In the 1890s, the British novelist Anthony Hope conceived a fictional kingdom in the heart of Europe known as Ruritania, which has since become a byword for intrigue, exoticism, and obscurity. Everyone heard about the exploits of Ruritania, but beyond that information was scant. The same is happening in the Pindi region in our neighbourhood.
Compare this to western travel influencers to Pak badlands, who relay home images of a land of miracle, mystique, and mischief – not to be confused with the IMFL vodka White Mischief, though anecdote has it that rivers of Russian vodka flowed in Rawalpindi during the 1980s when the Soviet Red Army was fighting Afghan Mujahedeen’s.
The Ruritarian pomp and splendor of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is on full display with the elevation of Hafeez General Aseem Munir, the military chief, to the rank of Field Marshall, which under standard military norms is exclusively reserved for those who command armies winning decisive battlefield victories.
Since independence, there has been just one Field Marshall in the Indian Army, General Sam Manekshaw, the chief of the country’s Army during the 1971 war with Pakistan, which led to the birth of a new country, and set the record for the highest number of prisoners of war in any conflict ever(93,000).
Gen. Muneer has now surpassed not only Ayub Khan, Zia, and Musharraf, his only real competition in epaulettes, insignia, medals, and titles is now with Admiral-General Aladdin, the ruler of the Republic of Wadiya, in Sacha Baron Cohen’s ‘The Dictator’.
There used to be an old internet joke about the Pakistani Army losing all wars, yet its top soldiers decked with a gallery of medals pinned to their chests like decorated World War 2 veterans who attend Victory Day Parades in Moscow.
You Can Win
Now with hot-from-the-press news of a new Field Marshall, that joke looks like a grim piece of social realism and the B-school worthy motivational TedTalk of ‘knowing your inner self worth’ and ‘never short-selling yourself’ – an uproar of ‘Yes, we can’, in the classic Obama way, or fake it till you make in the crass and uncouth street smart business dictum.
The new Managing Director of the Pak Military-Intelligence Inc, which unlike the LLCs or limited liability corporations in the USA, is an unlimited liability firm, can feel more at ease globally now among the empty suits of the IMF and World Bank, and motley arms dealers and executives of defence companies circling Pindi.
One of the reasons why there’s a surplus of vice-presidents in investment banks and management consultancies, as any insider will tell you, just like the bumper production of Jihadis in Pak, is because the corporations want the title to signal authority & prestige, and outside interlocutors to take the person seriously, to ease deal-making and clinch contracts.
With the new designation, there’s not an iota of doubt that Hafeez General won’t be taken as seriously as he should be in the boardrooms of arms suppliers, bankers, lobbyists, financiers, and the motley crew. If still anyone wants to be a doubting Thomas, the Britney Spears song ‘My Prerogative’ should shut him up.
Pindi Drift
What next ? DEI is taking a drubbing in Trump’s America, but not elsewhere. Taking a cue from Peking, which has honed the fine art of ‘signal left, turn right’ Socialism with Chinese characteristics, Pakistan can well concoct and patent its own Halal DEI and Mazhabi DIY sustainability, all under the stipulations of IMFs Resilience & Sustainability Fund, of course.
The Indian Field Marshall Sam Manekshaw, a valiant soldier and refined man known for his charisma and rapier wit, once sardonically remarked about the inability of his country’s political class to “distinguish a mortar from a motor, a gun from a howitzer, guerrilla from a gorilla”, adding that ‘a great many resemble the latter’.
No offence intended to gorillas or racoons, but decades later the situation seems to have been exponentially magnified in Sar Zameen Pakistan.
Islamabad’s Defence Minister’s vacillating in perfect clockwork orange, sorry green, between ‘we have been washing Uncle Sam’s dirty laundry since forever’, to mimic passive-aggressive saber-rattling and pleas for peace and diplomacy, was indeed monkey balancing on a tight rope.
Pakistan can have its Peking duck and eat it too! The country’s leadership, civilian and military, has time and again demonstrated it.
