Reconstruction vs. Deconstruction

Reconstruction vs. Deconstruction

By Tariq Bhatti

The leadership of Pakistan Peoples’ Party, immediately after the electoral victory issued statements that they would rewrite history and make it free from fabrication of all sorts. It was asserted that without recognizing history and then reconciling with it, no nation could move ahead. The statement came as a draught of fresh air in the suffocated political arena populated by the mediocrities.

There were other voices repeatedly using the term establishment and its heinous role in the power politics of Pakistan. These voices too were refreshing. But the story does not end here; it probably begins from this point. Observers of the domestic political scene welcome the resolve of political forces to end the dictatorial patterns of governance permanently. But it takes more than a sheer verbalization; to fight a well entrenched establishment; corroborated by religious elements. Political forces inevitably need a multi-pronged strategy with unhindered backing of the masses. And this of course is a path replete with thorns.

It is of crucial importance that past experiences are examined with conceptual clarity. We need to analyze how our socio-political, cultural and ideological realities have been constructed and defined by the forces that be? And what forms of domination they have been asserting for their perpetuation? To find answers of these queries history must be deconstructed before it is reconstructed.

A dictum reads that if you want to construct long lasting fortresses you must have profound knowledge of what crumbled the old structure. Adjudged by this parameter, our track record shows successive political regimes failed substantially. Every incumbent government initiated half baked or motivated projects of ‘reconstruction’, without an objective and thorough ‘deconstruction’ of existing power configuration.

Resultantly, the dominant character of our polity came to manifest an eternal condemnation to the paradoxical cycle of perennial confusion. Every now and then clashing outlooks of the classes at the helm of affairs made them reinvent the wheel and send off the nation to the square one.

The claimed investigation into history must give factual picture to the children of this country of all issues that have affected their destiny. The failure to arrive at consensus on the issues of national language, extraordinary delay in the constitution formulation, crisis in cultural and ethnic integration, provincial autonomy, oscillation between presidential or parliamentary system of governance, the vice regal character of the office of governor general, pliant judiciary, role of religion in the affairs of state, the psychological strands of having a powerful and recalcitrant enemy as neighbour, the protracted Kashmir issue, hegemony of landed aristocracy in the Muslim league are a few of the many dimensions of our history that need fresh probing if we have to move ahead.


It is difficult to attribute the lion’s share to any single factor that gradually strengthened establishment and coercive institutions of state at the expense of a multifaceted emasculation of society. The trappings used by civil and military establishment to exclude populace from the ambit of governance were many and collaborators were even more. The mutilated and ‘moth eaten’ democracy, that too after massive pools of bloodshed, is a corollary of the confused upbringing.

The seizure that took place in the early years of our national life, in some dented shape still remains entrenched like the grip of an octopus. And popular aspirations of the masses remain prey to those. Countless coups and counter-coups; recurrent hide and seek games between civil and military dispensations have made a mockery of people’s potential. One step forward two step back has been the hallmark of our govern-mentality till February 18, 2008.

We as a country are not a story of utter failure by any means; nonetheless we could have done much better in many walks of our national life. There never has been a deficiency of plans and rhetoric on our national scene to build a just and vibrant society. But lack of political will always proved to be the Achilles’ heel that drowned democratic aspirations of the people. This has generated all pervasive cynicism visible both horizontally and vertically across all geographic stretches and among all social classes.

A much awaited ray of hope in the form of coalition government has made its way to the corridors of power. It remains burdened with huge un-discharged responsibilities of history. Three main partners of the four party coalitions have suffered intensely at the hands of the same forces for different reasons at different times. Hopes are high that they will deliver in the real sense and chart a way for securing better future to 170 million people of this country. It is pertinent that they listen to the callings of their nation, lest the mermaids of ineptitude and short-sightedness lead them astray for good.

The tasks before the present regime are undoubtedly uphill, not without opportunities nevertheless. The most important of them all is that political leadership ascertains the root causes of political twistability and cures the disease to the roots instead of cosmetic treatment of the symptoms. They need to enlist the problems, weigh the cost, assess the capability and steer the ship of state without waywardness to the destination of dynamic, egalitarian, forward looking, tolerant and democratic society with balanced institutional jurisdiction.

Karen Armstrong in A Short History of Myth says that, throughout our lives, we all find ourselves in situations in which we come face to face with the unknown. And the myth of the hero shows us how we should behave. We all know that no one can attain the stature of a hero unless one is prepared to give up every thing. “There is no ascent to the heights without a prior descent, no new life without some form of death.” There is a message in the above cited quote both for the forces of decaying order and those who are replacing them.

In many ancient myths, when infertility becomes rampant and regeneration seems distant forces of nature make the ruler sing the swan song to restore balance and harmony in the society and reinvigorate new life from the infertile lands. We, Pakistanis, rightly deserve the season that blossoms new flowers the only delay is how quickly the forces of nature tell the characters responsible for moral defilement to make way to the altar of history. Sooner the better.