A wisenheimer says ‘political science’ is the study of just three men: Hamlet, Macbeth, and Don Quixote! Exfoliate their life and times and you’ll become all the wiser. If you agree, then who do you think from the current cast of leaders is suited for which character in Pakistan today…
…So is General Musharraf a Macbeth, Hamlet or Don Quixote (DQ)? If you were to believe the above blogger, then the Commando is not Macbeth or DQ but Hamlet who has takes revenge on chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry and his other unseen enemies (US?) but has ended up charting a course of madness that unfortunately is irreversible. Since the curtain has yet to drop, it’s risky writing about the future of our president.
Is Nawaz Sharif a DQ? The coming months will give us the clue. If one was to go by his past record, it would be difficult to defend the wholesale corruption, blatant cronyism and inexcusable tax evasion that he and his coterie carried out. Whatever soul searching the Sharifs have delved in the last eight years of their exile, one thing is certain that both will have no shortage of Sanchos hovering over them like flies. Hopefully, some of their realism may yet rub off against the idealism that the Sharifs have been victims of.
Is Benazir Macbeth and her spouse Lady Macbeth? Theirs is the archetypical portrayal of power at any cost, even at the danger of life. The tone of this drama, billed as Shakespeare’s loftiest is “dark and ominous, suggestive of a world turned topsy-turvy by foul and unnatural crimes” (suicide bombings). The theme is: “The corrupting nature of unchecked ambition; the relationship between cruelty and masculinity; the difference between kingship and tyranny.” (Will BB side with Musharraf or the rest of the boycotting politicians?)
Comment: A very good read on present pakistani political drama.