An irredeemably discredited government

Upright Opinion
An irredeemably discredited government
By Saeed Qureshi
August 18, 2010
I am not saying it. A common, prevailing perception is that the incumbent dispensation at the helm in Pakistan is not only manifestly incompetent but also a conglomeration of incorrigibly and defiantly corrupts individuals. There is trenchant belief that these ruling charlatans rob not under the cover of darkness but in broad day light with audacity and then boast of committing such loathsome bravadoes.
Precisely for this reason, the international relief aid is being neither committed nor flowing into Pakistan on a large scale. The sins of rulers are visiting upon the hapless people whose dwellings, cattle, livestock, and even family members have perished in the colossal water shield that covered one fifth of the land of Pakistan. Crops have been washed off, poisonous reptiles crawling and pouring venom into the bodies of helpless and debilitated human beings in whose frightened and lifeless faces the death stares with impunity.
The credibility gap is incredibly wide between the government and the people of Pakistan as well the rest of the world, the international community, and the philanthropists at home and abroad. Meager amounts or relief goods are doled out with a lurking suspicion that the donated money would not reach the afflicted but would be gobbled up by the corrupt government functionaries, the official organizers, and the brazen power wielders.
Billions of dollars came from both overseas Pakistanis and international donors after the devastating earthquake of 2006. However, this money reached to the suffers and victims of earthquake by a fraction. The remaining aid no one knows disappeared where, as there is no record available about the dispensation of those funds. Therefore, the apprehension of the international donors and relief agencies is tenable. If the money grabbers and racketeers steal the funds meant for the millions human beings devastated by the mammoth deluge, the exercise of relief and philanthropy would be futile and counterproductive.
Now contrary to what water and power minister Raja Ashraf believes, the yawning fact is that the rental power projects are ruinous for the economy of the country and do not offer durable resolution to the chronic energy shortfall in Pakistan. He is not ready to entertain any other proposal that would cure this festering malaise on permanent or on long-term basis. Ironically, he has prevailed, and why he has prevailed is not a closely guarded secret for anyone to unravel.
In addition, the godfather law minister Dr (?) Babar Awan has not one qualm of conscience or an iota of façade of decency and modesty to atleast speak in the parlance of civilized people. He attacks like a wolf and persist in his ravenous forays until he silences his challengers. The novel ways of deceit, duplicity, chicanery, weird explanations farfetched logic is advanced by him to deflate the mushrooming anti- government public ire and uproar. A rank liar, and in face of incontrovertable evidence to his receiving a staggering soliciting fee of Rupees 35 million from the crook businesspersons, he poses as if the whole world has gone crazy to malign him and he alone is a reincarnated Jesus Christ among his tormentors.
What will happen of the tragedy that has struck the people of Pakistan? The worthy president of Pakistan is flying to Russia as if his absence in Moscow would spell disaster for the entire world and might trigger the third world war. Such is the apathy and callous lack of concern for the people caught up in a life and death struggle. Do such stonehearted characters have the right to lord over the people who have elected such monsters to power?
There seems to be no remedy to the enormity of deformities, our beloved country Pakistan is plunged into. Just compare the rulers hovering over in helicopters to see the miseries and marooned humans. They come to the destroyed and engulfed villages as if coming to a garden party where they would be garlanded and flattered for being the masters of the fallen and disaster- stricken masses.
Does the country need a revolution, a radical change from this irksome status quo to a new dawn of fresh breeze of equality, justice, and civilized conduct? Would it be superfluous to recount and repeat the miseries and sufferings of the people of Pakistan they are undergoing even without the ongoing nature's fury in the form of calamitous floods? The country is being run like a mafia controlled den in a secluded jungle of South America where law and order is extinct.
Someone has to lead a struggle for change. Someone has to take up the cudgel with undaunted valor to upturn the decay and degeneration that has caved in every department, echelons, streets, localities, villages, cities, and provinces of Pakistan. Someone with a prophetic mission and unmatched courage has to demolish the fiefdoms that dot Pakistan and poise as mini-states within the federation. These fiefdom holders were seen in their vast land holdings trying to save their crops and cattle even by diverting the gushing water to others' areas.
There are countless, feudal lords, giant property owners who virtually are local emperors or suzerains ruling the people like subjects in olden pharaohs’ dynasties. Can Islam and the creed of these well-entrenched local monarchs co-exist? Why can’t the religious clerics raise the banner of rebellion against these bloodsuckers and agents of slavery and human bondage and throw them out?
Is there someone who can snatch the large estates and orchards from these monstrous masters and bring them to the level of a common person as far justice and equal status between the humans is concerned? With their starched apparels, their wound-up moustaches, their hypocritical grins: their hold over police stations, courts, and official portals must be broken.
Mind my words! If this does not happen, Pakistan will stumble into a backward state like many in the African continent. Our fertile soil, our fine workforce, our grand seasons, our chaste values, enchanting dales and mountains, rivers and deserts lose charm if the people suffer from an inhuman and exploitative system that keep most of them at sub human levels, economically and socially.
A civil society cannot be brought about by brutes. Peace, economic justice, good governance, rule of law, accountability of rulers, women's rights, and modesty are the virtues that are alien to the coterie of people with narrow, self-aggrandizing pursuits. Pakistan has to get rid of the self -seeking elitist classes and individuals who would keep on doing anything to enhance their lives, fortunes, and pelf, at the expense of the People. Who is going to do this?

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