“Will the real establishment man step forward.” “Shehbaz Sharif says he has been accused of being the establishment man but he has suffered during dictatorships and…”
“Well that’s strange – I heard he is a devotee of Einstein’s theory.”
“Of relativity? I doubt if anyone in the Sharif family has studied that level of physics. The Nawaz Sharif sons make money in real estate – selling to Pakistani real estate magnates at a higher price than the market value….”
“And Notification Maryam Nawaz (NMN) has learnt that if in trouble tell your mum, that’s the advice she gave to the child who was physically abused by the judge’s wife and after her own mum’s passing she tells daddy.”
“I reckon that advice may be specific to a socio-economic category, and of course the mother’s powers within the family.”
“Indeed, anyway what I found strange was that Shehbaz Sharif is a firm believer of Einstein’s philosophical statement that insanity is making the same mistakes and expecting different results – unlike Big Brother who has persistently refused to draw lessons from his mistakes which cost him the prime ministership three times already.”
“Hey back off will you. How many times did Benazir Bhutto, a highly educated, politically astute, learning from past mistakes, suffer the same fate as Nawaz Sharif?”
“So what do you reckon is the common factor?”
“Two to three years in the prime minister’s house gives one a false sense of the power he/she enjoys, a perception fueled by all stakeholders, and with it comes arrogance which reminds me of the old saying whom the gods would destroy they first make mad - mad as without reason.”
“Stakeholders as in guided missiles in one’s party so shall we say The Man Still Without a Portfolio, Sharjeel Memon and …and the disappeared - Babar Awan, Shahzad Akbar…”
“I get it but also stakeholders who may be deferential but may wield greater power and…”
“Right but I haven’t seen any evidence of arrogance in Shehbaz Sharif yet.”
“No because he has been juggling eleven political parties headed by shall we say challenging individuals and his own party headed by even a more challenging individual who refuses to learn from his past mistakes; sprinkle it with stakeholders with great expectations…”
“Hmm, great expectations is a novel by Dickens and I quote, in a word I was too cowardly to do what I knew to be right, as I had been too cowardly to avoid doing what I knew to be wrong. How many cabinet members, past and present, can this apply to?”
“All I guess - remember another quote from that novel, scattered wits take a long time in picking up.”
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023