The NAB Diaries – The Aftermath

Guest Blog by Amer Nazir

I read about that in Introduction to Psychology; that, and the chapter on caged rats whod give themselves electric shocks for something to do. And the ones on the pigeons, trained to peck a button that made a grain of corn appear. Three groups of them: the first one got one grain per peck, the second one grain every other peck, the third was random. When the man in charge cut off the grain, the first group gave up quite soon, the second group a little later. The third group

never gave up. Theyd pecked themselves to death, rather than quit. Who knew what worked?

The Handmaids tale

Margaret Atwood.

I wrote the NAB Diaries with few objectives in mind. Firstly, I have to seek justice. Not just for my own sake but for the sake of my daughters as well. And then after all it is my right. And secondly, apart from that, beyond the issue of a heartless administration…I also wanted our society to look at itself…

This may not endear me to some but it is now time. If the peoples resistance, the only hope for this country of ours is to achieve anything, then our society at large has to look at itself critically, it should check its bearing, adjust its compass otherwise administrations may change, judiciaries may come and go but the situation will not change…

I suffered from the hands of my enemies but this is how it is suppose to be is it not… at least they did it for a reason and I failed to defend myself against them… but it is the actions of my own, the people around me, and the actions of the spectators, the indifferent lot, which was truly amazing. In my case, I dont cry foul when hurt by the enemies, it is just a consequence, a part of the game but it was those who took this opportunity to bring me down further, who made me stand trial for everything except for the crime at hand, as this was the most opportune moment is what I consider as the debasement of our society…

One can say that this is perhaps human nature but then while the Pakistani army establishment was snatching everything that I had earned and which was rightfully mine, at the same time the British government was providing a home to my wife and daughters, admitting them to schools, referring my daughters to psychiatrists who could help them with the trauma… while, in my own country, the army authorities were breaking every civilized law under the guise of accountability and the rest of the society was judging me as I said for everything under the sun, when my own were implying forcefully that I had it coming to me, that I deserved it for one reason or another at the same time, a foreign country was providing victims with another chance in life… A foreign society was showing compassion and all this time, my own society was trying to put its hand inside my chest and wrench my heart of any blood that might still be there…to make sure that I was left with no heart beat it kept on kicking a fallen man…

Pray to God for His mercy, they rightly said. Ask for His forgiveness. Think of what you have done to have brought this upon you. Come on think, what have you done wrong? They kept on saying and I kept on thinking, at times to the extent that I came to the realisation that perhaps the perpetuators of the crime against me were right in what they did that they had acted according to Gods will… that they were Gods vigilantes…

It is not to say that this is not the best time for anyone to think about the mistakes in ones life, not the best time to seek forgiveness but what is the point of compelling every victim to conceive himself as a perpetuator of a crime of some sort… especially when this is blown out of proportions, when it exceeds limits is simply beyond me… and when there is absolutely no inclination to help by those who pass judgements…

There is of course no consideration given to the fact that innocent people also suffer in this world as if there is a dearth of extremely bad people out there… as if, absence of misfortune alone is Godliness… as if punishing people for crimes they may not have committed is Gods idea to teach jurisprudence to mortals…

To such people I say, leave Gods judgements to Him please. Why dont you on the other hand concentrate on whether a person is being rightly punished for a crime at hand or not… confine yourself please to what should be your role and which should be of extending a benefit of doubt, of considering everyone as innocent unless proven otherwise, or else every victim in this world will be branded a transgressor of one sort or another… no victim would ever be a victim in the true sense, every victim would be an indirect criminal, and the punishment would be deemed as deserving…

And then, it is not that I blame our society as such, a society where people live in glass houses, where very icon has fallen over time, where there is so much disillusionment and bitterness that even Eidhi may be selling human skeletons…. and when at times life seems to be like a maze with alleys that may lead to a dead end as well and when though the governments in humane societies appoint officials to stand at every nook and corner to lead the common man in the right direction in our own society the officials stand guard to signal towards the wrong directions since it may be the only way for them to prey on the lost & wayward victims… the consequence of which is that those who emerge from the other end of the maze are deemed to be in league with the corrupt… and those who lose their way and perish must have displeased the Almighty…

My only contention is that what about the fundamental issue the issue of the morally corrupt who are responsible for all this who have made our society so sceptical and have pushed it towards even inhumanity and which is so evident in our daily lives… who is going to hold them accountable? And if it is the peoples resistance that is going to make a difference then should the people not re-think the values that should govern their future… otherwise, what would be the point…

The above is not the only judgement and verdict that I have received over the years. There are many. The most despicable being that I tried to go beyond limits that, I tried to reach the stars, that I was greedy for profit and for the improvement of myself and my lot… as if this is an appropriate answer to the American dream. As if trying to make money, to try and live a life of abundance is Godlessness, as if being competitive is wrong since one may fall and to this lot, I have nothing to say except… Go to hell, I always feared poverty, and I now know what it does to you…

And then as a last resort, the above lot come up with a new theory… they say I was incompetent and a bad manager… they would say anything at all to distract from the issue at hand, to not take up the responsibility of a victim… and it is then that I again say to them to go to hell. I had the courage to run a business for eighteen years that grew by more than 100% every year. I dared to do what no one else did in my industry in Pakistan that they should some time try it themselves…

But, one of the most interesting judgements came from a worldly-wise corrupt high Police official… He said, Cant you see the tide that is coming to sweep you away, but instead of doing something about it, all that you ever do is to cry at the top of your voice that you are innocent… do you think this will save you… do you think this is of any significance and what right do you have anyway to try and impose your morality on others… why cant you be realistic…? Do you seriously believe in this day and age that if you are unjustly wronged then there will be bolts of thunder from the sky, that the heaven and earth will shake… when will you grow up… is it our fault that you did not make hey while the sun was shinning? Dont you know the fate of so many, what makes you think you are special?

Well… and I yet reiterate my stance here, once again, that instead of complicating matters, all that I am saying is, all that I am trying to do is to have a fair trial from a competent platform who can deliver a judgement whether I am guilty of the charges or not that whether I deserved the punishment for the charges that were never filed against me and for which I was never taken to a court… and that why should the actual perpetuators of the crime go free…

After all, my case, and many other cases like mine are only the barometer of our society. I would not have suffered if our judiciary and media were free. If the army was not morally bankrupt. If our leader Musharaff was not such a mediocre man, someone who is probably not even fit to run a grocery store in a free economy… (for this some may like to read my satires on chowk.com) but most of all, if our society had not lost hope in mankind…

Those who have read the comments given on the NAB Diaries will see the above messages repeated there as well. The essence is the same that I had it coming to me… that I deserve what I got… the state of affairs in our country are such that people think that the function of human justice does not exist… they also think that to protest against tyranny is romantic idealism, an impracticality… and one wonders if there is any need of the human courts at all if the entire burden is to be left to God almighty… but perhaps, if not always, some times at least it is just an excuse to not give a hand to a victim and look the other way…

Before I left Pakistan, now more than three years ago, I told a friend that I will write and tell people what happened to me. He turned around and asked what good will it do… people will only pass judgements, he said. I know, I replied, but what else can I do? What other recourse is available to me? Why should I turn the other cheek and die without anyone ever knowing my side of the story…?

You have always been a troublemaker, my friend said to me, with the only difference that you create equal trouble for yourself… Anyway, he continued, in order to write what you consider as the truth you will have to get rid of your inhibitions… do you think you will ever be able to do that….?

And, I have thought of it for years. It is not easy to apprise people of ones true personal state. Not only is it extremely painful but ego also comes in the way as Hermann Hess so beautifully narrates in Siddhartha…

I have thought of my inhibitions ever since … and once having completed the NAB Dairies… I have finally decided to lay it bare but which is not to say that I am surrendering… it is just that I dont care anymore… I have a purpose in life and it is important to me, it makes me go on…

For me, it has not been just a matter of losing my country, my wealth, my career, my livelihood, my dignity but I have lost my family as well. I was away from my wife and daughters for more than three years, held up in Pakistan… My wife never forgave me for the role my family played and that I could not protect them against what transpired… and she and my daughters, whom I brought into this world, for whom I could do nothing… moved on with their lives…

The above only further impressed on my friends that I am an extremely bad man who is being punished by God but I think my bad times are yet not over since I yet do not understand what they are talking about… they say that I am not a religious man, and they are quite right… more than religion, I do place God at a higher pedestal and am vary of those who practise religion but are heartless and liars… I instead hope to try and reveal the evil people who are behind this personal catastrophe so that they dont do it to others since their next victims will in turn also be labelled as deserving the punishment meted out to them… and as for the perpetuators of such crimes, to be honest, once again, this indirect vigilante role assigned to evil persons is quite disgusting by all standards.

It took me a long time to get a work permit but I have not been able to find a good job, often unemployed, I have struggled. Unless you know people, no white man is willing to give a job to a Muslim 48 year old Pakistani they have better choices. Even otherwise I have been an entrepreneur, a useless credential without capital and success… in other words, I have hardly any skill-set…

The reason I am writing this, throwing my inhibitions to the wind, is for someone to perhaps learn something… maybe understand where our society is leading and that how it does not offer any benefit of doubt, any hope to a victim… there are only judgements and more judgements… people will never consider for a moment, not a single moment, that I perhaps did not really deserve all this… instead, I only became an untouchable, a man with an infectious disease, a person to take Ibrat from…

The fact of the matter is that at times I have been hungry for days and have not had warm clothing… and I have often asked for loans from friends, some of them very rich, but have only been offered pittance on occasions though ninety five percent of the times there has been refusal… they look at me as someone who is set out to borrow money, swindle them… including those who used to come to my house and were served caviars… they say, I have become shameless, they say again and again that I should pray to God, but to tell you the truth… what I needed was hard cash to keep the shelter above my head, money to pay the bills till I could find my feet again, there is hardly any substitute for hard cash, and that is what I needed, but what they told me was to look inside me and repent….. but then repent I will not, more than is warranted… It is quite easy to die of guilt more so if lets say for argument sake alone, one is not guilty… at least of the crime under consideration…

And thus… I wash my dirty linen in public… one of the recent comments on Teeth.com was that the journalist in London should not have asked an entirely relevant question from Musharaff since it meant washing dirty linen in public… and one of the comment on the NAB Diaries was that why did NAB pick on me and not on other people… and now, I give my answer because I am a bad man, I am guilty, are you happy now… but I insist I am not guilty of the crime for which I have been punished… they got the wrong person… and as for my other guilts… no comments only a suggestion look inside your own selves before casting a stone! At least the evil people are better in the sense that they defend each other and look after each others interests….

Copies of the NAB Dairies and my letter asking for the resignation of chairman NAB was sent to the President, the Chairman NAB, the UK High Commissioner etc. None responded. They did not even try to refute… needless to say they are arrogant. It does not matter that my case can only make the President seem a liar with reference to the claims he made during his trip to misguide and charm the high and mighty…. obviously, the question of the self-serving army officers having enough shame to impart justice seems absurd…

Yesterday, over the phone, a friend doubted my sanity when I told him that it is my right to seek redress until I die… I told him that the PIA captains have mentioned in their newsletter that they have recovered 75% of their investment by selling the assets of the E-Tech Group roughly half of which is mine… and he laughed. My friend said that perhaps I will never leave my world of imagination and recognize reality… and I told him that he was right…

For me the reality is that the PIA captains illegally took away my business and sold the assets with the help of the then Chairman NAB Munir Hafeez. That on top of that they also illegally persecuted me and my family and tried to frame me for thievery. I, on my part, waited for them to prove my guilt but once they could not, I proved my innocence instead… and this is my reality. But for others, my struggle for truth is not a reality it is impractical utopia in a society that is not familiar with justice… the punishment I have received on the other hand seems to be a reality which I am suppose to accept as final justice without protest… but this I will not…

Apart from my fear of poverty, I had another fear, and somehow both have come true… When I was very young, I read Jude the Obscure and I feared an obscure life…

But there will not be any regrets once my case is taken up at the right forum and the army officers are made out as heartless people who prey on defenceless citizens who bite the hands that feed them… and then only will I know that my life has not been in vain…

Okay, question, I say to Morrie His bony fingers hold his glasses across his chest which rises and falls with each labored breath.
“Whats the question? he says.
Remember the book of Job?
“From the bible?
Right. Job is a good man, but God makes him suffer. To test his faith.
“I remember
Takes away everything he has, his house, his money, his family . . .
“His health.
Makes him sick.
“To test his faith.
Right. To test his faith. So I am wondering,. . .
“What are you wondering?
What you think about that?
Morrie coughs violently. His hands quiver as he drops them by his sides.
“I think, he says, smiling, “God overdid it.

Mitch Albom

Tuesdays with Morrie