I happen not to be addressing you on television or radio. The reason is understandable. It is the privilege of those who are granted the Divine right to rule countries, make laws for them, and to lead nations to the destinations of their choice, adopting the paths of their liking.
Henry the 8th, as you may be knowing (father of Elizebeth the Ist), had coined this concept-rich phrase.
“The Kings’ Divine Right To Rule.”
In the West, this Divine Right was overrun and replaced with Democracy, by the tidal wave of the ‘people power’. But the ex-colonies of the West – the countries like ours – to this day remain gloriously faithful to the royal whims of those who are trained to rejoice in their Divine missions.
As President General Pervez Musharraf rightly said in his address to the nation on the night of the 3rd of November 2007, we have still to learn a lot, to qualify to reap the benefits of democracy. We may well be a full era away from the date when our entitlement to democratic rule will be announced by some benevolent law-giver of the future. That era may not arrive in the lifetime of the generation I represent. I am four years older than President General Pervez Musharraf, and if he outlives me and dies as President, I will still be waiting for democracy in my grave.
But miracles are known to happen.
I, in my lifetime may just suffer the pleasant shock of being told that the gods of good fortune have finally smiled on the masses of Pakistan and awarded them with ‘relief’.
By relief, I don’t mean relief from the soaring prices and the back-breaking cost of living. It is also ‘a relief’ to be able to watch the channels of your choice. Haven’t we overnight been pushed into the pigeon-age?
Not meaning thereby any disrespect to those whom God has placed over and above us, to regulate our behaviours, to decide what is good for us and what is poison – and to issue fresh commandments for us to obey, follow and practise.
The descendants of Isaac’s son Jacob were the Chosen people of God. Those in command of our destiny have also been chosen by the Almighty to make laws for us, and regulate our lives. By the same logic, we the one hundred and sixty million lesser mortals who constitute the populace of Pakistan, have also been chosen to stay in humble submission, to wait for the orders, and to remain prepared to obey.
So my dear countrymen (and women), through this column – these echoes of my heart, I am informing you, that henceforth I cannot write a word that may bring into disrepute the Head of the State, or the members of the Armed Forces, or the executive, judicial or legislative organs of the state. Doing so is likely to jeopardize, or be prejudicial to the ideology of Pakistan, and the sovereignty, integrity as well as security of the country.
So I am told.
So I understand.
Still I take this liberty to observe that General Pervez Musharraf, being different from his predecessors in uniform, deep in his mind and heart knows that he has acted against his real conscience and best judgement.
22-3-2014
- Latest
- Trending
