean only more trouble. The MQM is obviously hedging its bets, thinking this too will pass in a few days before the media gets the next scandal.
In a land where no one ever gets blamed for anything, people had pinned their hope on an ‘independent judiciary’ as a vehicle for affixing responsibility on wrongdoers. But those hopes turned out to be transitory.
The interior ministry is apparently discharging its responsibilities well to bring late Dr Imran Farooq’s murder case to a closure. After his murder, there was mayhem in Karachi for three days in which sixty odd people lost their lives for no rhyme or reason. There is not a single FIR against those who killed those sixty people. Shouldn’t the ministry’s reach extend to all?
Taking ownership of our mistakes and shortcomings requires both humility and courage and is the hallmark of a mature society. We are a long way away from that mark.
The writer is a retired vice admiral.
Email: tajkhattak@ymail.com