Upending the power elite

The year 46 BC consisted of 445 days; it was the longest one in history. Such anomalies were a common feature in the Roman calendar.

The greatest contributing factor was the fact that the occurrence of the leap year was decided upon by Pontifex Maximus, the Roman supreme priest. He would extend the year when his political allies were in office and shorten it when his opponents governed. The Julian calendar could not solve the problem. Ultimately, it was the Gregorian calendar, sans the arbitrary authority of Pontifex Maximus, which brought sanity to the Roman years.

Much has been said and written about the vote of no-confidence against Imran Khan. The fact that his government was pursuing sound economic and foreign policies makes the whole drama surreal. The highest-ever growth and fiscal figures in just 42 months of the PTI government bear testimony. They are all the more commendable, having been delivered under the full assault of the Covid pandemic and an aided abetted and clobbered together opposition.

These statistics totally belie the ever-looming doomsday specter from all quarters throughout Imran Khan’s tenure. It also looks farcical given the highest-ever hike in inflation, fuel / commodity prices, power shortfall and trade deficit along with alarming depletion of foreign exchange reserves brought about in these couple of months by the trussed up government. Ironically, the excruciating fallout and imminent economic downslide is yet to arrive.

Einstein once said that politics is more difficult than physics; it surely is for politicians and their mentors who let down the nation repeatedly. Political scientists have been sounding the alarm at the constant backslide of democracies around the world, attributing it to the capture of democracies by power elites. In 1956, Charles Mills published ‘The Power Elite’. It remains the Bible of sociology, describing these power elite as the political, military and business cabals that rule behind a facade of democracy.

State institutions stand by as the power elite flaunts its ability to break the law and get away with it. One example has the sons of the Sharif brothers, fugitives of Pakistan’s laws, accompanying PM Shehbaz Sharif on state visits and sharing tables with the hosts. One can well imagine how these and other countries shall view the judicial system and moral character of Pakistan.

John Dalberg famously said, “Opinions alter, manners change, creeds rise and fall but the moral law is written on the tablets of eternity”. Today, we have a prime minister and chief minister who are facing serious charges of monetary turpitude; many of their cabinet members face the same. This above-the-law mindset divorces law from morality and virtue from the legal code. It also tends to negate the basic tenet of humanity that every law springs from a system of values and beliefs; each law is but a legislation of morality. The Islamabad High Court CJ’s intervention led to the resignation of a SAPM convicted to a life sentence on drug charges.

Democracies, since inception, have depended on something that is seemingly so mundane that we hardly ever mention or notice it. This one factor is trust, a must of our collective lives. This single aspect is the heart and soul of a successful democracy. It is also the only factor that gives confidence to a multitude to hand over the course of their destinies to a mere handful. The decline of trust in the power elite, the total erosion of their credibility, has led to the people viewing this government as a sham. Now, many are questioning institutional credibility. This is an unprecedented, dangerous and ubiquitous challenge.

On an individual level, corruption remains confined to personal greed, its fallout affects a few. Corruption by the power elite leads to state capture. It results in non-delivering parliaments, compounded by totally politicized institutions. This brings about a governance vacuum, a portent of anarchy. What we see in Sri Lanka bears testimony to this fact. Like us, the Sri Lankans fought a horrendous (26 year) war against terrorism. The people remained resolute and united in those war ravaged years but could not accept what they saw as the state capture of their country by a corruption-ridden family. The turmoil and anarchy in Sri Lanka today is a result of what the people felt as the unkindest cut of all, the mutilation of their cherished dream of a prosperous Sri Lanka.

Our own governance cycles have remained mired in the personal quest of wealth and power. This dichotomy has seen dictatorships and democracies alike, clinically dispossessing the masses of their future and dignity. We are hostages to a system besotted to the insatiable cravings of a handful. In doing so, it ransoms the future of the whole nation. Roman philosopher Epicurus summed up this paradigm aptly saying, nothing is enough for the man to whom enough is too little.

For his detractors, Imran Khan’s greatest sin was his upending the power-elite, that are guardians of the status-quo, and pursuing his promised people-centric policies. He also committed the sacrilege of bluntly refusing to fight or abet Washington’s wars that the latter is prone to losing humiliatingly on its own. Even the caudillos that ruled us dared not opt for what they deemed unthinkable.

Ferdinand Foch, a French general and Allied Commander during WWI, defined the most powerful weapon on earth as the human soul on fire. Imran Khan’s defining achievement has been to rally the masses to stand up against the perpetual transgressions of the non-delivering power elite and the humiliating pitfalls of Washington’s servility.

An old adage says there are decades where nothing happens and then there are weeks when decades happen. Erasing the misdoings of the past is impossible; learning from them and acting to change the present and the future is always advisable, achievable and fruitful. This extremely crucial decision, that shall make or break the nation, should remain bereft of remote controls and battered egos.

The writer is a freelance contributor. He can be reached at miradnanaziz@gmail.com