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Politics today is a marketplace of compromise. A man’s brilliance is measured not by his courage, but by his capacity to sell it. And the world applauds.
In Pakistan’s drawing rooms, the phrase “Zardari is a great politician” is uttered as a compliment, as if deceit was wisdom and corruption was a craft. Pragmatism has become a badge of intellect: compromise, the new currency of political success.
But strip away the rhetoric, and what remains?
Politics without principle is not politics. It’s survival, for the spineless.
And yet, in this modern world of spineless pragmatists, the closest echo of that prophetic politics comes not from the palaces of Riyadh or the parliaments of Islamabad, but from the shattered streets of Gaza.
Hamas, vilified, cornered, and starved, did what global politicians could not: hold the line.
Not for power.
Not for wealth.
But for principle.
In a world armed with nuclear weapons and enormous capital, they stood with nothing but conviction and somehow forced the world to sit at their table. They didn’t beg for legitimacy; they created it.
You can call them militants. The world’s vocabulary will always favour the oppressor.
But politically, in the truest sense of the word, Hamas did what every politician was supposed to: represent the powerless, even when power is impossible.
Politics, at its core, is the art of turning vision into reality. It is not the art of staying in power; it is the courage to challenge power. The Prophet ﷺ did that against empires.
Hamas, in its own flawed humanity, mirrors that defiance, standing before a world that worships pragmatism and declaring: we will not bow.
That’s politics.
Not the kind you learn in think tanks or negotiate over tea, but the kind you live, bleed, and die for.
And perhaps that’s the bitter truth we’ve forgotten:
The world’s real politicians are not in office.
They’re under siege.
Ahmed Velmi
21-10-2025
