Who is Running Pakistan?

February 10, 2010
Who is Running Pakistan?
By Saeed Qureshi

The joke is that the angels were submitting their daily reports to God if all was well with humans on earth. God kept quiet while listening about the gravest crisis in several countries. When an angel responsible for Pakistan mentioned Pakistan’s alarming situation, God in a state of urgency asked for the fastest ride. Puzzled, the angels asked God with utmost respect, “O sustainer of the Universe, you were not upset in case of other countries; what is so special with Pakistan?” God answered, “Don’t you know I am running Pakistan.”

Apart from its being a joke, it is true that God almighty, the omnipotent is running Pakistan. Otherwise how could it survive all these years of incessant turmoil brought about by its self seeking leaders? Pakistan is a unique country with a legion of the most pathetic and abject leaders. This country has been treated as a green pasture for two legged poltical animals to graze to their hearts’ fill. Their lust for money is interminably insatiable. The civil society that is like a precious hallmark and an ornament for the civilized societies has been kept at bay by the respective governments in Pakistan.

Since August 14, 1947 to this day someone should point out a day when Pakistan was deemed to be a viable state with internal cohesion and peace. The poltical anarchy and mayhem has remained an enduring curse and damnation bedeviling Pakistan from start to this day. One wonders what was wrong, that Pakistan could not shape up as a democratic, stable and prosperous state.
The people of this country are incredibly resilient, so patient so poverty stricken, so mauled by the loathsome combine of fleecing traders, the power hungry army generals, the poltical knights and lancers, the feudalistic masters, the low and high landlords, the poltical parties with anti Pakistan agendas, the religious coercers and agents of tyranny. In this wonderful country we have been having foreign agents, the fifth columnists, the spiritual manipulators, the hoarders, the black- marketers, the jurists and judges for sale and pawn, the media midgets and the elements with parochial, regional and narrow mentalities and agendas. The bloodhounds of bureaucracy, the ruthless mafias of land grabbers, touts, and muggers, abductors for ransom, the bounty killers and thieves of national exchequer stalk this land of pure with impunity.

We still euphemistically call it the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. In this Islamic Republic, the sectarianism swallows countless innocent lives. The genocidal vendettas take place in the name of race, religion, region, clan and poltical leanings. The rape, kidnappings and land feuds happen as an article of faith and with rare abandon. It is a country where a beast in the form of a human kills a hundred young boys with mask of poisonous gas and celebrates the 100th murder. It’s a country which looks askance when its eastern wing disengages itself from the west. It’s an unfortunate country where the judges kill a prime minister with their pens knowing well, it is a blatant murder. Here the judiciary validates the rule of usurpers under the law of necessity. It’s a country where the leaders roam about like princes in bullet proof SUVs with a retina of armed guards while the masses remain at the mercy of trigger happy killers.

These leaders ensure that no law is passed that benefits the common man. They have large orchards, numerous cattle, and bustling mills. They draw fabulous salaries, beside the mouth watering perks and privileges. Their corruption, loot and plunder and blatant misuse of power is unchecked and unbounded. There is a section of society that imports, exports, take permits and licenses, runs super duper money making shady schemes and takes kickbacks and gets scot free at the end of the day. They use their political leverages to grab power and then indulge in an unabashed spree of nepotism, bribery, horse trading, and never tire of issuing meaningless, phoney statements and making vague promises.

The constitution has been tampered with and its sanctity denigrated by every government amending it to ensure their perpetuation in power. The constitution still lies battered by a dictator and his legacy and illegal interpolations are being grudgingly guarded by a civilian head of state whose moral stature is as tiny as an ant. The ministers publically accused of taking bribes from hardened criminals and bank looters refuse to resign and obstruct a genuine accountability process from moving forward.

Pakistani leaders have all along been having a passion to cast themselves in the role of loyal mercenaries of foreign inimical forces, thus turning the whole country into a war zone during the past two decades. The holy crusades against the godless soviets now have their blowback against the people of Pakistan.

The religious warriors have turned their guns on a country that spawned them. Now in a democratic set up that came into being after almost a decades of authoratarian rule, has brought a deluge of problems for the people of Pakistan. Strange are the mysteries of nature. The power came to the lot of the people who are still on the rosters of the courts as absconders and proven perpetrators of diverse crimes. Old habits die hard, goes the adage and that is what these criminals and thugs and crooks in power are untiringly proving day in and day out. The governance of the ruling clique is like a long spell of dark night and in the darkness everything insidious is being committed. The frenzy to loot and plunder as much and as long of these insensate robbers has reached dizzying heights. On the contrary the people are being killed in hundred ways. Life is cheaper than a morsel of food. Water, power, food, medicines, sugar, flour and all commodities for the survival of humans are shrinking by the day.

In six decades, the decisions on building new dams for water and power and wide roads could not be reached nor any consensus mustered. The agriculture, the industry, the education, health, the civic life, the good governance are in doldrums. There is no way that the government can stop its backdoor intriguing and address amelioration of the abysmal living conditions of the people.

The railways, the national airline, the steel mills and other national assets which should serve the people with excellence and to remain in profit, are in a pathetic state of decay and deterioration. A comfortable public transport is an elusive dream never realized. The road network is utterly inadequate to cater for the growing rowdy and disorderly traffic.

Every conceivable trick is being employed by the power wielders to grab wealth in small to mega deals as if to hastily make hay while the sun of their power shines. The callous indifference and studied unwillingness to provide relief to the people does not seem to be in the genes of these demons whose only skill and acumen is to keep adding up to their heaps of wealth no matter if the country goes to dogs and the people get further impoverished. It is adhocism in the worst form.

Pakistan is a country where a poor, minority girl is brutally killed by an influential lawyer and his peers is the same profession threaten to burn those who would pursue legal proceeding against the delinquent lawyer. Every day countless women, children are rendered homeless and are brazenly picked up for rape and abuse. A culture of lawlessness is being promoted and patronized by the custodians of the country because they themselves are criminals and would not like the noose of law spun around their fat necks. Are we living in the age of Nimrod or Pharaohs? Law is being bent to side with the lawbreakers and not a helpless family.

But since God almighty is running the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, therefore, despite all these atrocious aberrations and monstrosities, it would stay till the divine mercy and patronage is withdrawn and all sinners go to hell.

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