NAWAZ Sharif has been overshadowed by his own man, former speaker of the National Assembly Ayaz Sadiq. This past week, there has been little discussion of Nawaz Sharif’s speeches and more about what Sadiq said in the Assembly. Horror and outrage has been our national mood, exhaustingly so. But the outraging is a bit misplaced.

The truth is that politics cannot and should not preclude discussion of security matters and even criticism of it. Take American politics. Presidential elections have always partly been about security and foreign security matters. Candidates are discussed and attacked for their perceived weakness on security matters. Though elections, it is said, are fought and won on domestic agendas, no candidate wants to be seen to be weak internationally. No wonder then, till recently, the military experience of the candidates was considered essential — and its absence seen as a serious disadvantage. Similarly, no discussion of Jimmy Carter’s presidency is complete without an account of the Iran hostage crisis.

But for obvious reasons, such a debate is not easy in Pakistan.

Foreign policy in itself is rarely debated or discussed in the true sense of the word. There is little space to do this; political parties do not have the freedom to really thrash out issues and present or adopt different policy options. As a result, the foreign policy arena is simply used to attack opponents for their perceived ‘lack of patriotism’. In that sense, political debates on foreign policy are rather reminiscent of the debate on religious issues — if the debate is carried on only to establish oneself as a believer and the other as an unbeliever, there is little space for a healthy exchange of ideas but much room for hot air.

It is for the political parties to sit at the same table and recognise each other as legitimate.

Just consider the past few years. Foreign policy discussion has been reduced to determining who is scared of or close to India while being good at maintaining the past (good) relationship with China, Saudi Arabia and the US. So, more or less every government has been accused of kowtowing to India and angering the Chinese. Beyond this, it’s hard to think of a single instance of any nuance or detail.

And since last year, the PTI government has been accused of having ceded space to India, which allowed the latter to carry out Balakot as well as change Kashmir valley’s status.

Sadiq’s speech was no different. He — like the rest of his party — attacked the government and other stakeholders by implying cowardice. And it fit in well with his leader’s bayania (narrative) of identifying characters instead of institutions. He probably thought he would earn some brownie points with his own bosses.

That his speech was used by the Indian media (as was Fawad Chaudhry’s) is beside the point. For it surely is a matter of cause and effect: was a speech attacked and dissected because of how the Indians perceived it or played it up or because one simply needs a reason to attack and question the sincerity of one player?

But this entire debate — be it over who is the real Modi ka yaar or who was scared and worried in February 2019 — is irrelevant.

The larger issue here remains that of the depths to which the parties are willing to go to attack each other, be it on domestic issues or foreign policy. Which is not to say that politics elsewhere doesn’t stink this much; it does. But the adverse and debilitating impact it has on Pakistan’s environment is because here the competition is not just between political parties. The fear hence is that if political parties are discredited, the vacuum will be exploited by others.

The parties realised this in the post-1999 period, which eventually led to the Charter of Democracy. Among much else, the charter was about recognising each other as legitimate players. Consider point 21: “We will respect the electoral mandate of representative governments that accepts the due role of the opposition and declare neither shall undermine each other through extra-constitutional ways.”

And to a large extent, the post-2008 period saw the PPP and the PML-N generally accepting each other’s role and space in the system. Till perhaps the second half of the PML-N government of 2013, this understanding existed to a large extent.

But this bilateral acceptance did not include the PTI and neither was the PTI willing to accord this respect to the older parties.

The present discord is a result of this lack of recognition or understanding.

No wonder then that the name-calling and the exchange of harsh language is reminiscent of the 1990s. One side thinks the others are corrupt and dishonest while the latter think the former is selected and incompetent. And as the PTI tried to dislodge the PML-N government in 2014, the PDM, especially the PML-N, is not averse to a similar ending now. The centre and Sindh share a relationship which probably has parallels to Punjab under Nawaz Sharif and Islamabad under Benazir Bhutto. The coexistence in the 1990s was as ugly as it is now. By the time the 1999 coup happened, the PPP welcomed the ouster of an elected government.

The question to be asked here is: can the solution at present be similar to what was settled earlier? By both sides (political parties all of them) accepting everyone’s right to exist and do politics?

Indeed, if a dialogue is needed, it is for the political parties to sit at the same table and recognise each other as legitimate. The discussions for a dialogue between stakeholders and a truth and conciliation committee can perhaps wait till later.

But the fear is that if the solution came after a coup had happened and both the PML-N and the PPP had been left out in the cold for years, this time around too it may come after considerable hardship. There is little evidence at the moment of any among the current leadership realising that this internecine conflict is producing no winners. And if this is so, the hostilities may continue for some time with little reprieve for the rest of us. The winter for the rest of us is far from over.

The writer is a journalist.

Published in Dawn, November 3rd, 2020