The honest captain myth :Hoodboy

[RoadRunner401]

Stage 2 character assassination has begun!

 

[Lehrasap]

Thus far, the world is an unwilling participant and reluctant but obliged spectator in what is essentially a European Civil War!
These wars and their games of one upmanship, murder and pillage brought about the conquests for nothing more than just resources and control to bring about the world we live in now, only to be poured over in more wars in an otherwise tiny part of the world... that reproduced like rabbits(till very recently) ... conquered and colonized the whole world and only tamed itself... for a short while... after they had exhausted themselves, in again their civil conflict where the whole world was again obliged(ww1 and ww2).
This reign of hell from vikings, kings, feudals, church, schism, republic(s) to communism, capitalism, democracy and autocracy only sheds old skin, dons new... and pours another generation in a feud of blood that seemingly will never end!
Ukraine, a purpose built conflict, a human sacrifice just like the vikings...
This sacrifice is evident in even the kind of weapons being supplied to Ukrainians... to only drag and prolong the conflict... bleed Russia before the drums role and big guys move in...

I got to give you this much you drink the same kool-aid you're peddling... keep going.

Umm, there is a photo of French colonial soldiers in Algeria holding in custody a naked Algerian girl. And someone on PDF had posted a photo of some other French colonial soldiers near the severed head of an Algerian man, probably a resistance fighter.

Dawn ...... the very best Indian newspaper published in Pakistan.

Q. What do you do when you fail as a physicist?
A. Pimp yourself out for a few dollars to trash Muslims, Pakistan, traditional women, Pakistani military, etc, etc,

Khooni libtards bring western slavery in beautiful worded articles

I was in doubt about IK's honesty up until now but after reading this piece of garbage from a bonafide intellectually bankrupt buffoon like Hoodbuoy I am now convinced of IK's honesty.

I usually ignore Indians posting on internal Pakistani matters. Them being in India is suffering enough. But for the last few days, my blood starts boiling when I see an Indian flag

he better talk about nut bolts of nuclear rather then politics .

My father tells me that the current Dawn lot's parents were also known CIA agents across society.

Of course, back then (as is the case now), the deep state was quiet and tolerant of major traitors like the Haroon family, instead focusing its power and ghundagaardi on a few social media bloggers.

Is Basori ko be bahir nikal lia ha IK per bhonka ka lia.
He is literally just one guy fighting all of these rascals.
No matter how hard everyone tries (the establishment, politicans, sold out media, so called analyst) IK popularity is only increasing many folds.

Not a single Daleel by Imran Khan supporters in answering the objections, that have been raised by the writer.

All what we are hearing from Imran's supporters are allegations of Ghadaar.

 

[khail007]

WITH the no-confidence motion to be voted upon today (Saturday) by a parliament restored on the Supreme Court’s order, Prime Minister Imran Khan’s stint in power could be over by midday. But even if that transpires, the cricket captain and his cult are out to create chaos in the weeks and months ahead. For his devotees, he is the only honest and sincere politician in Pakistan and must be followed.

Cults — political and religious — can be long-lived and deadly dangerous. In 1978, devoted groupies followed Jim Jones, their discredited leader, in a mass suicide that claimed 909 lives, including 304 children. More to the point: Donald Trump spent four disastrous years in office and assaulted American democracy, but he is still adored by simple-minded Americans from the Bible Belt who cling to their guns and religion.

Building on his cricketing success and cancer hospital, Imran Khan worked relentlessly for decades at self-promotion. His growing cult swallowed story after story: corruption would end in 90 days; the national treasury would overflow once ‘looted dollars’ stashed by political rivals in secret overseas accounts were brought back. Never again, he said, would Pakistan see the dirty politics of horse trading.

Naya Pakistan would overflow with milk and honey — Khan would “commit suicide but never return to the IMF”; foreign policy would be based upon principle rather than expediency; the world’s most sought-after passport would become the green one; and Pakistan would turn into a tourist haven. Jobs would be aplenty, the justice system would be overhauled, civil service officers appointed purely on merit, and the police system revamped. Emigrants, said Khan, would choose Naya Pakistan over Europe and America.

Well-meaning overseas Pakistanis, desperate for good news from their ex-country, lapped it up. But the reality turned out starkly different.

Just months after winning a bitterly disputed election, Khan’s government requested the IMF for a loan. Critical dependency on the United States was traded for equal dependency upon China. Today, the Pakistani passport is no more desirable than before and the only foreign tourists are intrepid mountain climbers. In January 2022, Transparency International announced that perceptions of corruption had taken a quantum leap. As for looted billions returning: sure, keep dreaming! Meanwhile, the dollar has gone through the roof.
Horse-trading politics got a boost once Khan decided that “electable” candidates would be preferred over principled candidates. Although he now admits “mistakes”, the future may be no different. In a desperate move, the Punjab chief minister — apparently chosen by his first lady and praised sky-high by Khan until two weeks ago — has just been thrown under the bus. His replacement, handpicked by Khan himself, was once derided by Khan as a scumbag.

To save his sinking ship, Captain Khan has invented the cock-and-bull story of an American conspiracy to oust him. This, he said, owes to his independent stand on Ukraine. So why hasn’t Narendra Modi — also ambivalent on Russia’s aggression — alleged the same? Khan’s groupies cannot explain why this weeks-old ‘revelation’ came only after a no-confidence motion threatened his survival.
What makes cults so attractive and cultists so impervious to factual evidence and reason? Why do so many people set aside good sense and worship leaders? Of course, some followers do quit when the truth becomes ugly enough. But for others even that doesn’t happen. The herd instinct, reluctance to admit a past mistake, or continued attachment to some utopic vision still keeps some going.

Anthropologists have related the degree of cultic affiliation to the perceived uncertainty within an environment. For example, they find that rougher seas make fishermen engage in more elaborate magic rituals. Correspondingly, Pakistan’s lack of a shared national purpose creates space for putschists and captains who promise to steer the ship of state out of stormy waters. Reason and rationality are temporarily suspended lest they undermine faith, unity and discipline.
Military interventions that debilitated democracy paved the way for fix-all miracle magic men like Imran Khan. The broken idols of other wannabe messiahs with fanatical followings litter the political landscape. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Benazir Bhutto, Altaf Husain, and Maulana Fazlullah also had sophisticated urbanites among their followers. This happened even before the invention of social media, but technology has created virtually impenetrable silos of political groupthink.

Today, one particular belief sits securely in a nuclear-protected bunker and may survive even the no-confidence vote. Common wisdom is that all opposition leaders are money-hungry cheats and Khan, even with his shortcomings, is clean as a whistle. Correct? After all, it is commonly held that all opposition politicians are venal, even if there is disagreement on which is the more corrupt one.

Imran Khan wins out on this. Chasing money is not his first priority. Of course, opponents do point to his magnificent Banigala palace, high-style living, minimal payment of personal taxes, and the doubts raised by the ECP regarding PTI’s foreign funding. These are minor sins. But it is Khan’s insatiable lust for power that makes him truly dangerous for this country. While money fattens individuals, absolute power brings catastrophe. Donald Trump wanted both money and power but Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot craved only the latter.

If parliament dismisses Khan, how will he rally his followers again? He has already revealed his strategy for the forthcoming elections: whip up xenophobic nationalism; mobilise the religious sentiment that he helped generate through encouraging TLP’s anti-France anti-blasphemy agitations; and turn Pakistani against Pakistani. Pro-Khan people are patriots, those against him are traitors, and fence sitters are, in his words, mere animals.

If Imran Khan is voted out of power today, Pakistan will have won a temporary victory. However, its larger interest demands that all political parties obey rules and the Constitution. They must embrace democracy and pluralism, and cease pursuing narrow interests. Aggression and hate propagation, use of foul language, and denigration of women and religious minorities should have no role to play in politics. Instead, live and let live. Let reason and rationality take precedence over blind faith in leaders.

The writer is an Islamabad-based physicist and writer.

Published in Dawn, April 9th, 2022

The ‘honest’ captain myth

Imran Khan may not be a money-chaser but his lust for power makes him dangerous for Pakistan.

www.dawn.com

This person in his whole life never able to establish his name in his subjects but was fond of discussing irrelevant subjects. Any example of his 'brilliant' services to his own subject:

So-called 'physicist' discusses the ideology of Pakistan
Infidel who discusses the Islam
Now he is in immense pain against IK, he proved himself the 'TC' of corrupts/thieves/looters of Pakistan.

His only popularity is among Indians the platform provided to him by 'DAWN' and followed by 'liberals'.

 

[Riz]

WITH the no-confidence motion to be voted upon today (Saturday) by a parliament restored on the Supreme Court’s order, Prime Minister Imran Khan’s stint in power could be over by midday. But even if that transpires, the cricket captain and his cult are out to create chaos in the weeks and months ahead. For his devotees, he is the only honest and sincere politician in Pakistan and must be followed.

Cults — political and religious — can be long-lived and deadly dangerous. In 1978, devoted groupies followed Jim Jones, their discredited leader, in a mass suicide that claimed 909 lives, including 304 children. More to the point: Donald Trump spent four disastrous years in office and assaulted American democracy, but he is still adored by simple-minded Americans from the Bible Belt who cling to their guns and religion.

Building on his cricketing success and cancer hospital, Imran Khan worked relentlessly for decades at self-promotion. His growing cult swallowed story after story: corruption would end in 90 days; the national treasury would overflow once ‘looted dollars’ stashed by political rivals in secret overseas accounts were brought back. Never again, he said, would Pakistan see the dirty politics of horse trading.

Naya Pakistan would overflow with milk and honey — Khan would “commit suicide but never return to the IMF”; foreign policy would be based upon principle rather than expediency; the world’s most sought-after passport would become the green one; and Pakistan would turn into a tourist haven. Jobs would be aplenty, the justice system would be overhauled, civil service officers appointed purely on merit, and the police system revamped. Emigrants, said Khan, would choose Naya Pakistan over Europe and America.

Well-meaning overseas Pakistanis, desperate for good news from their ex-country, lapped it up. But the reality turned out starkly different.

Just months after winning a bitterly disputed election, Khan’s government requested the IMF for a loan. Critical dependency on the United States was traded for equal dependency upon China. Today, the Pakistani passport is no more desirable than before and the only foreign tourists are intrepid mountain climbers. In January 2022, Transparency International announced that perceptions of corruption had taken a quantum leap. As for looted billions returning: sure, keep dreaming! Meanwhile, the dollar has gone through the roof.
Horse-trading politics got a boost once Khan decided that “electable” candidates would be preferred over principled candidates. Although he now admits “mistakes”, the future may be no different. In a desperate move, the Punjab chief minister — apparently chosen by his first lady and praised sky-high by Khan until two weeks ago — has just been thrown under the bus. His replacement, handpicked by Khan himself, was once derided by Khan as a scumbag.

To save his sinking ship, Captain Khan has invented the cock-and-bull story of an American conspiracy to oust him. This, he said, owes to his independent stand on Ukraine. So why hasn’t Narendra Modi — also ambivalent on Russia’s aggression — alleged the same? Khan’s groupies cannot explain why this weeks-old ‘revelation’ came only after a no-confidence motion threatened his survival.
What makes cults so attractive and cultists so impervious to factual evidence and reason? Why do so many people set aside good sense and worship leaders? Of course, some followers do quit when the truth becomes ugly enough. But for others even that doesn’t happen. The herd instinct, reluctance to admit a past mistake, or continued attachment to some utopic vision still keeps some going.

Anthropologists have related the degree of cultic affiliation to the perceived uncertainty within an environment. For example, they find that rougher seas make fishermen engage in more elaborate magic rituals. Correspondingly, Pakistan’s lack of a shared national purpose creates space for putschists and captains who promise to steer the ship of state out of stormy waters. Reason and rationality are temporarily suspended lest they undermine faith, unity and discipline.
Military interventions that debilitated democracy paved the way for fix-all miracle magic men like Imran Khan. The broken idols of other wannabe messiahs with fanatical followings litter the political landscape. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Benazir Bhutto, Altaf Husain, and Maulana Fazlullah also had sophisticated urbanites among their followers. This happened even before the invention of social media, but technology has created virtually impenetrable silos of political groupthink.

Today, one particular belief sits securely in a nuclear-protected bunker and may survive even the no-confidence vote. Common wisdom is that all opposition leaders are money-hungry cheats and Khan, even with his shortcomings, is clean as a whistle. Correct? After all, it is commonly held that all opposition politicians are venal, even if there is disagreement on which is the more corrupt one.

Imran Khan wins out on this. Chasing money is not his first priority. Of course, opponents do point to his magnificent Banigala palace, high-style living, minimal payment of personal taxes, and the doubts raised by the ECP regarding PTI’s foreign funding. These are minor sins. But it is Khan’s insatiable lust for power that makes him truly dangerous for this country. While money fattens individuals, absolute power brings catastrophe. Donald Trump wanted both money and power but Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot craved only the latter.

If parliament dismisses Khan, how will he rally his followers again? He has already revealed his strategy for the forthcoming elections: whip up xenophobic nationalism; mobilise the religious sentiment that he helped generate through encouraging TLP’s anti-France anti-blasphemy agitations; and turn Pakistani against Pakistani. Pro-Khan people are patriots, those against him are traitors, and fence sitters are, in his words, mere animals.

If Imran Khan is voted out of power today, Pakistan will have won a temporary victory. However, its larger interest demands that all political parties obey rules and the Constitution. They must embrace democracy and pluralism, and cease pursuing narrow interests. Aggression and hate propagation, use of foul language, and denigration of women and religious minorities should have no role to play in politics. Instead, live and let live. Let reason and rationality take precedence over blind faith in leaders.

The writer is an Islamabad-based physicist and writer.

Published in Dawn, April 9th, 2022

The ‘honest’ captain myth

Imran Khan may not be a money-chaser but his lust for power makes him dangerous for Pakistan.

www.dawn.com

The author is DUNGAR doctor not a professor which he used to known about

 

[Imran Khan]

Not a single Daleel by Imran Khan supporters in answering the objections, that have been raised by the writer.

All what we are hearing from Imran's supporters are allegations of Ghadaar.

He has phobia he is not neutral

 

[R Wing]

Have you ever heard or read Hussain Haqqani? He appears to be a traitor because he wants to dismantle our system, right? But what does he want to do with it? Does he want to destroy it or cause it damage? In my opinion people like Hussain Haqqani are too obsessed with the US System and want to replicate that system in Pakistan. I doubt that his intentions are bad, he simply says what most of the US politicians already know and is definitely against Pakistan double crossing the US. He is one of the many who believe that Pakistan's interests are more aligned with the US than with other countries (Afghanistan) or entities (Talibaan) etc.

His intentions are bad, because if you look into his work closely, he simply isn't biased. For example, he loves to mention Pakistan's proxy warfare (groups like LeT) against India, but will hardly EVER mention India's proxy warfare against Pakistan. In fact, Pakistan has lost more people to India-backed terrorism.

Therefore, all such self-appointed liberal democratic sellouts lose my respect. They are hypocritical clowns.

 

[khail007]

Not a single Daleel by Imran Khan supporters in answering the objections, that have been raised by the writer.

All what we are hearing from Imran's supporters are allegations of Ghadaar.

OK, you defend him with 'Daleel', all ears to you. Only an 'intellectual' could defend 'intellectual'.

 

[313ghazi]

Not a single Daleel by Imran Khan supporters in answering the objections, that have been raised by the writer.

All what we are hearing from Imran's supporters are allegations of Ghadaar.

You can pick Hoodbhoy apart all day long. Only in an intellectually bankrupt country could this guy be considered anything other than a bang average scientist.

 

[R Wing]

Not a single Daleel by Imran Khan supporters in answering the objections, that have been raised by the writer.

All what we are hearing from Imran's supporters are allegations of Ghadaar.

It's very simple.

Hoodhboy types firstly use the mirage of liberal democracy. History has extremely few examples of parliamentary democracies delivering development to unstable, poor states like Pakistan.

Asia's biggest success stories (China, which has the largest GDP by far, and Singapore, which has the highest GDP per capita) are both illiberal. China is a one-party state that does not implement political equality and egalitarianism. It is the economic, tech, education leader of Asia and may soon surpass the US in key R&D, if it hasn't already. Singapore was authoritarian and Lee Kuan Yew, the Cambridge-education visionary, knew that meritocracy was the real key to success, not liberal democracy. He hugely curtailed the rights and privileges of opposition politicians, throwing many in jail on flimsy charges and not allowing serious criticism. The result: Singapore, despite being poor, small, and lacking any meaningful natural resources, has a higher GDP per capita today than its colonial master, Britain.

Crucially, the Western states have had a set of very specific circumstances since WWII that have allowed the flourishing of the principles that Hoodhboy-types want. They built themselves up through extractive wealth from the colonies and slave labor, are geographically blessed, and are part of defense pacts like the NATO bloc --- women and black people couldn't even vote in the US for the first few hundred years of its history! Their neighbors are generally friendly and they have achieved basic levels of education, healthcare, etc., for their people. In short, they have a surplus of power and security that allows liberal democracy to work as intended. There are prerequisites to things like totally free speech and individual liberty. Developing nations have not achieved them.

Adrian Woolbridge, an Oxford historian and editor of The Economist, also points to the fact that it is NOT the presence of a strong democracy or parliamentary representation, etc., that guarantees development, growth, and progress. It is the presence of meritocracy.

Finally, Hoodhboy types are wholly ignorant of genuine security threats. Make peace with India sounds like a great utopian dream, but India is ruled by a rabid supremacist ideology and they will continue to kill your people as the deterrence deficit increases. Peace is achieved through strength, deterrence, and denial. Without deterrence, as every single realist international relations thinker will tell you, there can be no stability and therefore peace. Especially when there's an asymmetry in power dynamics, like we have with India, deterrence MUST take hold at ALL levels of the threat escalation ladder (e.g., from proxy warfare at the low end to MAD at the strategic level). It currently does not. There is no conception of peace without achieving this first. But, of course, libs don't get it.

In short, Hoodhboy's arguments, while parroting some of the pet themes of Western liberalism, are wholly devoid of any merit given Pakistan's context. He should also recall that the West doesn't actually give a SHIT about any one of this. They are happy to sell billions in arms to Saudi Arabia, a repressive monarchy with zero democracy, and the CIA has an illustrious history of removing democratically-elected leaders to appoint dictatorial pawns. This is in declassified documents; not vague conspiracy theories. It is also these same liberal democracies who happily cheer the Israeli occupation of Palestine and India's occupation of J&K despite blatant, obvious oppression and violence. The same ones who will attack Iraq for literally no reason, and nobody gets punished for it. The same ones who use black sites around the world to torture prisoners, many of whom were held with no evidence! And then they lecture us. And they convince libtards that this system can deliver development to a country like ours? It cannot.

Western concepts of human rights are weaponized and used as tools of control, not genuine demands. This is why the democratic West never invades Saudi Arabia to 'free the people' and give them democracy, nor does it free the Palestinians from a UNSC-recognized occupation that the Human Rights Watch/Amnesty essentially calls an apartheid. Both get lavish US weaponry. Finally, the US has less democracy than Pakistan (even constitutionally): no member of the cabinet (minister equivalent, if you will) needs to be elected. The US President is free to appoint technocrats and competent people to head each institution. In Pakistan, they need to be MNAs. How can this system work when most MNAs have zero competence to run anything and are just populist clowns? Finally, much of US policy is made by unelected power elites, like the NSC staff. These are some of the biggest nat sec and foreign policy decisions, and no elected member is involved with them.

If you are still unconvinced, we can agree to disagree

Much better essayists than I have totally dismantled the myth of liberal democracy in some of the world's top publications:

“The Liberal Order Is the Incubator for Authoritarianism”: A Conversation with Pankaj Mishra | Los Angeles Review of Books

Francis Wade speaks to Pankaj Mishra about how the discourse of liberalism and human rights is fatally infected with imperialist histories.

lareviewofbooks.org

The Disappearance of the Spiritual Thinker - Tricycle: The Buddhist Review

How can Western intellectuals have so much blood on their hands? Pankaj Mishra blames an ideologically driven faith in our ability to control history.

tricycle.org

You Can Only See Liberalism From the Bottom

Why Pankaj Mishra sees the ideology’s limits more clearly than its most powerful fans.

foreignpolicy.com

The Liberal Establishment Is ‘a Stranger to Self-Examination’

A conversation with Pankaj Mishra about Biden’s closer-than-expected victory, the sterile state of mainstream intellectual culture, and his new book Bland Fanatics.

www.thenation.com

Pankaj Mishra’s Reckoning With Liberalism’s Bloody Past

The essays in “Bland Fanatics” trace today’s crises to a long history of violent colonial oppression.

newrepublic.com

Bland Fanatics by Pankaj Mishra review – 'Anglo-American delusions'

Versus Niall Ferguson and Jordan Peterson ... a set of essays from a writer who excels at calling out intellectual vapidities but now needs to ask new questions

www.theguardian.com

@SQ8 @SaadH @313ghazi @Bravo6ix

 

[Thinker3]

Hoodboy is a known atheist and is openly against Islam, all these enemies of Islam want to remove Imran Khan and Islam from Pakistan and make it a complete slave Nation.

 

[IceCold]

I doubt that his intentions are bad

Says a lot about you.

Not a single Daleel by Imran Khan supporters in answering the objections, that have been raised by the writer.

All what we are hearing from Imran's supporters are allegations of Ghadaar.

You want us to take this guy seriously who once on national tv said "if americans are saying Pakistani nuclear weapons are in danger, they must be right" as if what americans say is God's truth. This is how far these pro-western libturds tend to go to undermine their own country. So forgive me if i don't take this joker Hoodboy seriously.

 

[313ghazi]

Not a single Daleel by Imran Khan supporters in answering the objections, that have been raised by the writer.

All what we are hearing from Imran's supporters are allegations of Ghadaar.

Here we go for a start...

He starts off with exageration and presenting political rhetoric as manifesto items. Already his intellectual dishonesty is exposed.

Corruption would end in 90 days; the national treasury would overflow once ‘looted dollars’ stashed by political rivals in secret overseas accounts were brought back. Never again, he said, would Pakistan see the dirty politics of horse trading.

Naya Pakistan would overflow with milk and honey — Khan would “commit suicide but never return to the IMF”; foreign policy would be based upon principle rather than expediency; the world’s most sought-after passport would become the green one; and Pakistan would turn into a tourist haven. Jobs would be aplenty, the justice system would be overhauled, civil service officers appointed purely on merit, and the police system revamped. Emigrants, said Khan, would choose Naya Pakistan over Europe and America.

Does anyone with any sense really think that slogans stated on campaign trails are the same as manifesto pledges? Did anyone really expect an end to corruption in 90 days? However Imran Khan and his govt has carried out plenty of work against corruption, key to it being the digitisation of government functions so that the middle man of civil servant between consumer and service is cut out, hence cutting out the opportunity to commit corruption. He also took many top political leaders to court and gave NAB a free hand, only to be let down by the judiciary. His mistake was assuming the judicary was not corrupt.

Tourism in Pakistan has increased significantly and only COVID put a stop to the progress the government was making on this spot.

He spent months trying not to go to the IMF, but ultimately once in power, he realised the extent of the financial damage left by the previous regime and was forced to do so, after finding no other way to get the money to cover our loan commitments. It was default or IMF, he took the option best for our national interest.

He also went about removing many civil servants only to find the courts putting them back in place. The IGP is one example, another example is the staff of Pakistan Steel Mills.

the only foreign tourists are intrepid mountain climbers.

No mention of Conde Nast and Forbes rating Pakistan as a top travel destination. You can see a trend here. Omission of key information is just as dishonest as outright lies.

He mentions horse trading, PMIK is the first prime minister not to use government resources to buy votes, this is why we are in the situation we are in. What does he want IK to do if opposition is horse trading and courts are allowing it?

To save his sinking ship, Captain Khan has invented the cock-and-bull story of an American conspiracy to oust him.

Now this landay ka Aristotle is claiming it to be made up. The national security council endorsed his stance. DGISPR came out and said we stand by the NSC decision. Who's fault is it that courts have refused to address the issue?

If Khan is telling the truth, the courts and armed forces have a duty to act to protect the country against a foreign coup. If he is lying they have a duty to act to stop a politician damaging national interest for political gain. Why the inaction? Why the refusal to address the issue? Obviously something to hide.

How much more picking apart does this BS need? We've been laughing at Hoodbhoy for decades.

 

[AZMwi]

isn't this guy is the hero of Pakistani libturds?????

 

[SecularNationalist]

WITH the no-confidence motion to be voted upon today (Saturday) by a parliament restored on the Supreme Court’s order, Prime Minister Imran Khan’s stint in power could be over by midday. But even if that transpires, the cricket captain and his cult are out to create chaos in the weeks and months ahead. For his devotees, he is the only honest and sincere politician in Pakistan and must be followed.

Cults — political and religious — can be long-lived and deadly dangerous. In 1978, devoted groupies followed Jim Jones, their discredited leader, in a mass suicide that claimed 909 lives, including 304 children. More to the point: Donald Trump spent four disastrous years in office and assaulted American democracy, but he is still adored by simple-minded Americans from the Bible Belt who cling to their guns and religion.

Building on his cricketing success and cancer hospital, Imran Khan worked relentlessly for decades at self-promotion. His growing cult swallowed story after story: corruption would end in 90 days; the national treasury would overflow once ‘looted dollars’ stashed by political rivals in secret overseas accounts were brought back. Never again, he said, would Pakistan see the dirty politics of horse trading.

Naya Pakistan would overflow with milk and honey — Khan would “commit suicide but never return to the IMF”; foreign policy would be based upon principle rather than expediency; the world’s most sought-after passport would become the green one; and Pakistan would turn into a tourist haven. Jobs would be aplenty, the justice system would be overhauled, civil service officers appointed purely on merit, and the police system revamped. Emigrants, said Khan, would choose Naya Pakistan over Europe and America.

Well-meaning overseas Pakistanis, desperate for good news from their ex-country, lapped it up. But the reality turned out starkly different.

Just months after winning a bitterly disputed election, Khan’s government requested the IMF for a loan. Critical dependency on the United States was traded for equal dependency upon China. Today, the Pakistani passport is no more desirable than before and the only foreign tourists are intrepid mountain climbers. In January 2022, Transparency International announced that perceptions of corruption had taken a quantum leap. As for looted billions returning: sure, keep dreaming! Meanwhile, the dollar has gone through the roof.
Horse-trading politics got a boost once Khan decided that “electable” candidates would be preferred over principled candidates. Although he now admits “mistakes”, the future may be no different. In a desperate move, the Punjab chief minister — apparently chosen by his first lady and praised sky-high by Khan until two weeks ago — has just been thrown under the bus. His replacement, handpicked by Khan himself, was once derided by Khan as a scumbag.

To save his sinking ship, Captain Khan has invented the cock-and-bull story of an American conspiracy to oust him. This, he said, owes to his independent stand on Ukraine. So why hasn’t Narendra Modi — also ambivalent on Russia’s aggression — alleged the same? Khan’s groupies cannot explain why this weeks-old ‘revelation’ came only after a no-confidence motion threatened his survival.
What makes cults so attractive and cultists so impervious to factual evidence and reason? Why do so many people set aside good sense and worship leaders? Of course, some followers do quit when the truth becomes ugly enough. But for others even that doesn’t happen. The herd instinct, reluctance to admit a past mistake, or continued attachment to some utopic vision still keeps some going.

Anthropologists have related the degree of cultic affiliation to the perceived uncertainty within an environment. For example, they find that rougher seas make fishermen engage in more elaborate magic rituals. Correspondingly, Pakistan’s lack of a shared national purpose creates space for putschists and captains who promise to steer the ship of state out of stormy waters. Reason and rationality are temporarily suspended lest they undermine faith, unity and discipline.
Military interventions that debilitated democracy paved the way for fix-all miracle magic men like Imran Khan. The broken idols of other wannabe messiahs with fanatical followings litter the political landscape. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Benazir Bhutto, Altaf Husain, and Maulana Fazlullah also had sophisticated urbanites among their followers. This happened even before the invention of social media, but technology has created virtually impenetrable silos of political groupthink.

Today, one particular belief sits securely in a nuclear-protected bunker and may survive even the no-confidence vote. Common wisdom is that all opposition leaders are money-hungry cheats and Khan, even with his shortcomings, is clean as a whistle. Correct? After all, it is commonly held that all opposition politicians are venal, even if there is disagreement on which is the more corrupt one.

Imran Khan wins out on this. Chasing money is not his first priority. Of course, opponents do point to his magnificent Banigala palace, high-style living, minimal payment of personal taxes, and the doubts raised by the ECP regarding PTI’s foreign funding. These are minor sins. But it is Khan’s insatiable lust for power that makes him truly dangerous for this country. While money fattens individuals, absolute power brings catastrophe. Donald Trump wanted both money and power but Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot craved only the latter.

If parliament dismisses Khan, how will he rally his followers again? He has already revealed his strategy for the forthcoming elections: whip up xenophobic nationalism; mobilise the religious sentiment that he helped generate through encouraging TLP’s anti-France anti-blasphemy agitations; and turn Pakistani against Pakistani. Pro-Khan people are patriots, those against him are traitors, and fence sitters are, in his words, mere animals.

If Imran Khan is voted out of power today, Pakistan will have won a temporary victory. However, its larger interest demands that all political parties obey rules and the Constitution. They must embrace democracy and pluralism, and cease pursuing narrow interests. Aggression and hate propagation, use of foul language, and denigration of women and religious minorities should have no role to play in politics. Instead, live and let live. Let reason and rationality take precedence over blind faith in leaders.

The writer is an Islamabad-based physicist and writer.

Published in Dawn, April 9th, 2022

The ‘honest’ captain myth

Imran Khan may not be a money-chaser but his lust for power makes him dangerous for Pakistan.

www.dawn.com

Isn't the same hoodbhoy who said Pakistan should give up its nuclear weapons?
Hoodbhoy strikes again

 

[Menace2Society]

Khan represents a fresh start away from family politics and the same faces who did not deliver. In western democracies the leaders are changed until someone capable is elected. In Pakistan its the same faces who have failed from the same families again and again. This is dysfunctional. This is why you remain a poor 3rd world country.

In the UK is Tony Blair still around? Is David Cameron still around competing for elections?

In the US is George Bush still trying to get elected?

I am sick of the sight of the Sharif brothers and Zardaris, this is not democracy. Khan needs 5 more years to show you the difference and a democracy without family politics.