History repeats itself; Sharif finds himself in the middle of another mishap.
A wise man once said, those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it, but the tragedy here is that our rulers have been completely blinded by power, and they are repeating the same mistakes over and over again. What was supposed to be a democracy, is beginning to look alike anarchical dynasty; they’ve ignored basic facts of history which occurred not too long ago.
In this regards, there are two sets of dates that I would like to make reference to:
- 19th June 1992 vs. 17th June 2014 – State Terrorism
o 19th June 1992 – An ongoing operation in Karachi against 72 Big Fishes was diverted upon a leading political party, MQM. Conspiracies, such as Jinnahpur were exposed (which later turned out to be absolutely fallacious), and 15,000 plus innocent workers were murdered extra-judicially.
o 17th June 2014 – Citing a 4 year old court order (which never existed) government proactively decided to remove barriers present outside Minhaj-Ul-Quran International (MQI) (religious/charitable organization of Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) Secretariat situated in Model Town, Lahore. In a plot (as claimed by the victims) which was staged to conduct mass murder of MQI & PAT workers and leaders. In result, over two dozen workers were martyred, over 100 injured as a result of straight fire & baton charge by law enforcement agencies, who claimed there were weapons present in large quantities inside the secretariat.
- 12th October 1999 vs 22nd June 2014 – Plane Hijacking
o 12th October 1999 -Chief of Army Staff and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee General Musharraf, who was removed from his post while he was on a foreign tour, and was ordered to be arrested upon his return. Then, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif ordered the Karachi’s Jinnah Terminal to be sealed off to prevent the landing of the Musharraf’s airliner fearing a coup d’état, upon arrival his plane was denied landing, and later ordered to land at Nawabshah Airport for refueling.
o 22nd June 2014 – PAT founder Dr. Tahir-Ul-Qadri was returning to nation in what he promised to be a revolution, to bring electoral reforms and put an end to corruption. Similarly, Islamabad Airport was ordered by Prime Minister to suspend all flights as the plane flew endlessly seeking permission to land; but was denied, the flight had been diverted to Lahore and it landed there.
Aftermath of 1992 and 1999 incidences are history well-known to the nation, but the present states of affairs are headed in parallel directions. An in famous writer, Chuck Palahniuk once stated “If you watch close, history does nothing but repeat itself. What we call chaos is just patterns we haven’t recognized. What we call random is just patterns we can’t decipher. What we can’t understand we call nonsense. What we can’t read we call gibberish.”All four occasions were orchestrated by the same democratic government of PMLN against innocent citizens (State Terrorism) or an attempt to hamper dominance (Plane Hijacking) of influential personality and political opponents; which the government perceived as a threat to its stay at the helm.
It seems to be that the third time Prime Minister of Pakistan Nawaz Sharif hasn’t learned anything from history and his past experiences, his drive for absolute power has resulted in questionable measures being taken as a result of panic, which has left the nation in disarray. The German philosopher Karl Marx stated “History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.” Nawaz Sharif has already faced and survived a tragedy from 1999 coup, then Saudi Arabia came as his savior and bailed him out from what could’ve been a death sentence. It’s onus Nawaz Sharif to show leadership and experience to handle these matters avoiding any possible farce.