Vulgar display of power

Recent verbal adventures by some people associated with the government have put a dirty "black" stain on the "face" of the government. This attitude spawns from the power given to these people without the fear of any accountability and consequence. The recent unethical and offensive comments (heard by millions of Pakistanis on Nationwide television) by some senior personalities linked with the government show the state of aggravation the government is in. These people face the music everyday representing their illegitimate leader while they try to justify things that are so obviously wrong (like dictatorship). The reason for them to be so agitated is their own failure to prove their point and their selection of words without any sign of fear in their eyes indicates that they can get away with it. They also know that the nation doesn't like them because they have chosen a wrong side that is hated by the masses. So their vulgarity clearly is a result of their frustration.

Wrong moves

Dictatorship is an antonym of democracy, something obviously opposite. It is something so clearly in negation to democracy that I can’t help asking myself, do we really need to waste our time, money and effort to try and drag something that is so visibly contradictory to democracy in the highest courts and hope that judges may change it’s meaning. No matter what happens in the court, dictatorship would still be unacceptable and illegitimate in a democratic environment. So there is no need to try to have something justified that is evidently wrong and deplorable.

The amount of time and thought that is being spent in this unnecessary exercise in court can be spent in resolving issues like terrorism and the so-called war on terrorism in which hundreds of Pakistanis have lost their lives. The efforts that are being made in conducting this dull stage-show can be of substantial outcome if applied towards sincere national reconciliation that can lead to stability. The money that is being wasted on such stupidity can be used for the welfare of the people of Pakistan and to alleviate poverty. None of the actions taken by the government is either logical or morally acceptable.

It is mind boggling that on one side government is trying their level best and working day and night in exploring every possible option, whether legal or illegal, to remain in power and on the other side people are dying everyday in suicide bombings and no one cares. On one hand leaders are spending millions to find loopholes in the law and are even willing to change the constitution for a single person and on the other hand tens of thousands of Pakistanis, women and children sleep on empty stomachs every night.

If you ask them why they are doing it, they reply that it is in the interest of the nation. Someone said that patriotism is the last hope of a scoundrel; after seeing these leaders, perhaps that someone was right.

Benazir: The return

It is clear from the present set of events involving Benazir’s return that all have been decided and the agreement has been reached between herself and Musharraf. Their silence is speaking so loudly but both of these leaders don't have the guts to admit it in public because they will lose the last ounce of support they have, if they have left any. The thing to notice is the blatant display of hypocrisy; if Benazir was so against the uniform and dictatorship she would have decided to come before the presidential elections and protested against and legally challenged Musharraf’s candidancy in court but she decided otherwise. Now as Nawaz Sharif out of the way, her arrival after the presidential elections clearly indicates her facilitation of Musharraf becoming president in uniform. It also vindicates the perception that the reelection of Musharraf as a president in uniform was also part of the deal. After election if Musharraf retains his presidency and his army chief office then it will become a hard fact and then there will be no point in pushing this issue further. But Benazir doesn’t care about that; all she cares about is her own personal interests, her cases and the share in power.

Many analysts say that the marriage of PPP and dictatorship is unnatural, but the reality is that the power hungry and corrupt leaders have lost all their ideological beliefs and have no vision, patriotism and sincerity for Pakistan left in them, all they now see and care about is their own interests. Now from Musharraf’s end the next step is to rig the polls so that their agreement is upheld and everything afterwards will be hunky dory and all the required and agreed constitutional amendments will take place and the latest editions of that dwindling constitution will be available in every book store.

Thank you, Mr. President

Thank you, Mr. President for showing us how bad dictatorship is for the country by trying to distort the shape of the constitution, depriving Pakistani citizens from their basic rights and by killing innocent Pakistanis in the name of so-called war on terror.

Thank you, Mr. President for ensuring that the military will never dare to come in power again, after creating the poisonous hatred for the military in the hearts and minds of all Pakistanis, which has resulted in civil war in parts of the country.

Thank you, Mr. President for showing us the real faces of corrupt, immoral and insincere politicians by forming Q-League and by striking deals for personal interests with other corrupt and selfish leaders.

Thank you, Mr. President for making the judiciary independent and strong by illegally trying to remove the chief justice, which has created unity within the judiciary and shielded it from political influence.

Thank you, Mr. President for opening our eyes by enlightening us with all these truths and making us realize the true worth of freedom and democracy by robbing us of them.

tick tick tick...

If one sees the current internal situation of Pakistan, Pakistan feels like a time bomb ticking towards its destiny. Pakistan was never that unstable internally with a deteriorating image on the foreign front. Our selfish and corrupt leaders have planted this bomb with their own hands; how different are they from a suicide bomber? Fighting someone else’s war with its own people has made this country come to point where everything seems to be on the verge of collapse. The proxy war of United States against Pakistani citizens using Pakistani armed forces is now taking its toll and the country’s own army is being considered as an enemy. Everyone is now becoming rebellious in Pakistan. Apart from the lack of democracy, adding fuel to this inferno are the government’s flawed policies that are driven by the interests of foreign countries. These policies always compromised on national interests and weakened every institution in Pakistan. No institution in country at the moment is strong enough to solve the problems that have stemmed from the rule of cruel dictatorship that is pushing Pakistan closer to the edge of oblivion. The only institute that regained its respect and honor is the Judiciary, but as seen from the recent events, the Judiciary has been slapped again by the government by denying Pakistani citizens their basic rights. If the country’s own government denies its own people their basic rights then who will grant them? If the country’s own government does not uphold the law then how would they expect the people of the country to do so? The example of lawlessness is evident from the latest attack on Supreme Court in Karachi. Pakistan is so fragile at the moment that any wrong move can take us apart.

The reason we are all at this chaotic moment in time is that we never voiced against such actions. We let our corrupt leaders who don’t care about us, choose this explosive situation as our destiny. If something that stops working is changed; we the people of Pakistan need to gather and overthrow this flawed leadership and replace it with the one that cares about the people and national interests. It is about time we change our foreign policy and let the interest of the nation decide who our allies are and who are our enemies. The time is running out and we need to pull the plug now if we want to keep this bomb from exploding else one day we will be named with the countries like Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia and Algeria in the history of the world.

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (a.k.a PML-Q)

The invincible superheroes of democracy, who believe that democracy, can only prevail under the shadow of dictatorship. They believe that without dictatorship one cannot sense the importance of democracy that is why dictatorship is inevitable for Pakistan. They believe that the bunch of them is the best of 160 million Pakistanis and that is why they don’t find it necessary to listen to the so-called less knowing and inept people of the country. They are not ordinary people they have the superpowers of disloyalty, dishonesty, lying and immorality. They believe it is better to lie then to speak the truth because truth may be too complicated for the simple Pakistanis to comprehend. They believe in the display of their superpowers to defeat the enemies who may make the inferior people of Pakistan develop some sort of superiority complex. Their leader, a caped crusader, a gentleman of high prestige and respect, whose suit is the source of his superhuman strength. He is the sole commander of the league who chose the best among the 160 million as his worthy side-kicks and the deserving members of the league. This is the powerful force of the new century that has changed the face of Pakistan. This is the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (a.k.a PML-Q).

Who are we?

After seeing another despicable and immoral act by a shameless, dishonest and lying dictator who forcefully exiled a Pakistani citizen against his will; and after seeing other fellow citizens quietly watch the freedom taken away from him, makes me think, who are we? Are we mindless slaves happy to live under a cruel master? Are we cattle that anyone can use, slaughter and then eat us? Are we lower and less important then the animals that have more rights then us? Have we accepted this as our fate? Are we willing to die in slavery then to live freely? Are we completely dead and soulless that we are barely bothered by the injustice we face every moment in our lives? Who are we?

We are the masters of our own destiny. We and only we can protect ourselves and take what is rightfully ours. We and only we can defend our rights from the forces who are trying to enslave us. We and only we are the cure to the cancer of dictatorship and plague of corrupt leadership. The day we realize this will be the day remembered in history for all times.

The Enlightened Road To Moderation

One of the very first lessons learnt in school is when and why our country came into existence. After so many years we still remember that lesson but that surety or the enthusiasm with which this lesson was taught has been lost somewhere in translation. We are becoming a nation of many contradictions. Our inner conflicts are beginning to tremor and making us confused and misleading us on how to come to blows with the outer conflicts. In order to combat the modernized world we have been told to become “enlighten modernized citizens” which seems to be a good strategy but is this strategy applicable to all citizens living in this “wannabe modernized nation”. Looking around one is compelled to think that are we becoming “modernized” or “westernized”? The westernization has definitely had its impact on the modernly enlightened, which is not a bad thing, but the only harm it has done is, that it has NOT made us aware of “PAKISTANIAT”. We are trying to get westernized but are we really adopting the good and bad values of westernized society, we still keep slaves in our homes whom we just give petty sum of money to make our lives more relaxed, this mere sum three or four thousands is probably not good enough to feed them two times a day let alone of education, health and a roof.

The most unfortunate part is that this privileged or the gradually westernizing small sect of the society believe that they represent Pakistan whereas the bare fact is people living in rural areas who in present age are still deprived of clean drinking water and other basic necessities make majority of the country. They are still migrating to urban areas to improve their living standards; they are the people who are not exposed to English language till the sixth grade, how can we expect them to earn a better livelihood in our ‘modern’ cities. There is a big gap between the different economic classes of today and this void between the very rich and despondent of our society is only widening. This disparity can lead us to total chaos, people need to stand up for their rights, and put an end to this exploitation caused by lack of opportunities and abundance of human resource. This social injustice has initiated cultural differences among the different faction of the masses. Whose annual pay raise is in paisas, the company may be earning profit in crores, but the labour which serves as blood for production unit has got coins to share just because cheap labour is available in Pakistan and the fortunate enough have got full liberty to exploit it. Just imagine income of 4,000 rupees and by the end of year an increase of few rupees, at which rate are these people living their life in our global village. believe they are really rich and enjoy a lavish life style are they really rich, We will have to rise as a nation, nation that is on the road of progress to a better future. But for that we first have to believe in ourselves as a nation. The present problems we face today illiteracy, poverty, unemployment, cultural unawareness are result of our own attitudes, our own approach towards life. These problems exist in modern societies as well but not to that extent as they do in our society. It has been sixty years since our inception, now is the time for us to mature as a nation. Understand where we have gone wrong, analyze our weakness, improve on our strengths and grow as a stronger nation
I want to request all the landlords and all mill owners, and all the industrialists to free these people, and don’t exploit them, give them their right, give them a share of what they really earn for you, don’t pay they them because they don’t have any other option in life to get what they are being paid. They are the people stooped to the lowest level in our society, and they are the ones looking for glitter of hope in their lives, and they are the ones who have the most energy to achieve that average standard of living everybody hopes for, we just need to provide them with the impetus, and with this energy they will bring us out on the surface and we will all set afloat, but we need to take the initiative. Once we are out on the surface we would be able to show the world we are a proud nation, a nation brought into existence for the Muslims of the subcontinent, who are aware of their values and who are at power with the rest of the world. Let’s do it, let’s do it for the sake of ‘Pakistaniat’.

Written by: Mudassar Babar
mudassar_95@hotmail.com

Deal vs. Democracy

In the past few weeks where an alliance of political parties is working together to rid Pakistan of dictatorship, which infact now is taking it's last few breaths, a party solely lend a helping hand to the dying dictatorship. This conditional help also known as "deal" has significantly damaged the reputation of that political party. Now if we stop and think, the questions are, why did this democratically elected party found it necessary to go for a deal with a dictator? How can both PPP and Musharraf benefit from this deal? And is it in the interests of democracy and the nation?

First of all after the recent freedom of judiciary and the up rise in the thoughts of an average Pakistani it was a very good chance for the political parties to take leverage from this situation and put an end to dictatorship. Most of the parties did try and formed an alliance against the dictatorship. In these dire times Musharraf needed help from a political entity who has popular support to strengthen him else it was time for him to leave the stage. At this crucial moment when the way was being paved towards democracy PPP made the biggest mistake to talk to the dictator for a share in power.

In every deal there is give and take where both parties negotiate on certain needs. The nature of “needs” from PPP as seen now is more of a facade to the actual agenda of an individual, the party leader Benazir Bhutto. Benazir individually without the consent of her party secretively met Musharraf and kept on meeting his colleagues till today. The prime need of Benazir is the remission from the corruption charges against her, which as it sounds is a personal interest and not the interest of the nation. Because of the arrogance of Musharraf and some deadlocks over certain issues she went to US to put foreign pressure on Musharraf to strike a deal for share in power. This shows how selfish and insincere she is and how far she can go to get into power, clearly in opposition to what her father died for. After that deal BB is supposed to be the prime minister and Musharraf can remain the president, obviously after certain amendments in the constitution; again for personal interests and not for the nation. The power will then be divided among both leaders; the percentage of division of power is one of the reasons for the deadlock in the negotiations.

Now clearly this whole episode is not in the interest of the nation, neither is it good for democracy. The deal is not an end to dictatorship instead it will strengthen it. It has made PPP less popular among the people of Pakistan and considerably dropped it's vote bank. This deal also shows that if it is successful and the power sharing agreement is reached then the elections will be rigged in order to uphold the agreement as neither party of this deal is popular. This is a blatant act against the spirit of democracy. It is high time for all of us to put an end to the corrupt leadership that makes mockery of people’s sentiments, national interests and the spirit of democracy. We need popular opposition and not a deal to end the dictatorship so all Pakistanis can enjoy the freedom in democracy that was the vision of Quad-i-Azam.

Written By Kamran
xeus_man@yahoo.com