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Friedrich Nietzsche famously wrote: "Somewhere there are still peoples and herds, but not where we live, my brothers: here there are states. State? What is that? Well then, open your ears to me, for now I shall speak to you about the death of peoples. State is the name of the coldest of all cold monsters." A clue to how the great German philosopher sought in 1883 to substantiate his argument that he advanced when Bismarck was completing the transition from Prussian state-nation to German nation-state could be discerned from the present-day situation of Pakistan which clearly shows that although the 1973 constitution might be an agreement between federating units and institutions, it can be shown that this is not quite the case.

How unfortunate and worrisome it is that the bashing of one of the world's most effective and efficient intelligence agencies, ISI, continues not by states and foreigners inimical to Pakistan's greater security and economic interests but also by some politicians and media personalities of the country. Our politicians and media have perhaps discovered the safest path to ridicule ISI in order to keep the army in check: they desperately wait for the retirement of an ISI chief to conceive, plan and execute their designs; and the attack on a famous TV anchor that led to maligning of an incumbent ISI chief by that TV channel can only be termed the first and perhaps the last exception because that media house continues to pay a heavy price despite its abject surrender to a state organ, the armed forces, that it earlier sought to take on. The irony is that the government of the day has created a situation that is both strange and ridiculous because things are happening in a way that seems to be opposite of what you expected. For example, the prime minister of Pakistan has asked one of his colleagues to explain his position with regard to his allegations about the immediate-past ISI chief Lieutenant General Zaheerul Islam who, according to the minister, wanted to overthrow both civilian and military leadership through the infamous or famous sit-ins of Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf and Pakistan Awami Tehrik. The minister is said to have resigned from his post. Here, one may tend to ruminate about what Indira Gandhi had mooted as a principal reason in defense of her decision to impose Emergency in 1975 was her accusation against the opposition leader. She alleged that K. Kamaraj had asked the armed forces to remove an elected government.

That the development underscores the gravity of situation is a fact that has manifested itself in the action of prime minister who took less than 24 hours to remove a minister after he demanded an explanation from him. A couple of weeks ago, a senior anchor of a private TV channel (not Aaj News) had made similar allegations. Chaudhry Nisar the interior minister rejected that anchor's allegations in no time. That anchor, in his popular TV talk show, had claimed that General Zaheerul Islam wanted to create a rift between the prime minister and the army chief through political instability being fanned by the two sit-ins in the heart of the federal capital. He averred that the then ISI chief, a senior lieutenant general and a legitimate contender for the army chief's slot, wanted to see the ouster of the present army chief by prime minister on account of former's inability to bring to an end the PTI sit-in. The then ISI chief purportedly believed that the army chief, being a thorough and principled professional, would follow in the footsteps of former army chief General Jahangir Karamat; and the situation arising out of army chief's resignation would definitely deepen instability, foment chaos and even give birth to anarchy in the country, enabling ISI chief to remove the prime minister by staging a "legitimate" coup. Whatever Chaudhry Nisar said in response to it was found to be too little if not too late, though his was the response of the state which is represented by both - the armed forces and the government - ever since the launch of the operation Zarb-e-Azb. Such a view of Mushahidullah, of course, was not incompatible with the narrative of that TV anchor. Moreover, it shows that the government and armed forces are competing for legitimacy insofar as their claims to representation of state are concerned.

Nietzsche explained why he had termed the nation state as a cold monster: "Coldly it [state] tells lies too; and this lie crawls out its mouth: "I, the state, am the people." This is a lie!...This sign I give you: every people speaks its language of good and evil, which the neighbour does not understand. It has invented its own language of customs and rights. But the state tells lies in all the languages of good and evil; and whatever it says, it lies-and whatever it has it has stolen." The situation therefore lends a measure of credence to a wild speculation that both government and army are employing the language of good and evil, which the people of Pakistan at large do not understand.

The writer is newspaper's News Editor

Copyright Business Recorder, 2015


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