Beyond the javelin

A SINGULAR athletic triumph in Paris triggered spontaneous jubilation in the run-up to Independence Day in a nation that might otherwise have wondered what was worth celebrating 77 years after its birth.
Success, as they say, has many fathers, and Arshad Nadeem’s remarkable individual achievement predictably spurred a flurry of efforts to scrape off a bit of glitter from Pakistan’s first Olympic gold medal in 40 years — and to shower him with the kind of institutional support that was largely absent during his lonely journey to the top.
By Monday, though, the focus of national attention had shifted to another first: an ISPR press release stated that retired Lt-Gen Faiz Hameed was in military custody. He faces a court martial on charges that cover both his tenure as spy chief and its aftermath as well as activities that followed his early retirement in November 2022.
No ISI chief has previously faced this kind of comeuppance, and beyond the terse ISPR acknowledgement that something unprecedented is going down, it’s unclear what the future might hold in terms of accountability for the ‘guardians’. But what exactly is being guarded beyond a thoroughly hollowed-out polity and an economy that periodically prays to the IMF for deliverance?
The proceedings against Hameed are ostensibly based on the Top City raid in 2017 and its allegedly corrupt consequences. Borderline criminal conduct by housing societies has been the norm for decades, and their relations with provincial and national power brokers are among the symptoms of Pakistan’s lifelong malaise.
Much of the commentary following his incarceration has, however, noted his far wider political role before, during and after Imran Khan’s incumbency as prime minister. Of course, previous spy chiefs — beginning with Hamid Gul — have also been complicit in advancing Imran Khan’s political career. And, before him, that of Nawaz Sharif — which the PML-N would naturally be reluctant to acknowledge.
On the seventh anniversary of independence 70 years ago, The Pakistan Times wondered whether the Muslim League, after a resounding electoral defeat in East Bengal, could be purged of “elements whose bovine stupidity restricts their activity to a continuous search for new pastures”. Four years later, it felt obliged to call out political players “cursed with unlimited greed and gifted with limited ability”.
That description pretty much still applies to both the political and military spheres. Military rule, directly or by default, has been the disastrous norm for too long. The way out towards a demonstratively democratic dispensation remains to be determined more than half a century after the first national elections that split the nation following the massacre to thwart such an outcome after it was too late.
Perhaps the biggest tragedy in recent decades has been the determination to repeat the kind of follies that blighted the past. The state’s ridiculous reaction to the Baloch Yakjehti Committee’s planned protest in Gwadar is a case in point. The role of Baloch women in protests against the enforced disappearances of their husbands, brothers and sons is a tremendous achievement, but it’s far from clear whether the efforts led by the amazingly effective Dr Mahrang Baloch will bear fruit. Who can seriously question the logic of Balochistan’s abundant natural resources primarily benefiting the province’s population? It might take a revolution, though, for that scenario to transpire.
There was a student-worker revolt in 1968-69, that rat-tled the established order. But the events that followed effecti­vely put democracy on the back-burner, and it has never completely recovered. The present scenario suggests that it never will unless the depressing status quo is superseded by Bangladesh-style resistance — spearheaded not by the clueless PTI, but by rights-based movements, which are, unfortunately, anathema to the powers that be. These are the kind of movements that the established order cannot countenance, precisely because they militate against its repetitive absurdities.
The arguably justified targeting of an out-of-control former spy chief might be welcome, but it offers no guarantee that Faiz Hameed’s attitude will not resurface. Any rejoicing on this account would surely be premature. The prospect of civilian supremacy remains a distant dream after all these years.
But while the future is unwritten, one can draw considerable comfort from the attitudes of the mothers of Arshad Nadeem and India’s Neeraj Chopra, both of whom claimed their offspring’s friendly rival as an equally worthy son. Reports suggest the social media response was largely positive. That is something both Pakistan and India should be celebrating this week — but without losing sight of the various ailments that blight both nations in different ways.
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Published in Dawn, August 14th, 2024