The end of an era.

Pakistani politics are just about to be turned into a play. "Kionke General bhi Kabhi Sadr tha".

That's how Star-Plussy we've gotten. Governments coming back from the dead (literally), external control and influence (I hear you, Uncle Sam), evil (come on now, really?) dictators bidding their goodbyes and saving graces, inflation being the key factor of all the masses that will finally bring us to a grand finale of this drama we call democracy ... we're all set.


In what can only be called a charade of musical chairs, another dictator finishes his long line of policies that were undemocratic and in a lot of ways, insipid to the future of the nation. Nevertheless, as the popular opinion goes, Pakistanis have a knack of being apathetic and listening to the loud, whip-bearing, tongue-lashing ones.

Let's face it. We don't like democracy, no matter how badly America wants us to like it. Pakistanis are more interested in getting their electricity and phone bills under their tiny (thanks to the currency devaluation, getting tinier by the minute) budgets. We will not take affirmative actions because Pakistanis have an enduring historical pattern of listening to the unjustified voice of the times.

We thought we'd be saved when democracy was said to return. We thought we'd be back on the groove track when we elected a democratic Prime Minister (who has the oddest sense of repartee, I imagine). We thought we were on our way.

Ah, Pakistanis. Where do we draw the line to irrational hope?

And here we are again. Celebrating.

Over what exactly?

In the nine given years of President Musharraf's regime, in the six months of the democratic government, in the past 24 hours of a President stepping down.. how have Pakistanis reacted?

We have sat, shocked as always, as the dramatic developments of the stage that is the National Assembly, the script that is the Constitution and the actors which keep having plastic surgeries. Masked puppets dancing at the same tune. Corruption, lalalalalala, corruption.

This man who has just stepped down is no different. I have no sympathies for a head of the state stupid enough to sack a Chief Justice (even though it was constitutional), impose emergency for no apparent reason, make a mess out of a mosque issue and basically be stuck between a rock and a hard place for what seemed like a perpetual period of time.

I don't know about the future, but I do know this. Pakistanis need more than just a change of players. What happened today was not the end. We've only seen a bit of the tumult that is to follow in the next tidal waves of episodes.

Who needs soap operas when you've got a state to dramatize.