Thread by @Shehzad89

On Benazir's death, Pakistan Khappay, and Imran Khan's politics:

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"Pakistan Khappay" is an easy slogan to mock, it has a word from a language the urban elite in Pakistan thinks of as a joke, and it was said by a man we see as the cartoon super villain of Pakistan,

Asif Ali Zardari is the ultimate mafia boss of Pakistan, it does not help that he even looks like one.

But before we talk about those two words - I want to make a broader point - my hypothesis here is that 'whatever is left of Pakistan is due to the civilian leadership of Pak'

Contrary to popular belief, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and Mujeeb ur Rahman were negotiating and would have found a political solution, in fact they only disagreed on a single point when the military intervened.

History is never inevitable but even if we buy the argument that two discontiguous parts could not function as a single country then the split could have been more amicable - we did not need a war.

After Kargil, it was Nawaz Sharif who got Bill Clinton to intervene to prevent a full scale war between India and Pakistan.

Baloch separatism gained massive popularity after Musharraf murdered Nawab Bhugti.

Even today it is political leaders like Sardar Akhtar Mengal who fight politically for the rights of Balochistan, without people like him the people of Balochistan would have no hope in the political system of Pakistan.

Now, if we can go back to the night of December 27, 2007, 15 years ago, the night Benazir was murdered, just like her father, her brothers, in the same place Pakistan's first Prime Minister was murdered - the history of Pakistan's civilian leadership is a history written in blood

Before we can fully understand what happened that night, we need to understand what Benazir meant to the people of Pakistan. No person has been able to replicate the love people had for Benazir across Pakistan.

Pakistan's daughter returned to Pakistan to end a decade of Zia's dictatorship and restore democracy. She embodied the hopes and dreams of millions; millions who felt they could breathe again as the tyranny of Zia ended, and we had democracy.

Pakistan had a young fearless progressive woman as the head of the state. It was Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto's daughter. You can imagine why all of Pakistan felt hopeful.

Unfortunately, the powers that be still had all the power and her Government just lasted a few months.

Close to two decades she came back to Pakistan to lead another fight to restore democracy. This time the flame that was Benazir was extinguished.

There was anger, there was resentment, people were ready to burn it all to the ground - they had dreamt and lost too many times.

I will never condone violence, what happened across Pakistan was unacceptable. I, myself, had guns pointed at me several times, I drove avoiding burning buses, and tyres on fire, to reach home, only for the nightmare to not still be over as everyone in my family wasn't there yet.

The people who burnt things are assholes. The people of Karachi lost lives and millions that night.

However, Asif Ali Zardari, had an option that night, his wife, the chairman of the party, was dead, the members of the party were enraged.

The people of Pakistan were crying bloody murder.

By now, everyone knows who Benazir named as the primary culprits in case she was assassinated.

Now imagine, instead of 'Pakistan Khappay', if Asif Ali Zardari had asked PPP supporters to burn it all to the ground.

If they declared war against the system that PPP lost two heads of the party to.

Imagine this in the context of terrorism across Pak, the war on terror, us being sick of a decade of dictatorship and Musharraf's popularity being at an all time low, we might have had a civil war.

Instead, responding to someone saying they do not want Pakistan, Zardari said, "Pakistan khappay" - he chose Pakistan over war.

You can say whatever you want about the civilian leadership of Pakistan but at the end of the day, they want Pakistan.

They cannot afford for Pakistan to disintegrate. They do not retire and move abroad. Zardari himself spent a decade in jail.

The cynical take on that is that is because all their business interests are in Pakistan and they want to continue profiting.

There may very well be a lot of truth to that but regardless, they still want Pakistan. I am not going to defend the status quo, I don't talk about corruption much because corruption is a stick used against the civilian leadership and we never talk about everyone's corruption.

One can also be more cynical and argue that Zardari negotiated power in exchange of not thoroughly pursuing Benazir's murder, and even in that hypothetical Zardari managed to find a political solution. The hopeful take on that is that he did it to strengthen civilian supremacy,

The sinister take is that he did it to make money as President. Either way, I hope after they tried pinning Arshad Sharif's murder on Imran Khan, that most people don't believe that Zardari killed Benazir.

People should also be questioning the corruption narrative.

And all this is what I feel separates the other political parties from Imran Khan. They might have a million issues but they are still firmly in the "Pakistan khappay" camp.

When Imran Khan did not become Prime Minister in 2013, he led a mob on the Parliament in 2014.

When he knew he was going to lose power in 2022, he thrashed the IMF program he signed and then put a fuel subsidy atom bomb on the economy, which make no mistake about it was going to take Pakistan to default.

Even if we set aside all the political instability to politics, PTI tried sabotaging the IMF program out of power. When 2/3rd of Pakistan was under water Shaukat Tarin was on a phone call to Taimur Jhagra trying to prevent money from IMF coming to Pakistan

A move that would have resulted in the loss of life and livelihood for millions in Pakistan.

When Imran Khan was shot, Fawad Chaudhary asked people to take revenge, thankfully only a handful of people came out all over Pakistan destroying the myth of Imran's popularity.

Democracy and civilian leadership has not been perfect in Pakistan but left to its own, it will evolve. We have never had democracy. We had a decade of Zia then PPP/PMLN were not given power completely then we had another decade of dictatorship.

And when the 18th Amendment was passed, 58(2)(b) removed, and a civilian transfer of power happened, they managed to bring the Economy on track, sports, arts and culture returning to Pakistan. and an end to war on terror, only for the hybrid experiment to return in 2017.

And now we are back to our economy tanking, and the return of TTP - with Imran Khan ignoring all of that to add more political instability to stop investment and economic reform.

Imran Khan saying he would rather have seen an Atom Bomb being dropped on Pakistan than see PDM come to power should tell you all that you need to know. It is only the privileged elite PTI supporters who wouldn't mind seeing millions die just to see their guy become PM again.

The scorched earth policy may help Imran Khan's politics but it comes at the expense of Pakistanis. And before anyone uses whataboutism to repeat Khan's mantra of the past 30/40 years, Imran Khan has admitted himself that he was just the puppet Prime Minister

and those who have had power always in Pakistan were actually in power, so if Pakistan has been destroyed for decades why was Imran Khan acting as the poster boy for them to continue being in power?

Even if you think the other parties want Pakistan so they can make money, they still are "Pakistan khappay" whereas PTI now is only "Imran Khappay", and whatever anyone says,

Pakistan > Imran Khan

Always was, and always will be.

#PakistanKhappay

Even after the events of April 2022, PTI supporters have not learnt to question the history they've been told.

Hard to unlearn dogma.

https://twitter.com/Shehzad89/status/1608536904185651201?t=E0FdEuWscNogPRLydongAg&s=19

Yosouf sahab with the source:

https://twitter.com/YousufNazar/status/1608533226158526466?t=E0FdEuWscNogPRLydongAg&s=19