Our modern Jericho.

THE Book of Joshua is to blame. Its account of the fall of Jericho has given our politicians the notion that if they too 'shall shout with a great shout; ...the wall of the city shall fall down flat'. These politicians - some now in high office, others languishing in jail, and those who never contested elections - have resorted to this biblical ruse to dislodge incumbent governments.

Once, agitation tended to be local - confined to city squares or main thoroughfares. Disruption was contained, damage confined. Now, dharnas have become the preferred course of registering unhappiness with whoever is in government in Islamabad, and of course these dharnas must take place in the capital city itself.

Negotiations that should lead to a mature consensus within parliament have been replaced by numerous monologues outside it, directed not at opponents but towards the voracious media.

Japan is too refined and sophisticated for immature nations like us to follow but one of its practices merits emulation. When aggrieved Japanese wish to ventilate their resentment, demonstrators do not block traffic, or destroy parked vehicles, or throw stones through shop windows. A few representing the many stand in silent protest. There is no point, the Japanese believe, in wasting everyone's time and money when less can yield as much.

We believe raucous confrontation can outshout rational discourse.

For us, the concept of satyagraha or passive resistance is too tightly wound with Gandhian connotations. We prefer a more muscular approach. We believe raucous confrontation can outshout rational discourse.

It was not so long ago that the disruptive dharna was used as a lever to prise Nawaz Sharif out of the prime ministership. Time has not forgotten the self-appointed role played by Maulana Tahirul Qadri when he incited the long march of 2012 and again (with Imran Khan's half-hearted support) the one of 2014. Then, he came to Pakistan fresh from a seven-year exile in Canada. He brought with him Canadian nationality, loyalty to the Queen, and funding that flew beneath the radar of legal disclosure.

The maulana became a modern Joshua, bent upon destroying with the power of his rhetoric an Islamabad as corrupt as Jericho once was. 'There is no parliament,' he fulminated in front of Parliament House, 'there is a group of looters, thieves and dacoits [bandits] ... Our lawmakers are the lawbreakers.'

Today, his once comrade-in-arms Imran Khan is prime minister. Imran has not...