Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.
-- Euripides

NOTHING like this has happened in Pakistan for a long time, certainly not in the last seven and a half years during which the nation has been seized by immobility and paralysis.

Now, all at once, the waters seem to be moving and the heavens opening. All because of the courage and steadfastness of one man and the response his courage has evoked amongst the legal fraternity and Pakistanis at large.

Bereft of worthy icons, much less heroes, the people of Pakistan suddenly have someone they can look up to and take heart from: the Chief Justice of Pakistan, Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry.

Such has been the sad, tarnished history of the superior judiciary Pakistanis had lost faith in it. Now after a long time, a product of the judiciary has arisen to become a magnet to their hopes and aspirations.

When the Chief Justice and his wife, Begum Iftikhar Chaudhry, walked out of their house on Tuesday morning, refusing to sit in any official car and insisting they would rather walk to the Supreme Court – where the Chief Justice had to appear before the Supreme Judicial Council to answer the reference filed by Gen Musharraf – the Chief Justice was roughed up by the Islamabad police and pushed into a waiting car.

Photos of this shocking incident, with a rough hand holding the Chief Justice’s head, have appeared in some newspapers. Unthinkable as it may be, even Begum Iftikhar was pushed around. A taste no doubt of ‘real’ democracy and ‘enlightened moderation’.

But violating the Chief Justice’s person, what has it achieved? It has further elevated his already high stature in the eyes of the Pakistani people. All the high-ups of the Islamabad police, including the Inspector-General (otherwise a likeable enough person), were present when all this was taking place. They can spend the rest of their lives explaining their sorry part in this affair.

As for Begum Iftikhar, she now becomes in the eyes of the public the First Lady of Pakistan. Eat your hearts out, other candidates for this honour.

Consider the fix the people of Pakistan are in. Those with any heart in them would have wept at the Chief Justice’s manhandling. But, in a strange way, they would also have felt elated.

For their worst fears were that the Chief Justice might succumb to pressure, thus taking the wind out of the sails of the present national mood. After all, under virtual house arrest, with no access to the outside world, deprived of newspapers and television (basic necessities in our day and age, especially for someone in his position), his children prevented from going to school, questions were bound to arise about his state of mind.

But those fears stood dissipated by Tuesday’s events which showed that here was a man not going to bend before unlawful or unholy authority. As worst fears stood confounded, the best hopes being entertained were vindicated.

The Chief Justice would also have derived strength from Tuesday’s happenings. Because when the car carrying him finally arrived before the gates of the Supreme Court, the people assembled there, unable to keep their emotions in check, lost all control and stormed the vehicle and pulled him out. Amidst deafening cheers and much jostling (but this was jostling of another kind) they swept him towards the doors of the Supreme Court.

They would have broken the doors and entered the building itself but it was the Chief Justice who bade them go back. And you know what? Even in that melee the crowd obeyed. This is what moral authority is all about. With it you don’t need bayonets to have your way. Without it, not all the bayonets in the world can come to your rescue.

But, by God, how have the Blackcoats of the legal fraternity acquitted themselves. In all the popular movements with which our history is littered, lawyers were part of the popular ferment, seldom its spearhead. How different this time: Blackcoats in front, first at the barricades, the nation behind, drawing inspiration from their courage and example.

In the recent elections of the Supreme Court Bar Association the legal community seemed to be badly split. But as soon as this crisis erupted differences seemed to be forgotten. Across the country the unity of lawyers has been exemplary and heart-warming.Senator Latif Khoso is a leading member of the bar. In his distinguished career, however, he will have received few marks of honour more shining than the merciless blow on the head from a police lathi at the gates of the Lahore High Court. Borne aloft on the shoulders of his colleagues, his head and face streaming with blood, his has been one of the most striking images of this agitation. Hail the Pakistani media too, newspapers and private TV channels, which have fulfilled their responsibility admirably, not only keeping the nation informed about what’s going on but also educating it about the fundamental issues involved in the present unrest, issues going far beyond, much beyond, the person of the Chief Justice.

The issues are democracy, the rule of law and the doctrine of the separation of powers. What is Pakistan’s destiny? To wallow in the turbid waters of authoritarianism forever or a somewhat different future in which the people can come into their own instead of having to endure an endless cycle of self-appointed military ‘saviours’ usurping what is not theirs and imposing their misguided will on the nation?

My Lord the Chief Justice is thus proving to be a catalyst of a larger discontent. All the issues swept underneath the carpet for the last seven and a half years are coming into the open. Had he not been courageous, had he submitted to uniformed diktat, this moment would never have come. It would have passed, awaiting another catalyst and another crisis. But he stood his ground and the result is before us: bottled up unrest breaking free from its confines.

What did Keats say? “He ne’er is crowned with immortality Who fears to follow where airy voices lead.” Airy voices call to all of us but only to a chosen few is it given to heed their call. Justice Iftikhar’s moment came and he seized it. What if nothing comes out of this unrest? His name will still have been carved amongst the few good and honourable things to have happened to this country.

A few other issues have also been settled by this crisis. Confusion no longer surrounds the National Spoon Awards. The first prize goes, indubitably, to Information Minister Mohammad Ali Durrani who has outdone himself. Second prize: honourable law minister, Wasi Zafar, who, in the form of his major contribution to the English language by the meaning with which he has invested the phrase “…the big arm” and what he is capable of doing with it or pushing it into, has also outdone himself. The third prize goes to friend Mushahid Hussain. Bravo.

Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and even Sheikh Rashid Ahmed have had the sense not to say foolish things. Not the winners of the National Spoon Awards.

As for Army House, among a long line of blunders tumbling out of its hallowed space this is by far the most serious. Indeed, if it qualifies as anything it is as a judicial Kargil although in its possible impact it could turn out to be far graver than the military debacle enacted on those steep heights.

From the consequences of that looming catastrophe our budding Rommels were saved by Nawaz Sharif who scurried to Washington to help cover their discomfiture and retreat, folly he must now be regretting. Who will rescue them from the present disaster? A grave responsibility rests on the shoulders of My Lord the Acting Chief Justice, Justice Javed Iqbal. He is right in saying that if he hadn’t taken his oath of office, a vacuum would have resulted leading to incalculable consequences. Now having taken that step, the same airy voices that Keats spoke about whisper in his ear inviting him to immortality, if only he will seize it.