What did the people of Pakistan get in the last 60 plus years from the so called leaders of Pakistan or the Pakistani ruling parties?? Nothing, absolutely nothing at all is what they got, most would say.
If you ask the common man, the peasant, the average person on the streets of Pakistan he will tell you the same. Many average Pakistanis say the truth is that Pakistani people, whoever they are, got no recognition as Pakistanis in the first place. Either they are called Punjabi, Pathan, Balochi, Sindhi or to the shame of the entire partition of India, Muhajirs, immigrants, are a few examples of how people are usually referred to in the not so Urdu speaking Pakistan. The real Pakistan. I know it too as it is my mother land, but that was India, so my homeland, the land of the pure, might not be, all that.
The fact that the people of Pakistan were never given any incentives, living examples, material support nor encouragement in being called Pakistanis or in return to be a part of a broken down and departed land of the warring nations. The term Pakistani is a combination of people mostly from different ethnic backgrounds, all put together in one basket without even asking them.
The result now, decades of cheating and looting and corruption eating away all that’s left of the little Pakistan. PPP, ARD, PML Q or PML N, PTI, MMA, MQM, ISI, CIA, Terrorists, fundamentalists, radicals, or just simply crazy warlords who can all be branded as loyalist terrorists working to eat Pakistan from the grass root to the top, fulfilling their legacies just like how their ancestors did in the past.
Sindh is as barren and desolate as it were when Benazir Bhutto's dad Zulfiqar Bhutto ruled, criticsa rgue that Punjab takes away most of the budget just like administrations before Nawaz Shariff has done, Baluchistan, don’t bother asking about them as they are not regarded as people in the eyes of the country's rich elite rulers, but as a burden on Pakistan, and north west frontiers, even the title that we have given to that state is shameful, as if we don’t regard them as anything but some frontier provinces waiting to defend a country that has never been their own in the first place.
Now, when Musharraf, who only seemed like a lonely voice coming to save the poor and the dying middle class through the intervention of the army, army again?, army being another caretaker, nurturer, protector of Pakistan that only consumes 80 percent budget of the country, protecting Pakistan again seemed like an impossible but probable task keeping in view how the army has always shed or saved Pakistan's skin in the past. But now, surprisingly this man, who seemed to make a headway, now seems to be doing something good for Pakistan, despite the hurdles put against him. But political watchdogs and critics argue that the so called political parties have tried to damage the country from inside and out instead of helping to flourish it, and now they are all standing united against him, to over throw him, this clearly shows the motives of most of the political parties or landlord gangs in Pakistan, but it seems difficult to understand what do they actually want from Pakistan or to steal again from it. See how their activists protest on the streets or kill another party member just to show bloodshed in Pakistan. But not to say, that the Government and the Army intelligence agencies wont do that too, they are all thieves as far as the people are concerned. But how can you simply not trust anyone? Can we leave Pakistan stranded again, do you have any other candidate or choice besides Musharraf? And if Musharraf wants democracy thriving with a happier wealtheir successful Pakistan, then what would you call those people who are fighting trying to appose him? asks, the common painter on the streets of downtown Karachi, critics say.
Nothing done on education, nothing done on providing livelihood for the poorest of the poor of Pakistan, nothing done to stop child abuse, nothing done to uplift the disgusting literacy rate, nothing done to provide access to health care, retirement, pension funds plummeting to the lowest levels in the world, what the hell’s going on??? Why is the Pakistani poor being constantly consumed by the elite? When that poor Pakistani will rise, that day will be called a revolution.
What did Kennedy do when the white supremacists attacked the Africans Americans when all they wanted was to go to school, he retaliated with the military force, why?/, well that’s because all they could understand was that. When no one in Pakistan wants to talk, but before commencing a dialog wants to break your face, then what do you do??? Pakistan, keeping in view all her diversity, is an extremely dangerous and difficult place to live, and yet so many innocent Pakistanis have been doing so for the past 6 decades, all they want is to live, work, prosper, they struggle and then they die at some street corner, while chanting away slogans of harmony and good faith of their party leaders. Who will be held accountable for letting millions of people miss out on basic amenities of a good life??? Who are responsible for the millions of lives lost in Pakistan by the hands of their own disgraced leadership and democracy makers and dictators and blood feuds, and killing of your people by your own people?
Some might say, that is how life is, in many parts around the world, but the question is, is that the only way to live you life? Or is there a better way, to get to a better place?
It is surprising and at the same time encouraging, seeing the people's global response with reference to the emergency in Pakistan. Not only from the west but also from India, Nepal and UK, people from different cast, creed and religions got together to demonstrate their solidarity towards the people of Pakistan. But people who are well fed and don’t have empty stomachs, make a lot of common sense. No one is talking about the actual plight of the people, the face of that common Pakistan whom you might get a glimpse of in the background of an image of some bomb blast, standing shocked and dazed and stunned to his brains. Who would care about him?? Everyone’s after their own personal gains to maybe win an award, or get noticed or maybe to get some sort of a political asylum, or maybe just to show their faces or how they say in Pakistan, if you are not a political journalist then you are not a journalist at all, and that coming from a very senior Pakistani journalist. No wonder why Pakistanis in the media business never think about social journalism, entrepreneurship, ethics and codes of conduct in broadcasting and getting the citizen so aware and involved that he intelligently rises to the challenge with the entire community, and then you bring a policy change and revolution on a national scale, in the real sense, not just by shouting slogans and carrying banners.
I wonder why no one thinks about social journalism in Pakistan, the youth is being falsely misled.
I think of the Pakistan that I remember, like the screen shot you see on top, these are the kinds of sunrises we use to see. But then again, its like asking, is Iraq better off now or during the time of Saddam?
This was unthinkable prior to the proclamation of the emergency rule, it seems as if the global audience was waiting for the people of Pakistan to get up and react so that the peoples call for a free and democratic society would not only be heard but will also be acknowledged and commended. But did the people of Pakistan react or was it just a tiny little part of the entire society that you just saw, bank rolled by the opposing political regimes with their own agendas and vendettas?
A child asks me, do you think they will let Musharraf live, I look at him with deep longing eyes, and say, only if you allow them not to let him live.
But as the title of M. Hanif Raza's book suggests, "The best of Pakistan", is yet to come.
