WAKE UP!!!!!

“Another such victory and we have had it” King Pyrrhus of Epirus

This ancient quote comes to my mind after the recent election results were announced in Pakistan. The old crooks are back with gloss and glitter. The humble forgetful people of Pakistan are happy to welcome them back into power. People have short memories, it is true for any nation, but a nation that forgets its history, its geography is changed by its enemies. Napoleon predicted China’s emergence as a global power long before anyone else could, he said, “Let China sleep, for when she awakes she will shake the world”. Unfortunately Napoleon was not around to witness the state of affairs of Pakistan, for he might have said, “Let Pakistanis sleep for when they awake there shall be no more Pakistan, and the world shall laugh at you”.

Democracy in Pakistan means nothing more than a breeding ground for robber barons and scoundrels. Pakistan has a literacy rate of 40% and according to the latest UN Human Development Report one of the few countries in the world which has a declining literacy rates. Literate in Pakistan means anyone who can read and write their name. The electoral constituencies in Pakistan are nothing more than family holdings, where elections results have produced the same people every time elections have been held. Only change has been the different family members switching political parties, with half the family members sitting in opposition and half in government.

The political background of Pakistan is very complex yet simple at the same time. The Indian sub continent was ruled by Mughals for a longtime. When Shah Jehan was the King, Mughal Empire was becoming huge. In order to rule efficiently the Mughals had divided the empire into provinces which were further divided into cities, and towns. Further sub-division led to the creation of zameens, or land holdings ruled by zamindar, which were loyal to the Mughal Empire, they paid taxes, maintained an army, which was also loyal to the Mughal King. When the sun set on the Mughal Empire Punjab was over run and ruled by Sikhs, the zameendars in no mood to let go off their power and prestige simply removed the Mughal Flag and replaced it with Sikh Flag. Then Sikhs were over thrown by British Empire the zameendars removed the Portrait of Raja Duleep Singh and replaced it with the Queen. These zameendars were not interested in anything else but maintaining their own power. Zameendars of Punjab were the most active among all. They happily had served in Mughal, Sikh and British armies. When the zameendars saw that creation of Pakistan was inevitable they started joining the Muslim League, and labeled themselves patriots. “Patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels” – Samuel Johnson

The British created their Unionist Party which openly called for the British to remain in India, and was totally against the creation of Pakistan. Almost all the zameendars of Punjab joined this party. The situation in Sind was similar, and the famous families of Sind and Punjab were getting their monthly stipends from British Empire. Chandios, Mengals, Talpus, Tiwana, Jamali, Ghutani, Bazinjo, Bughti, Khan of Kalat, Mukhdoom family of Punjab, Aitezaz Ahsan’s grandfather, Hamid Nasir Chatta’s grandfather, Shahnawaz Bhutto, Sikander Hiyat are just few prominent names from a very long laundry list of families whose allegiance for a few hundred years have not been with the people whose lives they are destined to destroy, but with their masters elsewhere. The irony is that the current political leaders are the grand children or direct relatives of these same people. The election result has not bought any change, we can have elections every year but it will never bring any change until we change the system once and for all. Doing that is a mighty task.

The situation right now is that humble people of Pakistan think that new government will reduce the prices of food item, create jobs, restore judiciary, etc. Nothing of this sort is possible, Inflation standing at 12% will increase, gas prices are going to be increased, trade deficit already worst in our history will grow completely out of control. Both Nawaz League and PPP are completely incompetent to provide any direction to the nation. Both these parties are corrupt to the core, most of their party members are the same landlords who are not interested in anything else but making more money. ANP, another party that Is in coalition with PML(n) and PPP, was founded by Abdul Ghaffar Khan, who was called “frontier Gandhi”, because of his allegiance to Indian Congress and his anti Pakistan stance. ANP still is a sub nationalist anti-state party. As Mohammad Ali Jinnah said “Every successive government of Pakistan will be worst than its predecessor”. Equally useless are the other political parties. Law and order situation is not going to improve either. The coalition of thugs will eventually collapse. Talk of restoring the Chief Justice is pretty childish for everyone should realize that Big Brother does not like some Chief Justice interfering in their war on terror. Americans have no interest in our political process, their strategic interests are at the moment well maintained by GHQ and they will always be concerned with the army chief. There is no grass root movement, no real democratic socialist movement that can up root these thugs.

Under the umbrella of globalization the world is becoming completely capitalized. Capitalized economy has only served the interest of the elite class. The rich has become richer and the poor have become poorer. The European countries have modeled themselves on socialist-democracy, hence their nations are better off economically and socially than Big Brother. Malaysia Is another example of a nation that was smart enough to keep a distance from the IMF and World Bank right after the 1997 South East Asian Economic crisis. Recently countries in South America are slowly transforming themselves from market economies to socialist economies. Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Venezuela are some examples. Coming back to Pakistan, the main problem is that we need a political party that has realized the main problem of the nation. The main problem is that we need to transform ourselves from capitalistic nation to a socialist nation. At the moment there is no political party that is either nationalist or working towards socialist democracy. Until there is a political party that is working to free us from the chains of capitalistic slavery we should not expect any change in the lives of the common man.

What we need in Pakistan is a complete overhaul of the system, we need to get rid of these tyrants and robber barons who have become our leaders in the name of patriotism, as Thomas Jefferson said, “tree of liberty must be watered from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” It’s high time that we wake up from our slumber and decipher the cheap rhetoric that our politicians have been feeding us from a very longtime.

Talha Mujaddidi