‘System’ thy name is Hypocrisy

For many days, I have been thinking of clarifying the reality of the slogan or argument of two-faced democracy. An approach towards which PTI always objected when they were warming the opposition benches. We should be thankful to ‘Ahmad Noorani’ who presented a meaning to this approach in front of everyone with irrefutable proof.

For those friends for whom this picture is still blurry, I will try to complete it in such a way that another term for two-faced democracy is two-faced dictatorship, i.e. there is no room for dictatorship in real democracy and there is no place for democracy in real dictatorship. The two systems are at odds with each other, and the result of a failed armed effort to bring them together is what we have achieved.

An example of this futile endeavor is to plant a type of vegetation in the desert that can only thrive in cold weather and wait for a miracle. Exercise well to be smart and use cola instead of water. Or start the journey in violation of the one-way road and face the in-coming traffic. Get the desire to have children by arranging the most expensive marriage of two men or two women.

If you ask a Police officer holding a senior position what would happen if the system gives equal authority to two SHOs instead of one in a police station? The answer will be, ‘Chaos’. Likewise, if you question a senior civil officer, that will the situation improve if two secretaries are placed in a department and are given the same powers? The answer again would be, ‘Chaos’. Going beyond that, I will refer to the last book of the Creator of the universe, in which he has stated his greatness and argued that if there were two gods of this universe, the whole system would be in disarray.

It is this two-faced dictatorship from whose womb comes the two-faced democracy. Real dictatorship can give better results than this, then if I may argue that it can give positive results, it does not have to be, but it is possible. On the other hand, the countries that have adopted democracy are surprisingly standing tall and proud as examples of progress and are commanding us to get rid of this dual hypocritical and dysfunctional system of politics and governance that has corrupted an entire socio-political structure of the country.

For example, performing ‘Umrah’ (a religious practice) with unlawful wealth, constructing religious seminaries on occupied lands, burglary and adulteration while fasting in the month of Ramadan, sexual demands from female students by teachers in private and public educational institutions, inhumane treatment of children in religious madrassas, issuing fatwas on the morals and character of others, constant violation of traffic rules, by erecting hateful religious slogans on the streets, greedy and eloquent mullahs delivering hollow moral speeches, whose eyes are only wet on the affliction of the powerful.

Arrangement of fraudulent witnesses in courts by those who offer five-prayers a day. Strange relationships between foster sister and brother, but in one breath, these hypocrites will call out the obscenity of the West, with great pain. However, in quest of gaining citizenship of the same obscene West, they would tamper with all the legal documents to declare their sister as wife and another wife as a sister.

Vodka is a Russian wine that has no color and looks like water. Customs officials will tell you that passengers on incoming flights from the United Arab Emirates are caught several times in trying to cheat the system by writing ‘Zam Zam’ (According to Islam, it is a miraculously generated source of water from God) on white plastic bottles. Now the Saudi government has banned the ‘Zamzam’ to be carried in local bottles, it can only be brought in a sealed bottle with their packaging, but the crooks still take their chances.

Here the non-tax payers are the ringleaders of the corrupt mafia who run the media and publicly harass their female workers. On the other hand, there are also women who, without hesitation, host the political talk-shows on the pretext of having extra-marital relations with the powerful and then weep over the ethical dilemmas of the society and present themselves as self-proclaimed journalists. The astonishing thing is that the presenter is not even an ordinary journalist but claims to be an investigative one.

Far ahead of them are those male anchors, who are jack of all-trades. They are fashion designers, clowns, critical thinkers, scientists, journalists, singers, actors, religious scholars, political experts. Simultaneously, they are military analysts, economists, historians and astronomers. They further claim expertise in the complexities of foreign affairs without any hesitation and shame in their talk-shows.

Dictator Zia-ul-Haq did not start this hypocrisy but he did manage to bring it to its climax. There are now millions of young people who believe that hypocrisy is the new normal and they approve of this way of life. According to them, a hero is one who says, “Stealing is my profession and prayer is my religious duty.”

Tyrannizing one’s own minorities and crying for the Muslim minorities of other countries. It is permissible in the eyes of this generation to ask for the right to preach Islam for oneself and to consider it permissible to kill others for preaching or practicing their faith.

Two-faced dictatorship or two-faced democracy is in line with our general daily lives and this system is also tailor-made for this generation in a way. But the irony is, that the world refuses to accept our collective hypocrisy, they are not willing to put visas on our passports because we reject to accept our ‘new normal’ as malicious, unjust and wicked.

This system tried its best to suppress the story by Ahmad Noorani but failed, just like this deceitful, hypocritical system that will never allow us to evolve and to earn respect among the international community. The first casualty of such a system is of merit and justice. I fail to understand, who we are trying to trick by suppressing justice in our society and projecting ourselves as the torch-bearers of Islam concurrently.

The last thing is that the sensational story by Ahmad Noorani has turned into a snake and has wrapped itself around the neck of PTI. Khan Sahib, can keep rotating the Paternoster or perform ablutions and keep giving interviews, this snake will continue to bite. It will not be the retired General but the PTI leaders and members of the Assembly who will have to face the music in public and in their constituencies. Trying to suppress this news will only provoke it. Thousands of scandals come and go, but some are like the sugar scandals in the time of Ayub Khan, the ‘Lal-Masjid’ (Red Mosque) in the time of General Musharaf and more recently the Panama humiliation.

Give a thousand examples of progress in return, highlight the achievements of foreign policy, such a scandal makes everything meaningless. It injects fatal setbacks. Retired General Sahib should know what to do or not to do. However, this political loss is to be borne by Imran Khan anyway.