Rushing to Saudi Arabia

Ever fond of blaming others for all that ails democracy in Pakistan, the politicians rarely seem to realise that they themselves invite ‘interference’ often enough by soliciting outside mediation for problems that should be resolved by the politicians. If Americans, the British, Saudis, sundry officials from the Gulf and other parts of the world are not prowling the corridors of power in Islamabad, our politicians pop up in foreign capitals and centres of power to ‘discuss’ local affairs.

So it is this week that Saudi Arabia has become the port of call for Pakistani officials, retired and serving. Interior Minister Rehman Malik, Gen Musharraf (retd) and, next week if speculation is correct, Nawaz Sharif — what exactly do these Pakistani political luminaries have to share so urgently with their Saudi hosts?

Mr Musharraf’s trial for treason, rumours of a minus-one, i.e. minus-President Zardari, formula in recent weeks, ugly allegations between the MQM and PML-N about events from the early ’90s that have snowballed into a confrontation between the presidency and the PML-N — take your pick of what could be agitating the minds of Pakistan’s politicians. But what does any of that have to do with Saudi Arabia? The answer should be ‘nothing’.

Yet the fact is that the Saudis have been used as rokers/mediators/arbitrators so many times in the past, including in some of the issues roiling the political landscape at the moment, that their intervention is desperately being sought once again. Like errant schoolboys who need the wise counsel of an elder to settle their disputes, our politicians seem unable to resolve domestic disagreements without the help of foreign interlocutors.

We have noted time and again that the undemocratic forces in the country are the only winners when the politicians drag each other into a spiral of acrimony and recriminations. And yet, depressingly, the politicians seem oblivious to this fact. Whatever the disagreements between the PML-N and the PPP or the PML-N and the MQM or all of them combined, they should learn to settle their differences themselves. Otherwise, what’s the point of a national leadership?

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