Magical worlds don’t have an ordinary longitude and latitude. They exist in an uncertain world in an uncertain time. The magical world of Pakistan has an uncertain border. Like children playing on the sidewalk insist on drawing again and again, the magic kingdoms of Pakistan and India do the same. IF one is truly Pakistani, the line must be drawn further outwards, or else the entire existence of Pakistan is questionable. Kashmir is the unresolved issue, the Bermuda triangle, the only child of divorcing and acrimonious parents, India and Pakistan. All of India is called into question, with a slight bend of the chalk. Such is the power of geography, that big men with much power cannot give up the fight. Young men with less power die daily as the magic kingdoms struggle to draw the perfect line. The line that will help their rulers achieve a paroxysmic nirvana.

In this background, India and Pakistan fight for Kashmir with men, weapons, budgets and international image. Without world approval, neither one can win Kashmir.

Pakistan being a smaller, more uncertain and therefore incredibly magical place, struggles more. A brave Captain, Pervez Musharraf strives desperately to win the battle of international image. Three years ago, the Captain took over the ship willy nilly to stear it into victory on all the battlefronts, Image, Kashmir, Poverty, Law & Order. Image demands democracy and democracy needed elections. The dratted elections—. My reader says, what? Elections? Elections in a magic kingdom? The very word is an abnegation of all that is magical. It is a mundane event, that only the modern world, with its western ideas of equality, freedom and marketing can indulge in.

Elections and Pakistan are contradictory terms. As the Captain knew. The Captain struggled. Struggle, you say? In Armani suits? Yes. Not the struggle of bayonets and arrows, but the struggle that a magic kingdom faces when it is trapped in a modern world of press and freedom. The Captain tried hard to correct the wrong of decades. He freed up the youth on the streets of Karachi. The fresh air of liberty and tolerance wafted through Karachi…(for the time being, ignore the Mullah’s cry of Liberteranism). New Year’s Eve started to be celebrated in Karachi. People were arrested for being violent and vociferous against America. Wine flowed in Karachi more openly than before. Television started being a little less boring and opened up the enchanted world of women and speculative thought. Ah, Freedom, the Captain must have said, that will fix ‘em. Soon, the world will see that the real Pakistan is moderate, less magical and more reasonable.

But alas, what do we see here? Once a magic kingdom, always a magic kingdom. Goodness, this repressed and bored youth, these supressed women, those frustrated people, what did they do last week? 70% or more stayed at home watching wonderful Television. And the others? The others went off to protect Islam at the polling booths. Why doesn’t the Captain get it? Pakistan is beyond coaxing, it is beyond redemption and superficial attempts at liberation will not work. Pakistani society is willing itself down a path of confrontation between the worst Islamic interpretations and the rest of civilization. It is doing it, regardless of the order and discipline that the Musharraf Government seem to have prioritized.

Hire a bunch of anthropologists O Captain—they will tell you and write a few books besides that could earn some revenue. And hey, you should never have been afraid of repealing the blasphemy law. Or backing down on Kashmir. You should have stood there and burnt your boats. Take a lesson from George Bush. Don’t stand around wondering what to do, trying to please everybody—take a stick and throw it. Somebody may well then write for you similar words as these:

O CAPTAIN! my Captain! our fearful trip is done;
The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won;
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

Lines from “Captain O Captain”, by Walt Whitman
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There is no other choice but to do it. As for failure? There is no such thing where there is commitment.