Tuesday, 31 Jan 2017

Integrity and character

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Integrity and character

By Imtiaz Gul
Published: January 24, 2017
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The writer heads the independent Centre for Research and Security
Studies, Islamabad and is author of Pakistan: Pivot of Hizbut Tahrirs
Global Caliphate

On January 20, immediately after Donald Trumps inauguration, the

Obama family moved to a rented apartment after spending eight years at
the White House. Also, Obama paid for groceries from toothpaste to
toilet papers and dry cleaning from his own pocket. Even the family
vacation was not free. Similarly, after the ceremony, Joe Biden, Obamas
deputy, carrying his own brief case, took the famous Amtrak Acela
Express train to get back to his hometown Wilmington. Poor people!
Arent they?

Incredible examples of personal integrity by two highest ranking office

holders of the sole superpower; Biden held public office for 43 years
following his first election to the Senate at 29. Nearly 35 years in the
Senate and eight years as the Vice President yet he couldnt afford to pay
for the expensive cancer treatment of his son anymore. And who was the
son? The Attorney General of his State of Delaware. He also had been an
Iraq war veteran before becoming the Attorney General. But the cancer
treatment ate up all his savings. Then came his father to the rescue. But
even that was not enough. And just when he planned to offer his house
for sale to mobilise funding for the sons treatment, President Obama
loaned him funds from his personal savings to prevent him from selling
his home. Biden himself recounted this before a TV audience with
tearful eyes. Unfortunately the son died but not after the father had given
all his best.

Neither Obama nor Biden boast tonnes of money, multiple houses and
fleet of cars, escorted by massive security after all these years at top
posts. And with heads held high, they walk out of their official
residences to private homes and public transport. Do or can these
examples shame the rulers of this unfortunate country? Can they match
their lofty and hollow rhetoric with the humility of these two statesmen?
Certainly not. There, the retiring heads of governments leave the 1st
House in personal vehicles. Here, our leading lights deem it below their
dignity if dozens of security men are not around them even after
retirement. Here, our rulers not to mention their own entitlements,
appoint near and dear ones to posts which entitle them to treatment
abroad. They deem it a shame if they cant multiply their possessions.

How does one grade the integrity of rulers who consider it a privilege to
spend nearly a billion rupees public funds for reinforcing security
around their private homes on the outskirts of Lahore. Fleets of state
security for their extended family and friends is their privilege at the cost
of the public. Here, the fleet of a former prime minister grew from a
leased car to nearly two dozen limousines and expensive sports cars in
three years. His homes quadrupled, while his sons blew away ill-gotten
money at a famous casino.

There in the West, parents beg teachers to forgive and accommodate

their scions at schools even if they may be right. Here, ruling elites have
the teachers apologise to their erring sons and daughters. There, you
cant physically touch even a beggar, here our power-drunken elites:
ministers, advisers, technocrats, judges thrash and abuse their
subordinates.

A present spokesperson did it recently to a staff. A judge has been

indicted for the torture the family committed on a ten-year old maid. A
former law minister who was more of a thug than a minister in his
appearance and demeanour publicly slapped and manhandled a waiter at
a restaurant and then a civil aviation officer at the airport. Without any
action of course. Events of the last few months only inject a sense of
despondency and helplessness, prompting even people like us to wonder
whether issues such as moral integrity, transparency and the rule of law
should at all be discussed in this country, where the mighty ones get
away with broad-day murders while the weaker ones are made to pay
even for small deviations from law, a country where tax frauds worth
billions by the elites go unpunished and are vehemently defended by
cronies, while the honest and powerless ones are made to run from pillar
to post to extricate themselves from the clutches of the corrupt
bureaucracy.

A country for the rich and influential politicos, journos, generals and
their legal associates indeed.