Complaining of conspiracies

By Aziz-ud-din Ahmad

 

A sense of insecurity characteristic of parties losing popularity haunts. The threat by Rehman Malik to apply the Draconian Cyber Crime Ordinance to those sending harmless jokes through SMS is the latest example of the panic that is fast overtaking the party leadership. Being an intelligence man by training, Rehman Malik sees conspiracy whenever a mouse stirs or a leaf drops from a tree.

 

There is no denying that there is a flood of SMS jokes, internet write-ups and cartoons that make fun of President Zardari. Instead of reacting the way the PPP leadership is doing it needs to consider why no other politician has become such a common butt of naughty anecdotes and why people generally tend to accept accusations levelled on the co chairman even when they might not be correct.

 

Rehman Malik's reaction indicates the party leadership has lost nerve. Without realising that what he was proposing might not be feasible, he announced that sending indecent, provocative and ill-motivated stories and text messages through e-mail or Short Messaging Service was an offence under Cyber Crime Act and its violators would be sent behind bars for 14 years.

 

Rehman Malik has in fact been mulling action against electronic messaging since long and for this he has been manufacturing all sorts of excuses. On April 13 he indicated that the service could be banned because it was being used by the terrorists. Naturally the question asked by many was why did the government not trace out the terrorists through the service instead of shooting the messenger. In July, another attempt was made by the government to smother the service by proposing in the Finance Bill - the imposition of a 20 paisa tax per SMS. The proposal was dropped on account of overwhelming opposition from the general public and mobile companies. However this led to circulation of more political jokes about Mr Zardari.

 

A highly indignant Rehman Malik forgot that the FIA had neither the technology nor the manpower to detect all SMS messages considered by him as obnoxious. It took him another two days to realise that there are only thirty odd people in the Cyber Wing of the FIA and tasking them to find the authors of all anti-Zardari jokes would seriously compromise the anti-terrorism investigation. Further, the available technology could not possibly cope with the extraordinary task.

 

Because opinion polls continue to show that the popularity of Mr Zardari is nose diving steadily, they too are considered a part of the conspiracy against the party and its chief. Measures are urgently announced to stop the mischief. In May, International Republican Institute (IRI) announced the findings of a survey conducted by it a couple of months earlier showing President Zardari at the bottom of a list that contained the names of Mian Nawaz Sharif, CJ Iftikhar Chaudhry, PM Yousuf Raza Gilani, and COAS Kayani. Instead of learning the right lessons from the findings, the government ordered the IRI to wind up operations. Citing security reasons, the country head of the renowned think tank Dr Nicholas Palarino was denied extension in visa. How this would improve Mr Zardari's rating is anybody's guess.

 

It did not take Rehman Malik long to smell conspiracy when Mian Nawaz announced to take part in the long march leading to a sit in at Islamabad for the restoration of judiciary four months back. The interior minister accused him of "committing treason" and giving call for revolt against the government. "If any death takes place an FIR will be registered against those who have provoked people to revolt against the government....The Sharif brothers are not ready to recognise the constitution, the president and judges. Rather they want mid term elections."

 

Not to be left behind, PPP's Information Secretary Fauzia Wahab has also unearthed a deadly conspiracy against her party. Benazir Bhutto's protocol officer Ch Muhammad Aslam who is also member of PPP's Federal Council has moved an application for registration of Benazir's murder case against twelve persons who besides Pervez Musharraf and Pervaiz Elahi also include the names of two PPP men. Instead of leaving the issue to the courts, Ms Wahab insists that this move too is 'a part of conspiracies being hatched against PPP'. In other countries when rulers start becoming unpopular what most tend to do is to reconsider their policies to regain the lost esteem. What they do in Pakistan is to continue to follow the path while all the way cursing their critics for being responsible for causing their downfall through conspiracies.