On the 9th of March 2007 Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammed Chaudhry stood tall against a military dictator. Two years on from that day I feel somewhat nostalgic and want to state what has been achieved since that fateful day.

The stand taken by ‘The Chief’ as I fondly call him and the principled lawyers movement have brought about wholesale changes even if the PPP lie factory continues to say otherwise. The following set of truths list the milestones achieved by the lawyers movement and show how far we have come since March 9, 2007. The text below says it all:

• General Musharraf falls in popularity and cuts a ‘deal’ with Benazir Bhutto to save his first and second skin and how both went!

• The exiled former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto returns to Pakistan as Musharraf is reduced to a shadow of the strongman he was and is forced to allow her return as per the US-UK scripted NRO deal.

• The Chief Justice accepts Benazir Bhutto’s petition regarding 28 million missing voters and orders the Election Commission to register the missing voters and prepare a new electoral register.

• The Chief Justice orders the release of Makhdoom Javed Hashmi.

• The Chief Justice orders the Musharraf regime to allow the return of Mian Nawaz Sharif, however he is deported back to London.

• An eleven-member Supreme Court full bench headed by Justice Javed Iqbal is on the verge of deciding against General Musharraf’s claim for presidential office. The judgement is pre-empted by Gen Musharraf as he imposes martial law.

• General Musharraf imposes martial law on 2 November which is struck down by the Chief Justice heading a 7-member bench declaring the PCO illegal, the first time in the history of Pakistan.

• The Chief Justice and his brother judges are arrested and put under house arrest as are leaders of the lawyers movement and political leaders.

• Mian Nawaz Sharif returns to Pakistan as General Musharraf is forced to allow his return under Saudi pressure.

• Story So Far- Political leaders returning to Pakistan are a slap in the face on Musharraf’s mug and are a direct consequence of a weakened Musharraf hanging on for power due to his fall since 9 March 2007.

• Chief of Army Pervez Musharraf is forced to shed his second skin and hand over to Pervez Kayani.

• Benazir Bhutto is assasinated in Rawalpindi as Mr 10% takes over.

• Elections are held on February 18 that bring about the rejection of Musharraf’s Q League and coalition governments are formed in the Centre and the Provinces with Yousef Raza Gillani as Prime Minister.

• A spirit of reconcilation and mature politics sweeps the nation bringing about hope of a new dawn as Mr 10% and Nawaz Sharif agree to work together and restore the judges not once or twice but three times (each time due to Mr 10% never ending u-turns)

• ‘President’ Musharraf is threatened with impeachment and is forced to resign! whilst Mr 10% deceives Nawaz Sharif again and  refuses to restore the Chief Justice and his brother judges.

• Mr 10% is elected President and smiles! (but I wonder who will have the last laugh!)

I trust Farzana Raja and her ilk will concur entirely!

Let me finish with a note that the second long march with dharna or a sit-in is just around the corner. Like millions, I too will be in that long march in blood, sweat and tears,. Let us pray that neither of the three are not needed.

- WRITTEN UNDER MARTIAL LAW (My thanks to cowards Tariq Pervez. Sabihuddin, Sardar Raza & Co for selling out)

The disgraceful and demeaning assaults on Dr Sher Afghan Niazi and Dr Arbab Rahim have left a bad taste in the mouth. As a nation we all felt diminshed and degraded by such futile actions, however the nation was to witness even more turmoil with the barbaric MQM-sponsored massacre of innocents in Karachi a day later.

Today Pakistan remains uneasy and restless no thanks to the retired general and his actions to destabilise democracy. That said the Gillani’s PPP government’s constant dilly-dalling over the restoration of the judges within 30 days has created even more unease given Sherry ‘Sunglasses’ Rehman has mouthed off a new deadline yet again. This must stop and now.

Hence this post is an appeal for calm to the entire nation. The level of vitroil displayed on both sides on TV programmes, on blogs and on the streets show the way the wind is blowing hence my appeal for calm. I am not saying that one should ever stop speakig the truth as this our primary duty but we must be guided by the principles of honest and respectful debate.

Thus I appeal to all friends and foes here and elsewhere to take a pause and reflect on where we are going?

Please remember that Pakistan is still bleeding and that the fire is still burning and needs to be extinguished. My posts written at the death of Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto are still as valid for today’s situation. Also please remember that many of these posts came from a passionate political opponent of BB in her life yet they show a decency and respect for opponents that we all need to aspire to. See any one of my posts via the  Archive section of the blog and see the difference.

Pakistan is Bleeding

My Farewell and Fatima Bhutto’s Farewell to Another Martyred Bhutto

Welcome Home Benazir Zardari

Will the Real Pakistan People’s Party Please Stand Up?

So I conclude with an appeal to all Pakistanis to do likewise with their opponents however savage they are. The war of words soon becomes the war of weapons and serves no purpose for the forces of darkness are out again to steal the democratic process from the nation via their evil designs. We must resist them by ensuring calm in all of her actions and adhering to the Quaid’s eternal motto – FAITH, UNITY AND DISCIPLINE.

Feimanallah Pakistan

- Originally posted on 13th April 2008, 15:27 PK Time, written under MARTIAL LAW

As a principled political opponent of Benazir Bhutto I have been stumped by my own reaction of her death. On Friday I read her Ghaibana Janazah and felt compelled to do as my tribute to her memory and above all to the Bhutto family. I am still in shock and full of mixed emotions and will post a detailed post soon but in the interim I cannot do better than to reproduce some poetry of the great Lord Bryon with some of my own not so eloquent words

The following verses echo my sentiments and are my farewell to the legend that is Benazir Bhutto. I also dedicate the words to fallen Bhuttos and living Bhuttos especially her children Bilawal, Bakthwar, Asifa, her nephew Zulfiqar and above all her neice Fatima Bhutto who like me has been a principled opponent and has suffered a similar fate of mixed emotions coupled with a grief that resonates with one and all.

 I have also chosen to post the final farewell to Benazir Bhutto by the brilliant Fatima Bhutto. The article is a must read and will resonate will all who have suffered pain and grief, love and hate. The article was published in the News on 29 December and is shown below:

Farewell to Wadi Bua by Fatima Bhutto

My aunt and I had a complicated relationship. That is the truth, the sad truth. The last fifteen years were not one we spent as friends or as relatives, that is also the truth. But this week, I too want to remember her differently. I want to remember her differently because I must. I can’t lose faith in this country, my home. I can’t believe that it was for nothing, that violence in its purest form is so cruel and so unforgiving. I can’t accept that this is what we have come to. So, I must offer a farewell. One that is written in tears and anger but one that comes from a place far away, from the realm of memory and forgiving — a place where at another time, we might have all been safe. As a child, I used to call my aunt Wadi Bua, Sindhi for father’s older sister.

When I got the news, I was told that something had happened to Wadi Bua. It was an expression I hadn’t heard or used in a very long time, when I heard it said to me over the phone I remembered someone different.

We used to read children’s books together. We used to like exactly the same sweets — sugared chestnuts and candied apples. We used to get the same ear infections, ear infections that tortured us and plagued us throughout the years.

I have never before written an article that seemed so impossible. We were very different. Though people liked to compare us, almost instinctively, because well, they could. It is difficult for me to write about two people, one in the present tense and one in the past, at the same time.

Especially when one person’s passing makes the other one wonder whether there is a cusp to things and whether or not there really is a past and present to life.

I never agreed with her politics. I never did. I never agreed with those she kept around her, the political opportunists, hanger-ons, them. They repulse me.

I never agreed with her version of events. Never. But in death, in death perhaps there is a moment to call for calm. To say, enough. We have had enough. We cannot, and we will not, take anymore madness.

I mourn because my family has had enough. I mourn for Bilawal, Bakhtawar, and Asifa. I mourn for them because I too lost a parent. I know what it feels like to be lost and left at sea, unanchored and afraid.

I mourn for the workers of the party, those who have been bereaved of their own loved ones in this tragedy.

When congregants gather in a church, temple, or mosque they offer prayers for those that reside beyond. The congregants sing to the heavens and they offer the divine their hymns of sadness and hope. There are no hymns consisting of frustration or anger — this too shall pass, they say, remember that. What hymns do we sing now?

In those hymns, there is hope encapsulated in the sadness. There is a lingering sense that after darkness a dawn will rise. What then do we have to be hopeful for? And how do we proceed to wake the dawn?

I have always been honest with you, I promised that to you at the beginning. Honestly, I am at a loss. I am compounded in a state of shock.

I am in shock because I have yet to bury a loved one who has died from natural causes. Four. That’s the number of family members, immediate family members, whom we have laid to rest, all victims of senseless, senseless killing.

I was born five years after my grandfather, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s assassination. I was born into the void of his absence and for my father, Murtaza, I was a new chance at life. I grew up hearing my grandfather’s speeches, watching him on old black and white video cassettes, enamoured at his every word. My father was a young man when his father was killed and it was something he carried with him every second, every minute for the rest of his life.

I was three when my uncle Shahnawaz was murdered. I remember Wadi Bua sitting with me and telling me stories while the rest of the family was with the police.

When I was fourteen, my life was ended. I lost my heart and soul, my father Murtaza. I am and have been since then a shell of the person I was. I suppose there are cusps in life, and thank god for that because that way we can stay in between.

And now at twenty five, Wadi. But this isn’t about me, it’s about those whom we have lost. It’s about the graveyard at Garhi Khuda Bux that is just too full.

I pray that this is the last, that from this moment onwards we will no longer have to bid farewell too quickly. . Wadi, farewell.

I have nothing to add other than – Jeeyo Bhutto. 

 - Originally posted on 31st December 2007, 05:47 PK Time, written under MARTIAL LAW

Pakistan is bleeding again, a national earthquake has struck all of Pakistan without warning for Pakistan has lost the one and only Benazir Bhutto . My beloved nation is once again torn and shattered. I am not a supporter rather an opponent but her death has shocked one and all.

Pakistan is the loser today.

The politics of fire and vengance must die and die today. This fire must be extinguished, we must unite for the sake of Pakistan and her sanctity. We must put aside our party politics, our personal differences and everything else.

So I make this heartfelt plea to all Pakistanis, we must stand tall and stand as one, let us all unite to save Pakistan.

Pakistan Zindabad.

- Originally written on 27th December 2007, 23:16 PK Time, written under MARTIAL LAW and in MOURNING

I watched a news report this morning from Sky News vis a vis the upcoming return of the Lady of Larkana, the one and only Mrs Benazir Zardari. Such interest from a British news channel is not surprising given Mrs Zardari return has been fashioned by Pakistan’s erstwhile friends in Washington and London who are set to share with her the loot both political and monetary coming their way. Uncle Sam’s role in governing or ‘influencing’ Pakistanis is now a given; but what can one make of Britain’s designs? Has the East India Company been reincarnated and when did Mountbatten metamorphose into a Milliband?

BB or Bibi, Benazir or Mohtarma, Daughter of the East or even of the West, whatever you choose to call her, one and all await her return to Pakistan with bated breath. Political commentators are in agreement that the ‘BB Brand’ has taken an almighty whack thanks to her deal making with General Musharraf. However her political party paint a pretty picture reassuring us all that this iron lady is still worshipped by the masses across Pakistan. Only time will tell who is right, these are exciting times indeed.

As a proud Pakistani I welcome the return of Benazir Zardari to Pakistan with open arms. However the more discerning of my readership will have duly noted the absence of the ‘Bhutto’ after the Benazir; some of you will be slightly troubled by it and others possibly will be angry at moi for committing such a heinous blasphemy. Yet I have no problem in admitting to this crime for I have made such a distinction deliberately since I believe that the incomparable daughter has forfeited her right to claim the Bhutto name as a result of her actions and inactions.

Love him or loathe him Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto made heads turn; his passionate oratory via his speeches sent shivers down the spines of millions of Pakistanis. Yet Bhutto not only talked the talk, he also walked the walk by making Pakistan a nuclear power, by passing land reform legislation to liberate the masses from the tyranny of feudalism and single handedly brought back pride to a battered and torn country. Yet it Bhutto’s  passion to govern for the poor in life and in death through his Pakistan’s Peoples Party that has forever altered the political, social and moral compass of Pakistan. For millions of Pakistanis Bhutto is much more than a name, it is a living and breathing ideology that sings the song of the poor providing them with a hope of a better tomorrow.

There are numerous conspiracy theories that abound the internet, none weirder than the conspiracy that the former Beatle Paul McCartney is dead and that he has been replaced by a crude double. One can say much the same of the Mrs Zardari PPP, now serving only as a fan club of a party full of spineless sops who bow to every whim of her royal highness the Queen of Surrey Palace. Dr Mubashir Hasan, a founding father of the PPP recently remarked that Z A Bhutto was killed because of his reluctance to share power with the military or usurpers as Bhutto calls them yet compare and contrast this with his daughter ‘Pinky’ who happily makes deals with dying military regimes. Such actions are not befitting the Bhutto name, moreover a news report on Geo yesterday caught my eye that said that the party of the poor; the PPP had spent many crore rupees alone in welcoming Mrs Zardari back to the land of the pure, this at a time when the price of tomatoes has reached 140 rupees a kilo for the wretched of this land. Mrs Zardari’s PPP is a poor double, I rest my case.

The good news for the poor of Pakistan is that the PPP is not and nor can it ever be the party of any Bhutto. It cannot be the personal fiefdom of any Benazir or Pinky for it is and will always be the party of the people. The three P’s represent its covenant with the people namely it is owned by Pakistan only. Secondly it is the party of the People and lastly it is a Party and not a one lady show. So rejoice Pakistan as we welcome home the one and only Benazir Zardari.

 - Originally posted on 18th October 2007, 00.54 PK Time

The legendary political commentator Khalid Hasan wrote last week in the Daily Times about the daughter of the east’s insistence to be referred to by her party workers only as ‘Mohtarma’ if they wish to keep her on side. A question arises as to why the name ‘ Benazir’ meaning incomparable causes so much irk for she is many things but certainly incomparable!

That said I wonder if the ghost of Z A Bhutto still haunts her at night and it is this linkage that she seeks to find escape from. Irrespective of the consequences from the Lady of Larkana I will commit this heinous blasphemy and call her Benazir Bhutto and expect payback forthwith. Like scrooge who sought escape from ghosts of Christmases past it seems the daughter of the east is seeking a similar escape from ghosts of the military past via her impending deal with the living ghost of General Musharraf.

The deal comes as no surprise thanks to expert ball by ball running commentary given by the Sheikh of Pindi nonetheless its ramifications will reverberate for a long time in Pakistan and beyond. The deal must and will make or break the PPP as such a deal stinks off the stench of the most unholy of alliances and flies in the face of Benazir Bhutto’s own promise in her interview to The Sunday Times that General Musharraf has “lost his moral authority. His popularity rates are down and it would be very unpopular if we saved him. We would lose votes by being associated with him”. So why save him and purposefully sail together on the Titanic? Could it be that like Mick Jagger perhaps Mohtarma has developed some sympathy for the devil too. 

Even before the deal has become public forget the ink going dry yet; the effervescent Sher of Mianwali has rushed to reassure us all unashamedly saying that ‘the constitution may be amended for BB’. So let us all rejoice for this Aunty Shamim of a constitution is to have yet more bedfellows. John Ciardi once said that ‘the constitution gives every American the inalienable right to make a damn fool of himself’, however such a prize has yet to bear fruit in luckless Pakistan. Instead Pakistan has her own desi molotav cocktail of a constitution; a petrol bomb of sorts taking aim not at enemy positions as was the case for our Russian friends but at Pakistan itself. Instead of our constitution allowing Pakistanis the freedom to be fools as Ciardi championed instead it is our own constitution that has been made the fool time and time again by military and civilian governments alike.

The 1973 constitution of Z A Bhutto is clearly now defunct and dead and the one on show is certainly a poor double bringing to the nations joy LFO after LFO and amendments galore. That said the 1973 constitution has at least been one fertile mother giving birth to many bastards in the shape of constitutional amendments forever acting as the mother of many and the father of none. For decades now the Pakistani masses have endured this ignominy until the 9th of March when the nation rose in all her glory from her comatose state to say enough was enough. The lawyers movement has been the one hope for the Pakistani masses amidst the promise of a new dawn after the Supreme Court’s decision to reinstate the Chief Justice.

The bazaars and chowks are awash with hope at the promise of a better tomorrow as they see the judiciary is now free to do its work and hope that it will act as a counterweight to the lust of power of our military generals. The masses believe rightly in my opinion that if all the political parties were to work together to get rid of the current military rule we will usher in a golden era for our jinxed nation. That is not to say it will all be hunky-dory the day after or even years after, but in truth it can’t get much worse. So I beg to ask the question why then is the nation’s largest political party selling out to the military under the guise of some kind of mushy Musharraf version of guided democracy.

True supporters of the PPP must be thinking of jumping ship, what will become of promises given by Aitzaz Ahsan, Raza Rabbani, Pervez Ashraf and the like to fight military rule or have they sold their souls to the devil too? Will they do us a great deed and stand up to the Lady or Larkana and remind her that the PPP is not the party of Bhutto nor her personal fiefdom; it is and should always be the party of the people. The three P’s represent its covenant with the people namely it is owned by Pakistan only. Secondly it is the party of the People and lastly it is a Party not a one lady show. So in Eminem-style will the real Pakistan People’s Party please stand up and save this endangered species before it is too late.

-  Originally posted on 29 July 2007, 21.44 PK Time