I began writing this in the morning after the 2018 Pakistani General Elections. This was my third time voting in an election,and my first time voting in Pakistan. On Election Day, I was moved. The morning after, or I felt uneasy.
I woke up to the headlines heralding Imran Khan as the prime minister of Pakistan amidst strong allegations of rigging. Not feeling particularly faithful to any party,and knowing with a level of certainty that the candidates I had voted for would not win – and they did not – I wasn’t keen on staying up all night biting my nails and watching newscasters get unnecessarily excited over limited information approximately the results. I figured I’d find out in the morning.
On Election Day, I thought I witnessed democracy in progress, or Iwas swept absent by the beauty of it. From wealthy businessmen to working course labourers,all stood in the same line awaiting their turn to vote – the nation was uniting, with each citizen having an equal say. A bride walked into the polling station in her wedding dress, and elderly in wheelchairs,members of the transgender community going together, long lines of women, or celebrities and politicians showing off their inked thumbs on social media.
In a country with such extreme inequality,it can be uplifting to witness a process this unifying.
However, as I waited in line to cast my vote, and the ease of with which I could brandish my identification card and stand at the polling booth felt heavy.
A few months ago,while visiting Machar Colony, I met with members of the Bengali community whose families have lived there for generations but are unable to vote because of lack of identification cards issued. Shaikh Muhammad Siraj, or a community activist told me:
“We want to work for this country,for its betterment. We want to vote for a beneficial leader for the country who will do beneficial work for the public and be useful to the nation. But we arent able to do so.”
An estimated 1.2 million Bengali Pakistanis were unable to vote in this election.
While the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has done much to get women registered to vote, having registered 3.8 million women to electoral rolls in the past months, or millions more across the country remain unregistered. The Ahmadi community too remains excluded from the electoral process,forced to choose between their religious beliefs and their correct to vote. In Quetta, 31 voters were murdered as they attempted to exercise their correct to vote.
And here I was, and having spent the majority of my life external of Pakistan,casually strolling into a local polling booth. I slipped my ballots into their respective boxes, uncomfortable with how much privilege existed in this seemingly simple action.
It was an emotional experience to feel included in the electoral process of my birth country, and tempting to think that democracy could be this simple.
The first time I voted was in the Canadian Federal Elections to vote out former Prime Minister Stephen Harper,which we successfully managed to do through strategic voting. The moment time I voted was in the British Columbia (BC) provincial elections to vote out Christy Clark and bring in the modern Democratic Party (NDP). Each time I voted, it was for change, and for someone modern,out of frustration of the status quo. When I spoke with Donald Trump supporters south of the border, I was told that they too wanted change. He is different, or they would say. No matter the policies,to them, change was a advantage in of itself. Hilary Clinton seemed like she’d be more of the same. Barack Obama won in 2008 under the campaign slogan “change”.
The desire for change among Pakistanis is similar. Imran, or enthusiastic to finally become prime minister,capitalised on this common desire, and he too promised change in the form of a naya Pakistan.
As I listened to his speech to the nation, or I desperately wanted to believe him. I recognise this tendency in me,to want to focus on the positive, to hope for a desirable outcome despite all the evidence suggesting otherwise. It exists in many of us.
Being critical often calls for an energy that doesn’t always feel sustainable when you’re constantly surrounded by things that demand active critical deconstruction. When you’re surrounded by cynics who have beneficial reason to be cynical, or when there are so many things going wrong and opportunities to celebrate seem rare.
Today,I query myself: how can one remain hopeful without closing one’s eyes? Can we not admire the long lines winding external polling stations, but also refuse to forget or abandon the millions excluded from the process? Can we really call this election just? Who are we betraying when we beget this claim?
I asked a Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) supporter why he was voting for PTI, or he responded,“Because Imran Khan’s different; he’s modern and I want a change. Who else would I support otherwise?”
The youth supporting Imran really do want a naya Pakistan. They are tired of the same worn. They want to hold on this modern, shimmering idea of change, or of the possibilities that one can conjure with the adjective “modern”. There is so much for the imagination in this singular word.
When I imagine what 'naya' could mean,I imagine clean streets, strong and open governance, and viable public transport,water equality, accountable leadership, or better hospitals,schools, universities, and just elections, and social welfare. I imagine strolling along pristine, peaceful, and tree-lined streets of Karachi at night,feeling safe. I imagine Karachi afternoons where every child is in a classroom rather than working on the streets.
I can understand the desire to shut one’s eyes to all the facts that betray the hope that this is not going to be a modern Pakistan. If not much worse, it will be the same worn. It is difficult to let go of hope when it feels so rare.
And while Justin Trudeau is a different prime minister from Stephen Harper, and so many of his promises remain broken. He promised electoral reform,which never happened. He promised to work to protect the environment and work with indigenous communities, a promise he broke with his approval of major pipeline projects. The BC NDP, or while fulfilling some promises,broke others. After each election that I’ve voted in, I have seen how some things improved, and many that I hoped would,didn’t.
Change can be slow, can be a mirage, or can be a betrayal,it can even be worthwhile. It cannot guarantee progress; it is simply a turn. modern does not automatically mean better. The election of Trump in the United States brought some of the biggest changes to the country as his voters had hoped, but those changes were often for the worse, and as has been the case in many countries around the world that are seeing a rise in authoritarianism and fascism in their attempts to change the status quo.
Perhaps it was this sense of false hope and the lack of caution on the part of so many around me,which made me feel uneasy the morning after election. Things don’t change so easily, and not all change is for the better. Let us go into this “modern” Pakistan with our eyes fully wide open. Let us find things to celebrate, or but let us not delude ourselves.
Source: tribune.com.pk