Pakistan: A perpetual blame game

Mir Adnan Aziz

Passing the buck now a cliché was originally a striking metaphor, principally because of the circumstances in which it was first used.

There is a fable of the King and his ultimately accepting responsibility. Leaders accept responsibility and take action to resolve issues - this is why they are leaders. Small issues that are not resolved tend to morph dangerously to the detriment of all involved. Here is a fable holding true to the Pakistan of today.

The King sat with his Adviser eating honey on puffed rice. As they ate they leaned from the palace window and watched the street below.They talked of this and that. The King, not paying attention to what he was doing let a drop of honey fall onto the windowsill. "Oh sire, let me wipe that up," offered the Adviser. "Never mind," said the King. "It is not our problem. The servants will clean it later."

As the two continued to dine the drop of honey slowly began to drip down the windowsill till it fell with a plop onto the street below. Soon a fly had landed on the drop of honey and begun its own meal. Immediately a gecko sprang and with a flip of its long tongue swallowed the fly. A cat had seen the gecko and pounced. Then a dog sprang forward and attacked the cat! "Sire, there seems to be a cat and dog fight in the street. Should we call someone to stop it?" "Never mind," said the King. "It's not our problem." So the two continued to munch away.

Meanwhile the cat's owner had arrived and was beating the dog. The dog's owner ran up and began to beat the cat. Soon the two were beating each other. "Sire, there are two persons fighting in the street now. Shouldn't we send someone to break this up?" The King lazily looked from the window. "Never mind. It's their problem."

The friends of the cat's owner gathered and began cheering it on. The friends of the dog's owner began to cheer on the dog as well. Soon both groups entered the fight and attacked each other. "Sire, a number of people are fighting in the street now. Perhaps we should call someone to break this up." The King was too lazy even to look. You can guess what he said. "They will stop when they tire. Its not our problem".

Now soldiers arrived on the scene. At first they tried to break up the fight. When they heard the cause of the fight, some sided with the cat's owner while others sided with the other party. Soon the soldiers too had joined the fight. With the soldiers involved, the fight erupted into a civil war. Houses were burned down, people were harmed and the palace itself was set afire and burnt to the ground. The King and his Adviser stood surveying the ruins. "Perhaps," said the King ruefully, "I was wrong? Perhaps the drop of honey WAS our problem."

Dereliction of responsibility and passing on the blame is an act we have taken for granted. It has, unfortunately, become an essential part of the political, business and bureaucratic way of our lives. We vilify anyone who seeks to combat it as a whistleblower and treat him with utter contempt. Accordingly, we have built ourselves a protective barrier of buck-passing maintained by fear. This state of affairs is deplorable and completely discounts the concept of personal responsibility.

Unfortunately, we as a society take blame to be our right, our privilege. If anything goes wrong we dole it out left, right and center. We do not look for a solution; instead a convenient scapegoat is always found, forgetting that passing blame is a zero-sum game. On a state level our rulers themselves have mastered this game. The bureaucrats are directed to become cogs in the state machine, which provides no goods and services whatsoever, even of a mundane nature. They are encouraged to partake in the oldest and most cherished act in politics, the fine art of passing the blame. By doing so, they too have passed the buck.

In testing times as today what we have is a President, accountable to no mortal. The state is seemingly above and oblivious to the tragedies and chaos of our daily lives. With the now painfully familiar vigor and zeal, the President blames Benazir Bhutto for her own death. Our being in the dark ages is because the IPPs did not deliver. Flour the most basic of all commodities is alarmingly scarce because it is smuggled out. Emergency was imposed because the superior judges were clandestinely trying to create chaos and derail the transition to democracy-----the monotonous litany is unending and nerve wrecking.

The typical mindset can also be well gauged by the answer of a former Railway Minister, known more for his Nostradamic utterings. When asked by a TV anchor if we would resign following a fatal railway accident, he retorted it was the engine driver who was running the train, not him; all masters of pun even in the greatest of tragedies.

The President's election and his absolute power did not confer legitimacy to the previous regime and more so to the present caretaker setup. This in turn gave us rudderless regimes, moving from error to error, always shirking their responsibility and passing the buck by pointing fingers at others for their failures.

In true realist fashion, this sets up a paradox. The 'savior', who can extract us from the created quagmire we are in, may be the one who expressly does not practice the idealism that he preaches. But maybe, after all, that is just a rough definition of statecraft.

What we see is a daily utilization of the Adam rationale of defense platforms: "It was Eve's fault, she made me do it." It is all linked to a larger mistaken philosophy that suggests if we just pass on the blame of a problem, it will go away. Out of sight . . . out of mind. In the end, all this political posturing does nothing to remedy the real problem of accountability. If only we could understand that by doing nothing we become accessories to the failings we see.

These are the fruits of regressive philosophy and metaphorically speaking, must be cast into the fire. We must do what needs to be done with these kinds of philosophies. Let them be consigned to the dustbin of history to be an unwanted relic, never to be seen again. That is, if we want a better, stronger Pakistan.

President Musharraf's drawing room wall is adorned by a Chinese quote on leadership extolling the virtues of a true leader. He also has taken to quoting Abraham Lincoln. In reality we are the poorest students of history.

As for Benazir Bhutto, from numerous exchanges, I will only refer to a sentence that she wrote in response of my asking her not to come back on October 18 in the present circumstances.In an un-nerving hurry in those last days as if heeding a call of destiny, she replied, "I am overjoyed to return to our beloved homeland and once again breathe the air in which I was born and touch the soil that will one day become my final resting place". That 'one-day' was exactly 102 days away. She did come back and here she will rest till eternity.

Let us not exploit the tragedy, for the good or the bad. Let us all remember her as she arrived on that fateful day, with tears in her eyes, looking up to the sky with hands raised in supplication; and for what she was, a leader to millions and above all an adoring mother.

(miradnanaziz@gmail.com)