Side-effect

Given the nature of how Pakistani mind works and the second guessing we thrive on as a nation, if someone holds a different opinion from ours, then in most cases either the person is funded by someone to say what she is saying or is pushing someone else's agenda. It has become impossible for us to understand that people can genuinely hold a different opinion without having any ulterior motives. I felt dejected when an old PPP friend who I met in Lahore the other day told me with incredible conviction and confidence that the lawyers' movement is now being financed by Sharif Brothers and other financiers of the PML-N. This was the evening of the day Ali Ahmed Kurd had won the elections of the Supreme Court Bar Association by a wide margin. My friend was terribly upset and refused to listen to my humble submissions about the way the issue was being mishandled by the PPP. He stopped short of saying that I am a part of the larger conspiracy against the angelic, sagacious and competent democratically elected political leadership of the country. But that's not what made me sad. What troubled and pained me, made me feel a lump in my throat, was the allegation levelled against people whose integrity is beyond doubt. Because when you say that the lawyers' movement is now being funded for political gains of someone else, it means that people like Ali Ahmed Kurd, Munir A. Malik, Rasheed Rizvi, Aitzaz Ahsan, Athar Minallah, Wajiha Mehdi and Shoaib Ashraf are dishonest and being bribed by the PML-N to further its interests. What other inference you would make if you accuse them of accepting money from your political adversaries.

The other interesting bit is that since the Sharifs and their cronies have started funding the movement, the movement has actually not done anything significant which would need resources. Therefore, the money allegedly being spent by Sharifs is on individuals. This clearly means, as I said before, that the palms of the leadership of the

lawyers' movement are being waxed. I detest this assertion. Just because the people I have mentioned above are to be respected and held in high esteem for their commitment and uprightness even if you disagree with their tactics. Many of us who are critical of how the government is handling the matter do not necessarily support the PML-N or want the government to destabilise. In my case, not a wee bit. Our intention is exactly the opposite. We want the fragile democratic order to establish itself on firm footing and those who have formed the governments after February 2008 elections to stay in power. This we want for the betterment of the Pakistani state and society, for its prosperity and its institutional norm-setting according to the constitution of the republic. The Naeks and the Khosas must avoid advising President Zardari to take the same course which General Musharraf took. I wrote in my last column and now reiterate that please do not let the narrow-minded and the confused hijack the movement by your egotistic misadventures. Restoring a few judges from the backdoor or elevating them to the higher court wouldn't resolve the matter.

The PPP contributed to making Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry a symbol of supremacy of the constitution and law. Those who gave their lives or lost their limbs in May 2007 trying to receive Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry in Karachi or in the blast in the party stall to receive the chief justice in July 2007 in Islamabad were no less important than those who sacrificed their lives trying to protect their leader Shaheed Benazir Bhutto in Karachi and then in Rawalpindi. I also remember the now divided but very well-meaning civil society activists in Islamabad, including PPP sympathisers, braving police batons, teargas shells, grisly lockups and Adiala Jail. I remember Benazir Bhutto trying to visit the house-imprisoned chief justice on November 13, 2007. Take the movement seriously PPP and try resolving the issue more wisely and with the respect it deserves.



The writer is an Islamabad-based poet and rights campaigner. Email: harris@spopk.org