In the US, three women have been honoured for exposing corporate crimes as well as critical official lapses. Time magazine named the three women as Persons of the Year 2002.

The women are vice-president Sherron Watkins of Enron and Cynthia Cooper of Worldcom, who disclosed the absolute rot in their companies, and Coleen Rowley of the FBI who revealed the failure of the agency to act on earlier tips and prevent the colossal tragedy of 9/11. Cynthia Cooper of Worldcom had brought to light how her company had covered up losses of 3.8 billion dollars that finally led to its collapse.

In Pakistan, on the other hand, hypocrisy is the most prominent feature of ours as a nation. One of the most important traits we have always had an acute shortage of, is the spine to call spade a spade whenever personal interests are at stake.

Most of the pro-democracy generals strutting around today, trying to present themselves as principled truth-telling souls, were the leading beneficiaries of yesterday’s lootmar of military dispensations. While in service, none among Generals K M Arif, Talat Masood, Aslam Beg, to an extent even maverick Hamid Gul, and many more, had the courage to disapprove of, leave alone denouncing the transgressions of the military in every sphere of life. Now they don’t get tired of talking about democracy and vouching for civilian chain of command. Actually they all partook in the military-staged dramas as vigorously as they could. All of them “realize” the wrongness of the phenomenon long after securing their bank accounts, plots, perks and privileges.

The issue can be developed further. For instance, how many military officers refused to fire on Bengali demonstrators in East Pakistan? If that is asking for too much, leave that complicated issue aside. Was there a single captain, major, colonel, brigadier, general who refused to implement or declined to pass down the orders to crush pro-democracy, anti-Zia MRD movement in Sindh during mid-80s? In this case, we are not talking about quelling any insurgency; it was brazen suppression of a legitimate civil struggle regarding basic human rights.

Civilian sector is no better. One has to struggle to trace those diminishing few honourable souls who refuse to hand down wrongful verdicts on the 'instructions' of higher authorities, or ignore orders concerning alteration of election results.

On the contrary, we are a nation where it takes quarter of a century for a judge, who later served as the chief justice of the country to “regret” dispatching a duly elected prime minister to the gallows on dubious grounds. Still, the person under discussion is a rare exception who though belated at least acknowledges his mistake. In general, ethics, honesty and ingenuousness are a rarity in the land of pure.

Likewise, the viciousness of those who are meant to uphold the law and shield the citizens from unscrupulous elements is beyond description. Just one case would be enough to epitomize the incredible malevolence of Pakistani police. Recently, mutilated, decomposing corpses of two innocent minor girls, allegedly sexually abused before putting to death, were found buried in police quarters in Karachi. A heinous crime of this magnitude not only failed to incur the wrath and shock of their colleagues, once the episode became public, police has been doing its best to bail the accused.

The repugnant depth to which we have stooped is frightening, to say the least. What we desperately need is a handful of refuseniks and whistleblowers both in civil and military who have the moral uprightness and courage to say NO, when it matters. After all, defiance to implement wrongful orders is not mutiny. Objecting to unquestionable depravity is not disloyalty. In the absence of upright and diligent whistleblowers in Pakistan there are slim chances that we would ever get rid of moral wretchedness amongst us.