The Analysts

THE ANALYSTS

A to B:“Han to Zia kay daur mein jo  XYZ party ka deputy general secretary tha, who ABC Party kay WXY kay khilaf halqa number NNN say khara hoa tha……”

B to A:“Nahin, who halqa number MMM say WXY kay nahin XAB kay khilaf khara hoa tha…..”

All of us have, at one time or another, come across conversations, real heated up conversations that run along the above lines. The paths that they take vary, depending upon the group composition, the level of education, and the degree of loyalties that the participants possess to their respective candidates and parties. But one thing is always present, the mind boggling level of detail that seems to serve no particular purpose. There is just an endless, seemingly random and unrelated series of names; dates and events that would make “War and Peace” look like a book for fifth graders. The only difference is that the characters of “War and Peace” are unified in the end; they converge in terms of their ultimate destiny. The characters mentioned above just keep on multiplying like some sort of deadly laboratory virus that has grown out of control. The only characters more fascinating than the ones in discussion are the ones that are discussing those characters. For the sake of convenience, I will call them “The Analysts”. 

As a nation, if there is something, which we indulge in whole heartedly (besides basant , valentine and a plethora of similar events ), it is “analysis” . We just love to analyze any thing and every thing , as long as it is remotely related to politics. Ask some one what is “Higgs Boson” and you are bound to get a blank look. How ever, ask about the secretary of some political big shot of , say, 1958 , and you’d get an amazing level of detail about the big shot, the secretary , the party , the party members , their businesses , their likes and dislikes , their children and their children’s children within no time. 

Now, some people might defend such knowledge by classifying it as “current affairs”. But what I totally fail to comprehend is that how the knowledge of some long dead ( or even living) politician’s entire life is contributing to a bright future of this country. How would the knowledge of , for example , who contested from NA-132 in 1987 help reduce the cost of electricity , or make atta available to everyone at an affordable cost. 

For lack of a better analogy, let me compare politics to the sewage system and the politicians to the contents of the system. Now, if you want to clean a chocked sewage system, you have to get the big picture first , you have to understand how it is organized. If we just start labeling the filth that is flowing in it and monitor and discuss where it is headed to , then this is not going to solve anything. I may be wrong, but I feel this is what is happening, we are simply focusing on big and small pieces of garbage within the system without paying any attention to where the gutter of political system is blocked. 

We get a certain level of pleasure from “predicting” events. We love to display our political acumen and analytical abilities by ‘forecasting’ the future and shamelessly showing our pride when the event occurs, no matter how terrifying it is. I have met people who have ‘predicted’ the (God forbid) disintegration of Pakistan within the next few years. “Analysts” love doomsday scenarios , even within the arena of politics, anything that is remotely bright and optimistic loses their appeal for them within a small span of time. Tune to any news channel and you will see how the media thrives on conflicts , blood and death. The “analysts” are like vultures ; they can only survive on ‘rotten’ material. They would cease to exist if there were no conflicts , no doomsday scenarios , no corruption and no “siyaasat”. 

I am not against politics and its analysis, it is a complete, well defined science. But what I would really like to see is some one discussing the ‘big picture’ for a change. Someone talking about international politics, if it HAS to be politics, and not about some two bit political party’s maneuverings in the bye-elections of 3 decades ago. All such discussion results  in a waste of time, energy and simply contributes to the ever widening gulf of ideas and concepts that are not in the interest of Pakistan.