Unhappy the land that needs heroes

[Silaaj]

Re: Unhappy the land that needs heroes

@ravage

There is a famous exchange in Brecht’s play ‘The life of Galileo’ that has a character saying ‘Unhappy the land that has no heroes’ to which Galileo replies ‘No, unhappy the land that needs heroes’. There is something in the mindset of many Pakistanies of my age that makes the susceptible to fantasies of deliverance by heroes.

I am one of the louder bashers of tsunami bringer Imran Khan sahab on this forum. Part of this is because his critical flaws lie along the fault line that most motivates me on this forum: religious fundamentalism and violence. But this is also because those who promote him do so with obstinate blindness, because they seem to want a hero that can save them at what seems to them a climactic moment.

The only people with a comparable level of infallibility are the two Bhuttos, although they werent canonized till they were dead.

Why is there a tendency to lionize leaders we like as them vs people destroying the country? As if it were a binary between choosing to save Pakistan vs letting the rest destroy it? Is it not far more realistic to say that we have a bunch of options, all with their own flaws. It is unlikely that any one person can change Pakistan’s deep structural social, cultural, economic, sectarian, terrorism problems, especially not in the short term. Even in the long term, it will be the result of a process of development instead of a moment of change.

I think this not only self-delusion, it has lead to more hysteria in our exchanges. Because these are charismatic heroes and not simply political options that may only be preferable to each other incrementally in the short term, the differences have to be stark. One side has to be perfect, the other side has to be malevolent.

Maybe Im just too pessimistic but I think we must consider a third option between ‘This will save us’ and ‘This wont save us’, which is ‘This wont change much, but gets my vote for well considered reasons’. And believe it or not, that may just be PTI on the day for me.

I dont think people are looking up to Imran as a hero. People are just looking for a way out of the status quo, and just want an end to the blatant corruption going on in the country. Sad part is, there is no alternative other than Imran Khan, as that would have made the fight more interesting. But since there is none, people are looking up to Imran to at the very least, get Zardari and Sharif out of the picture. Then we take it from there. Imran is not going to get a free ride, that is for sure. As a matter of fact, he will be under a much bigger scanner, since he has made claims that are so juicy, they are making Pakistanis drool (eg, eliminate major corruption in 90 days).