Warriors of the status quo
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
S Khalid Husain
The fake-degree issue, far from national soul-searching, has caused a bevy of politicians, including the country's president, to rise in defence of holders of such 'degrees'.
The president is said to have alleged that the Quaid-e-Azam was 'not a graduate' before he started practising law in England. Using the Quaid-e-Azam's name must come easily to the president who lives, and seeks to survive, on names, such as of his late wife, and of her late father.
Surely, the president must know, and if he does not his law minister, who has decorated himself with a 'doctorate' from a fake 'university' in the US, must know, that in England barristers are not called to the Bar by the Election Commission of Pakistan, but by a body, which has been known, for over a hundred years, to distinguish the eligible from the ineligible, and the fake, be it a person or his degree, from the real.
The chief minister of the largest province, in area, with wide open spaces, has all but publicly 'declared', that he has the same in his head between his ears, by claiming 'a degree is a degree, real or fake'. He has a point, though. If the question is only of possessing a degree document, then the real and the fake are both documents. Just as if the purpose is only to draw money from the bank, why should it matter if the money is drawn through writing a cheque, using the ATM card, or by pointing a gun?
The federal minister, for education of all things, says fake-degree holders are the same people who the electorate will vote for regardless of degrees, real, none, or fake. So, he asks, what is the problem?
Yes, indeed, what is the problem? Unless it is the federal education minister's mindset, which long years of living off the fruits of the sweat and toil of his electorate, and off its votes, has been conditioned to accept both as natural right.
The problem is the traditional and hereditary powerlessness of the minister's, and the rest of his feudal colleagues', electorates. Illiteracy breeds poverty, which creates powerlessness. Such powerless electorates have served for generations as rock-solid bulwarks against any erosion of feudal influence and power. It is where the minister's, and other feudals', political power comes from, and also the votes at election time.
The feudals will not easily let go of this power, nurtured by them with deliberate care, over generations. It would be being one-dimensional to expect the minister, even if he is supposedly looking after education, to come down hard on fake-degree holders when in his mind, literacy, education, degrees, are all unnecessary, and irrelevant issues in his constituency.
The politicians' argument, that the graduation proviso is undemocratic, is valid. However, the politicians would have served the cause of democracy better if they had declined to participate in elections, instead of attempting to evade the degree requirement through falsehood, and fake documents. In doing so, the politicians have further blackened their not-altogether-tidy reputations.
As if individual discolouring of reputations was not enough, the parliamentarians have gone in for collective discolouring. The Punjab Assembly has passed a resolution attacking the media. In 'no holds barred' speeches on the floor, they have, literally, screamed, raved and ranted why only the parliamentarians are being singled out for their fake degrees.
A more juvenile tirade by grown-up men and women gracing the assemblies is hard to imagine. As people's elected representatives, the parliamentarians, in any democracy, are deemed to have a higher national purpose than journalists, generals, bureaucrats, judges and any others. By their raving and ranting, the Punjab parliamentarians have shown themselves to be exceptions.
Clearly, the self-denigrating and demeaning actions of our parliamentarians are a result of their ignorance of their own most significant relevance to the country's growth and progress. This is understandable, as most politicians enter the field, not on the strength of their popular appeal, but entirely on strength of their land holdings and illiterate, poverty-ridden, powerless electorates, and on hereditary footsteps, inherited as next in line.
Until this situation is corrected, and it is hoped the correction would be peaceful, there is no chance of the overall quality of our politicians and parliamentarians improving. They are 'warriors' of the status quo, and they have, in the past, successfully warded off threats to any change in the social, political and economic structure of Pakistani society, under which they loll, and rule. There is no threat to their status on the horizon, the 'warriors' have blocked all possible approaches to such threats.
If the politicians will not bring quality to politics, the answer probably lies in taking some semblances of quality to the politicians. One way to do so could be to make it mandatory, for contestants of elections to the national and provincial assemblies, to attend a course, not necessarily pass one. There need not be an exam, but attendance has to be certifiable, before they are eligible to file nomination papers.
The course can be designed to introduce candidates to the Constitution, to the role of parliament, to their role within parliament, to the magnitude of their role as an elected member of an assembly. It can cover benefits to the country, and indeed to themselves, of their fulfilling the roles well, and of the costs to the country, and to them, of their failing to do so.
The course emphasis should also be on parliamentary rules, decorum, conduct, language, and all the rest. The course content, and the modalities, such as frequency, locations, language, costs, can be developed to make the course accessible to any citizen of Pakistan, anywhere.
An independent arrangement, through an autonomous body, or through reputable existing institutions, such as LUMS, IBA, or any other, for a suitable duration course (up to four weeks perhaps) at different locations, to be conducted every quarter, appears feasible.
The course, by a long shot, would not result in production of ideal parliamentarians. However, the exposure in the course, to the magnitude of their responsibility as MNAs or MPAs, and to the significance of their roles, will sober many incoming ones enough to take themselves, and their responsibility, more seriously than most do now.
Hopefully, the course exposure will also develop a level of self-worth in parliamentarians, something the current crop has been shown to lack.
The writer is a former corporate executive. Email:
husainsk@cyber.net.pk
novel idea!
