Pakistan: Youth uneasy about political impasse

By Sadia Qasim Shah

‘Her time aik he tension, Azadi march kamyab hoga kay nahi,’ tweets a teenager.

‘Iss Azadi march ki tension say mainay hospital chalay jana hay… agar aisi he news milti rahen tu…,’ says a message posted another youngster on Twitter.

These tweets are enough to suggest how worried our young people are about the country’s political situation in light of the prolonged anti-government sit-ins in Islamabad.

Mostly at night when things hot up outside parliament house, they turn to private TV channels for updates on the Azadi and Inqilab marches, which had turned into separate sit-ins last Tuesday night.

The TV channels have regularly been covering the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf and Pakistan Awami Tehreek protests against the Pakistan Muslim-League-Nawaz-led federal government besides giving analysis on ‘what is going to happen next.’

Everyday, they wake up with a worry and urgency to know if something had happened after they went to bed.

The first thing many youths, who are in a fever about the political crisis, do in the morning is that they check their Twitter accounts as they don’t want to miss anything on what they declare the late-night show full of sound and fury.

In the morning, all they see on TV channels is that either PTI leader Imran Khan either strolls on his container outside parliament holding a strawberry milkshake in his hand or he issues threats against the prime minister.

On the contrary, PAT leader Tahirul Qadri doesn’t make any appearance in the morning by and large.

However, his supporters stay put under the sun though exhausted yet full of expectations.

Though the excessive watching of TV is causing headache, anxiety and exhaustion, the people keep themselves tuned in hoping for the best.

Even the regular viewers of Mera Sultan, a drama full of intrigues to get the throne, can’t keep up with the show having many twists and turns.

The PTI and PAT leaders as well as PTI sympathisers take the time out and go to the sit-in venue in the evening. However, there is no respite for the TV viewers as they keep glued to the box out of curiosity about political developments.

There is unrest though one may not be directly participating in sit-ins. Many viewers are agitated as they want end to the ‘drama’ on political scene.

A member of Twitterati summarises the entire Islamabad events as ‘a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing,’ the famous lines of Shakespearian tragic hero, Macbeth.

Though people want early end to the crisis, one can’t be very hopeful in light of the government’s political moves in the past. Even then, it is high time that the government hold meaningful dialogue with PAT and PTI to the relief of sit-in participants, a victim of the inflated egos of the leaders of the two parties.