A Disturbing Trend Is The Tendency by Some Leaders and Their Followers To Invent Their Own Reality'
A Disturbing Trend Is The Tendency by Some Leaders and Their Followers To Invent Their Own Reality'
A Disturbing Trend Is The Tendency by Some Leaders and Their Followers To Invent Their Own Reality'
Read: Politics of polarisation
The intense debate triggered in the US and beyond frequently recalled George
Orwell’s satirical novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, in which he had coined the
phrase “Newspeak” for language aimed to limit thought in his imaginary
totalitarian state. Widespread discussion and a spate of books followed on the
concept of a post-truth era, whose distinguishing features are seen to be the
denial of objective reality, where fake news becomes the weapon of political
choice and emotion takes primacy over evidence. Rejection of science and
expertise are also considered its characteristics, as well as conspiracy theories.
This has not been an academic discussion but an effort to also describe and
understand the behaviour of certain types of political leaders, especially
authoritarian ones, and their followers who knowingly purvey misleading
information to people and often start believing in it themselves. As a writer
put it in The Guardian, “playing fast and loose with the truth has moved from
fiction to real life”. As a result, he argued, “Truth is losing its value as society’s
reserve currency, and legitimate skepticism is yielding place to pernicious
relativism.”
As a political phenomenon this is very different from the effort to project rosy
or exaggerated pictures of policy and actions which governments everywhere
resort to routinely. Spin too has long been common but it is different from
‘post-truth’ conduct.
What has contributed to the rise of the politics of delusion? Several factors of
which four, mainly overlapping ones, seem significant.
The most appalling effects of this elitist land policy are manifest in Karachi, a
metropolis whose lands have become an odious object of rapacious scramble
by corrupt politicians, corporate interests, powerful institutions, compromised
administrators, collusive regulators and politico-ethnic mafias. Indeed, the
city’s plight presents a symbiotic nexus between the unjust enrichment of
these powerful actors and the city’s unchecked, unplanned and ungovernable
expansion. It has become more robust in the wake of the state authorities’
half-done operation: retrieving the city from a violent meltdown, but leaving
its fundamental structural, administrative and regulatory problems unfixed.
The city continues to suffer from many a malaise:
In fact, seasonal urban flooding, which plays havoc with roads and low-lying
areas during the monsoon, is largely caused by the illegal encroachment on the
KMC nullahs. Encroachments block access to heavy machinery required to
dredge these nullahs. In 2018, on the recommendation of the Water
Commission, the Supreme Court directed the authorities to remove
encroachments from 30 large nullahs that drain most of the city’s effluent. The
order was never implemented as the commission stood disbanded. The federal
government has now asked the National Disaster Management Authority and
the armed forces to help clear the clogged nullahs in Karachi, which is a
statutory duty of the city and provincial governments.
Borders: Since the city’s land has become scarce, large corporate and
institutional builders are pushing its boundaries north and eastward. DHA
City and Bahria Town have already developed their respective mega projects
over thousands of acres of land along the strategic Super Highway/M9. But
their thirst for land is not quenched. Recently, both have separately acquired
large tracts of public lands for ‘future use’.
Therefore, it is time the elitist exaggeration of land is stopped. Let the landless
and shelterless have a piece of land, which is their historical right.
WE have all lost an object that is precious to us irrespective of its
material value. Despite the stress, somehow, we are not
despondent because deep down we know it will be found. What
drives this confidence? It is the knowledge that no one you do not
trust entered the house since you last saw the lost object and it is
just a matter of time before it will turn up in some nook or cranny.
Alas! The same cannot be said about the homeland. Untrustworthy characters
keep showing up, some overstay their visas; others, it seems do not even
require one. They can come, stay here for years on end with families in tow till
some other unsavoury characters gatecrash to ‘exterminate’ them as their
bosses watch the entire drama on large screens in some war room thousands
of miles away. Still other shady characters enact scenes from third-rate movies
complete with a car chase and a shootout snuffing out ‘dispensable’ local lives,
while the foreign spy aka contractor is ‘extracted’ from the ‘live situation’ by
some foreign mission’s minions.
Ever wonder how fellow citizens keep disappearing in broad daylight? Some
are fortunate to return after a few hours or days with a warning to mend their
ways. Some, like Tahir Khan Dawar, a high-ranking police official from
Peshawar never return alive. He went missing in Islamabad in October 2018
and his dead body was found in Nangarhar province of Afghanistan in
November that year. In countless other instances, the disappearance is sudden
and final; no body, no burial, no final closure for the families. Many such
families continue to hold protest marches from one corner of the country to
another or observe hunger strikes outside press clubs.
Matiullah is a regular guy; former prime minister Yousuf Gilani’s son Ali
Haider and the slain governor of Punjab Salmaan Taseer’s son Shahbaz Taseer
were kidnapped and returned after years of confinement and alleged
payments of ransom and who knows what other guarantees. Their hardships
notwithstanding, these were the lucky ones to have returned alive and they
would very understandably like to keep it that way, hence no appeals for
bringing the culprits to book and no tell-all books, not at least in the near
future.
Punjab is the only province to have created the Safe City Authority and
implemented Nacta’s directives under the National Action Plan that came
about in the aftermath of the Army Public School massacre. Other provinces
including Khyber Pakhtunkhwa where the supposedly tech-savvy PTI is
leading the second successive provincial government have been deliberating
the initiative for the past six years. Sindh was at one point held back
reportedly by the security establishment as it did not want a public-private
partnership in such a sensitive area.
The TTP claimed responsibility for killing 149 schoolchildren and their
teachers in the APS attack in December 2014. The TTP spokesperson
Ehsanullah Ehsan who surrendered to Pakistani authorities in February 2017,
conveniently escaped from security establishment’s custody earlier this year. A
well- functioning safe city network, with or without private sector partnership,
would have made his escape inconvenient, or maybe not; the number of
cameras notwithstanding; all it takes is to turn a blind eye.
SAY there’s this couple who have been dating each other for years,
but who have always denied any such relationship despite the fact
that they’re always seen in cosy corners, snuggling away and
whispering sweet nothings into each other’s ears. Then they go
ahead and announce their engagement and expect everyone to
react with unfeigned surprise and exclamations of ‘oh my God this
is so unexpected, so bold, so groundbreaking!’
This is pretty much what the Israel-UAE deal is like, given that both countries
have had not-so-secret contacts and cooperation for many years now. This
‘normalisation’ of relations simply formalises the existing ground reality, and
comes as no surprise. In the past few years, we have seen unprecedented
economic and security cooperation between the UAE and Israel, one aspect of
which was the increasing use by the UAE (and also Saudi Arabia and Bahrain)
of the cutting-edge Israeli spyware Pegasus, which can only be sold with
Israeli governmental approval. More recently, the two countries pledged to
collaborate on research and technology to combat Covid-19. These are just two
small examples.
Stranger still is the framing of this as a ‘peace’ deal as these countries were
never at war. In fact, they share a common adversary in the shape of Iran and
it is Iran that is almost certainly the main target of this alliance. That then
means that the UAE deal will likely be followed by similar deals being signed
between Israel and Bahrain, Oman and then perhaps Saudi Arabia, though
there is silence on that front so far and perhaps the UAE has stolen the
initiative from its larger partner here.
In this dynamic, while lip service will certainly be paid to the Palestinian
cause, it will be a distant concern when compared to the need by the Gulf
states and Saudi Arabia (a goal shared by Israel) to contain and roll back
Iranian influence and — though this is a secondary priority — undercut Turkey
as well. So it is no surprise that the same countries praising the current deal
are the very ones who applauded Donald Trump’s stillborn Israel-Palestine
‘deal of the century’ and the ones who condemned it are also the ones who are
raging against the Israel-UAE deal. Turkey, which maintains relations with
Israel, has been particularly strident.
Also read: Iran, Turkey lash out at UAE over agreement with Israel
In a world where the US may not readily march to the defence of Gulf
monarchies, Israel becomes the safest bet, given that close ties with it also
allow for a certain protection when it comes to the vagaries of US domestic
politics. A similar calculation can be made by Saudi Arabia, especially given
how invested they have been in building personal relations with Trump and
his family.
If, as seems increasingly likely, Trump loses the elections a deal with Israel
would provide considerable insurance even if the Biden administration
reverses or moderates Trumps’ ‘maximum pressure’ approach to Iran. With
more such announcements in the pipeline, at least if Jared Kushner is to be
believed, Israel emerges as the biggest winner here, gaining much-needed
legitimacy and regional allies who can help mute criticism of its actions.
As for Trump, he may be hoping that this will gain him some plaudits — and
thus votes — in the upcoming elections but it’s debatable as to how much
importance the average American voter places on foreign affairs. However, it
will likely win him the largely unstinting support of the Israeli lobby and its
affiliates.