By Anjum Ibrahim
Copyright brecorder
“So, how many pillars of state are there?”
“You being facetious?”
“You sticking your neck out dangerously.”
“How do you come to that conclusion?”
“There are three pillars that in Pakistan are not firmly anchored…”
“Who was the contract given to? I heard that a National……”
“Shut up. Anyway, don’t talk textbook. I mean, name a country where the three pillars – the executive, the legislature, and the judiciary – are keeping a balance of sorts.”
“That’s true, the executive in nearly all Western countries has been taking decisions that are divorced from the people who gave them a split mandate, but democracy allows them to form coalitions, ban freedom of speech and some of their competitors from elections and…”
“That’s democracy for you. Did you hear the latest? The OSCE was requested by Georgia to monitor their elections and the OSCE refused, saying it needed more time than the one month…”
“Georgia, Meloni? Why would she ever…”
“Georgia, the country silly. And the reason could be that the European Union wants Georgia to vote a certain way which is unlikely so they want to be able to challenge the result and accuse the electoral system…”
“Gotcha, but going back to the pillars of state, need I add that the deep state has been the real decision maker all this time, and it was never cited as a pillar and new social science books must include that as a pillar by itself.”
“That’s interesting, but what do you think of the fourth pillar, the media?”
“Well I reckon information is a key, but the mode of information accessed by the majority of the people of the world is no longer mainstream media but social media and…”
“So you reckon social media is the fourth pillar?”
“Absolutely my friend – the first pillar is the deep state, the second pillar can be the executive but only if it is in synch with the deep state and the third pillar is the general public which is accessing alternate media and as proof I would refer you to the massive right wing rally in the UK, more than 150,000 people…”
“Hmmm interesting.”
Copyright Business Recorder, 2025
