By Anjum Niaz
On a sun-swept morning, winding their way through hills and vales of blossoms so becoming - each a piece of art - Naushaba and Shahab could hardly wait to arrive at the Pakistan consulate on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue to say ‘yes’ to President Musharraf, their revulsion for Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif having waxed out.
Atop their mini-van were boxes piled up. “We have our own business in Massachusetts, but today we have come to endorse Musharraf - mind you no angel - to lead the fortunes of Pakistan.” Making America their home for over 15 years, has not diminished the fire that burns in them as they have watched ‘the devils’ do a destruct-dance. “Never do we want to see such people return to power again.” Syed Shahab Ahsan and Naushaba Najmus-Saher, a middle-class, hard-working couple, had driven for over two hours to vote.
“As Pakistanis, we have been hounded after 9/11, even today, our phones are tapped and the FBI is after us,” they tell me, “but shimmering at our heart is Pakistan’s survival.”
Inside the consulate, the cheery voice of the receptionist, directs us to the grand carpeted stairwell leading to the second floor, where a magnificent hall with French windows and lit-chandeliers warms the soul and gladdens the spirit (Pakistan owns a tiny bit of the 5th Avenue real estate). I ask the organizers about the trickle turnout. No answer from them, just straight faces! Typical of our embassy wallahs - distant and disinterested in compatriot nobodies.
Whose head will roll for a dismal turnout at DC and NYC? With 50,000 Pakistanis living around Washington DC, only 269 cast their votes. Out of this number, 80-plus votes must have come from full-time embassy employees and their families, leaving our two-term ambassador, Ms Lodhi, and her equally dedicated staff to sweat in luring some 150 Pakistanis to vote. Disgraceful!
The same story was repeated in New York, where out of 500,000 Pakistanis living in the tri-state area (New York, New Jersey and Connecticut) - hold your breath - only 505 votes were polled, including those of the mission and consulate staff and their families.
“What the hell is going on?” a piqued two-term - been there, seen all - ala Ms Lodhi, Information Minister Nisar Memon hyper-ventilated to the media why his boss got a poor press during the referendum. Will Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar demand a similar explanation from our embassy in the United States of America? Probably not. Why, because the press is not to be believed, so he will be told from here.
As Zesus, perched up on Mount Olympus, why would Musharraf bother second-guessing the real reason for the mess his referendum has caused. His oracles? They are conquerors, not hair-splitters.
And ordinary mortals? Why bother?
But bother we must. And let’s start with the US. Soul-search, brain-storm, leg-work to build a data-base of Pakistanis here. Get them organized, work the phones and move your limbs (we the tax-payer pay your salaries) to morph ordinary folks, the silent majority, into working for Pakistan. Learn from the insidious Indians, who spread their fangs in all conceivable corners of the American milieu ... solid as a rock, single-voiced and one-tracked on all things Indian. For sure, Maleeha Lodhi is effective, but the passion to do more must burn perpetual.
Pakistan’s sole spokesman today seemingly is Hussain Haqqani. The New York Times has elevated him to the status of a ‘commentator’ - a visionary par excellence - whose views on Musharraf, NYT takes as writ in stone - when it quotes him in its editorial, Pakistan’s dubious referendum. The former advisor to BB and MNS, Haqqani is quoted as advising Musharraf to “stop trying to be his nation’s savior and become its leader. He should be working with the parties instead of trying to freeze them out of power.”
Apart from skinning Musharraf again in its latest editorial, The New York Times has conveniently skirted the issue why BB and MNS can’t fight the elections in person - the former has absconded from justice, and the latter has opted for exile rather than stand trial. Instead, it has done mischief by crying wolf, declaring Musharraf will just not let Bhutto and Sharif’s parties contest the elections: “At the very least, General Musharraf needs to allow Ms Bhutto’s and Mr. Sharif’s organizations to participate fully in the election and accept the results,” says the editorial. What baloney! Who advised NYT that Musharraf will ban PPP and PML from participating in the October elections?
Somebody should correct the above disinformation? Our Press Attache, Asad Hayauddin, who by the way does a good job of putting the record straight each time NYT errs, may now have a permanent task of writing to their letters to the editor column.
“I have come to tell all not to vote for the fauji,” a Pakistani driving up in a limo, halts the car right in the middle of the busy street, and starts to ballyhoo before he has even closed the car door. Some people standing outside the consulate, tell him to shut up, go upstairs and vote against Musharraf instead of creating a tamasha on the street. “Why should I vote for him, when I think he is an intruder?”
A small group of Sharif supporters with cameramen in tow, go up to the loudmouth, shake hands with him. A traffic jam is threatened and pedestrians wonder what the jousting is all about. I see a police car approach. Suddenly, Dr Khalid Luqman, president of PML, North America, darts forward, trying to dispel the melee before it swells into a free-for-all.
“Come on, come on, now cool it, see the police is coming,” soft-mannered Luqman cajoles the crowd. Full-throated Khalid Mahmood, who will not tell me his true identity, nor who he is pitching for, except hurl invectives on BB and Nawaz Sharif. “I run a Quaid-i-Azam league,” he mutters with a dismissing glance towards me.
As the war of words heats up, suddenly I spot our ambassador to the UN, Shamshad Ahmad, literally sneak out to his parked car while studiously avoiding any eye contact with the hoi polloi.
It’s his last day in office and he’s off to the UN where he’s being feted and glorified for a super-duper bureaucratic career by fellow diplomats.
“I don’t agree with Mohammad Rafiq (the rabble-rouser limo driver) who says we must not vote. Why should we not vote against Musharraf which is exactly what I have done,” says Zahid Ghani, who has recently been given the marching orders by Information Secretary Anwar Mahmud. Missing are the well-heeled Pakistanis with six-figure salaries working in Manhattan. Dollars, not democracy, is their creed. And all this political rhetoric they consider a deformed joke.