Oscar
Moderator
Of course they have unmarked vehicles, geofencing, and the power to destroy character certificates. That is not the debate. The debate is how they get away with using them. You are confusing coercion with invitation.I disagree with notion of civil complicity. It's a forced shadow rule. You forget the military has guns, unmarked vehicles and masked men to enforce their desires. They can geofence you. They can cancel your character certificate. They can label you anti-national, Yahudi Agent, RAW Agent or worse, a communist.
Politicians are not necessarily warriors and are easy to coerce. Grassroot level student politics has long been obliterated. Us ki jagah ham Model United Nations kartay hay which is Mashallah, just as useless as the real thing.
I do have one very good example of PTI empowering civilian supremacy. That is Sohail Afridi. As far as I've researched, he is no big man's son. He's common cattle and yet he's CM. Just him being made CM is a huge step in the direction that can make this country great.
Politicians in Pakistan are not just innocent victims being dragged away at gunpoint. They actively knock on the establishment’s door and ask them to deploy those unmarked vehicles against their political rivals. Imran Khan was not forced at gunpoint to accept the rigged system in 2018. He was not crying in a corner when the military was throwing his opponents in jail. He cheered for it. He actively outsourced his political fights to the very military you are now calling a shadow rule. That is the definition of civil complicity. You cannot rent the military’s guns to shoot your enemies and then play the helpless victim of a shadow rule when they finally turn those same guns on you.
Your example of Sohail Afridi actually proves my exact point about how the system works. Yes, it sounds great on paper that a 36 year old from a middle class family in Khyber is now the Chief Minister. But calling this a massive victory for civilian supremacy is just drinking the party kool-aid. Afridi is sitting in that chair, but he is already co-chairing Apex Committees with the military leadership and operating within the exact boundaries the state sets. He is not dismantling the establishment. He is surviving within the load bearing structure they built. That is the reality of power.
You want this to be a clean, simple war between the pure civilians and the evil military.
But if you genuinely want civilian supremacy, you have to stop giving politicians a free pass. Treating politicians like helpless cattle who are just bullied by the big bad army gives them a permanent excuse to keep cutting deals in the dark.
Do not just parrot the cult’s victim narrative. You clearly have the brain to see the flaws in the system, which means you have a responsibility to be the bridge for the people who are still completely brainwashed by it. If your generation just retreats into useless Model UNs or blind leader worship, the cycle will never break. You want to beat the military? Stop treating your leaders like victims and start holding them accountable for inviting the military into the game in the first place. Be the generation that actually forces them to stop compromising.





