A parliament of owls

S Iftikhar Murshed One of the quirks of the English language is that a group of owls is called a parliament. The bird is a symbol of wisdom but in Urdu an owl, or ullu, represents stupidity and a parliament of owls would translate as an assembly of imbeciles (ulluon ki majlis). This demonstrates how absurd literal translations of foreign phrases can be. The Urdu idiom has certainly been unfair to the hooting avian of the night so universally acclaimed for its sagacity. The national legislatures in most countries, whether democracies, quasi-democracies or even dictatorships, are normally referred to as parliaments, though the formal nomenclatures may be as varied as National Assembly, House of Commons, Lok Sabha, Shura, Duma and Diet. That is where the similarity with an assemblage of owls ends. Parliamentarians worldwide are not distinguished by exceptional sapience, nor are they congenital idiots. They are mostly men and women of average intelligence but with hugely inflated egos. This is where the Pakistani variety of lawmakers takes the lead. For instance, several members of the national and provincial assemblies insist on adorning the rear and front fenders of their cars with metallic plates bearing the inscription "MNA" or "MPA" in order to advertise their status. Pakistani parliamentarians are unique in many respects and defy some of the established theories of political science. Their addiction to the phrase "supremacy of parliament," which they articulate with the zeal of proselytising missionaries, is just one example. Yet in a constitutional democracy it is not the parliament but the constitution that is supreme. Since 2007 Pakistan has had more than its share of crises and this year has been spectacularly eventful. The fury of these storms have scattered the attention of the nation hither and thither, as a consequence of which the several acts of commission and omission of members of parliament has faded from memory. These need to be revisited, especially as election year 2013 draws near. The starting point must be the current national and provincial assemblies. Members of these legislatures project themselves as "elected representatives of the people," which indeed they should be. But the Election Commission of Pakistan has disclosed that an astounding 37 million votes cast in the 2008 elections were bogus. Thus the representative nature of the assemblies is doubtful. The mandatory requirement of a university degree for contesting parliamentary elections not only disqualified an overwhelming majority of Pakistanis from becoming members of the legislatures, but also spurred the unsavoury fake degree episode in Pakistani politics. Though this law, promulgated during the Musharraf era, was expunged after the 2008 elections, it did not deter the Supreme Court from ordering an inquiry in order to rake out fraudulent legislators. The outcome demonstrated that Pakistani politicians have the ability to overcome any obstacle, conquer any peak, cross any ocean that might stand in the way of their ambitions. The production of the required academic certifications proved as easy as breathing in and breathing out. In one instance, the papers submitted by a provincial lawmaker of the PML-N showed that he had secured a Master's degree in 2002, graduated in 2006 and completed high school in 2007. This prompted the late Salmaan Taseer, who was governor of Punjab at the time, to comment that the man should have been "been disqualified for stupidity, not fraud." The academic documentation presented to the Election Commission by a federal legislator claimed that he had completed high school at the age of ten. Political analysts in Islamabad were quick to give him the title of "Doogie Howser of the National Assembly." Yet another illustrious parliamentarian produced three degrees, each with a different surname. Jamshed Dasti, a PPP member of the National Assembly from southern Punjab, claimed to have a Masters degree in Islamic studies, but when hauled before the Supreme Court he could not even answer elementary questions about the religion. Compelled to resign, as the alternative was imprisonment, the fraudster was rewarded by the PPP leadership and appointed special adviser to the prime minister. His subsequent re-election to the parliamentary seat he had earlier vacated elated President Zardari who, unable to restrain himself, said, "Our Dasti still wins." In the parliamentary traditions of Pakistan, improbity is of little consequence. Fake degrees bring neither shame nor remorse to the country's leadership and this was made clear by the chief minister of Balochistan, Nawab Aslam Raisani, who did not have the least hesitation in saying: "A degree is a degree whether it's fake or real." But when such politicians are elected and re-elected, as was Jamshed Dasti, ordinary citizens cannot absolve themselves of the blame for the cold-blooded murder of morality. It was precisely this collective responsibility for the collapse of ethical values that Khalil Gibran lamented: "And as a single leaf turns not yellow but with the silent knowledge of the whole tree, so the wrongdoer cannot do wrong without the hidden will of you all." A shivering consciousness is suddenly aroused that the canker of corruption has eaten deep into the soul of the nation. Ideally, parliaments should be the repository of the morals of a nation, but in Pakistan 141 parliamentarians failed to meet the Oct 15, 2010, deadline for the declaration of their assets. In October this year the Election Commission suspended 231 members of the national and provincial assemblies, including the finance minister and several of his cabinet colleagues, for failing to submit annual statements of their assets and liabilities. A comparative analysis of the assets declared by members of the previous and current National Assemblies reveals that the average wealth of MNAs increased threefold in the six years from 2002-2003 to 2008-2009. The report shows that the median value of an MNA's assets in the last assembly was just below Rs27 million and this soared to Rs81 million for the first year of the current National Assembly. Yet, 61 per cent of parliamentarians declared nil taxable income in the last fiscal year. But this is only the tip of the iceberg as corruption is accompanied by incompetence. Not only have a majority of parliamentarians failed to attend to their legislative duties but the quality of the debates in the national and provincial assemblies has degenerated to the level of raucous soap operas. A recent study shows that a one-day session of the National Assembly costs the taxpayer approximately Rs16 million, yet only a handful of parliamentarians bother to come to the sessions on time. A good part of the day is wasted rounding them up for completion of the quorum, and this is not always achieved. The same "drowsy numbness" seems to have infected the parliamentary committees. For instance, a report recently complied by the Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency shows that the Foreign Affairs Standing Committee of the National Assembly met just 17 times in the last three years: in 2008-9 it convened only on two occasions. On average, attendance at these meetings was barely 38 per cent, and even worse, the chairman participated in less than half of these sessions. In the same three-year period the parallel committees of the Indian and the British parliaments met 52 and 82 times, respectively. Article 62 (f) of the Constitution states unambiguously that only those who are "sagacious, righteous, non-profligate, honest and ameen" can contest elections. Should this be implemented in letter and spirit, most of the current members of the national and provincial assemblies would not be eligible for contesting the 2013 elections. There is a lesson to be learnt from the warning of the 19th century English philosopher Herbert Spencer that "the ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools." The writer is the publisher of Criterion Quarterly. He can be reached at e-mail: iftimurshed@ gmail.com