Pakistani Politics - A Rant.

We are tired...

The editorial in this week's The Friday Times:

We are tired…

We are tired of endless talk of “enlightened moderation”. There isn’t a single member of General Pervez Musharraf’s cabal who is prepared to practice what the Boss preaches. There is no attempt at serious madrassah reform, with the ministry of religions affairs under Ejaz ul Haq at odds with the ministry of education under Gen (retd) Javed Ashraf Qazi. There is no reform of Hadood laws, with the PML allying with the MMA to stifle protest not just from the PPP but also from within the ruling party. There is no embarrassment at the demeaning of the ‘marathon’ by the PMLQ despite the fact that not so long ago General Musharraf was lauding the first international marathon (mixed) held in Lahore as a symbol of Pakistan’s return to normalcy. The rights of the minorities and women are under attack by the mullahs. And no one from the ruling party or government has stood up to defend these groups.

We are tired of the endless drone about the bright prospects of foreign investment in Pakistan and how we have irrevocably embarked on the path to nirvana. Pakistan is not even on the list of emerging markets published every week by The Economist. Indeed, our Foreign Office and Ministry of Interior are constantly urging foreign diplomats to keep a low public profile and restrict travel within Pakistan because of security concerns, even as our finance and commerce ministries are irked by the negative ‘travel advisories’ recommended by the same diplomats to their fellow citizens and businessmen.

We are tired of hearing how the oil and gas pipelines from Central Asia and Iran will start gushing prosperity in Pakistan before long. The theme of ‘Pakistan as the gateway to Central Asia’s 300 million market’ was unfurled by former PM Nawaz Sharif when he embarked on the Lahore-Islamabad motorway project in 1992. Three years later, after Pakistan’s obsessive meddling in Afghanistan had paved the way for the wretched Taliban, the oil and gas projects were reduced to classic pipedreams. Afghanistan is far from settled or stable and the Turkmenistan-Pakistan gas project is nowhere on the horizon. Now we hear that Gwadar is the shimmering gateway to Central Asia. But the Baloch, who should own it, are up in arms and not even the existing gas pipelines at Sui are safe anymore. Indeed, Chinese engineers have been killed or kidnapped, new exploration for oil and has halted and some foreign companies are thinking of pulling out from Balochistan.

We are tired of pious lectures on democracy and constitutionalism. There is no democracy in political parties and there is no constitutionalism in parliament. Irrespective of who is in power and who is in opposition, every government claims to be democratic and every opposition condemns dictatorship. Every parliament trumpets its own sovereignty and supremacy and every parliament pays obeisance to every elected autocrat and every coup-making dictator. The present system is particularly tiresome: neither the prime minister nor the leader of the opposition is from the party (PPP) that won the most votes in the last general elections; the chief proponent of 17th constitutional amendment (MMA) is not prepared to sit in its chief institutional innovation (NSC); and the one-arty system is cracking under the weight of its contradictions, with the ruling party squabbling over the spoils of the system on the eve of another round of controlled elections.

We are tired of self-righteous handouts from the NAB> we are tired of allegations of corruption against anti-government politicians and proclamations of virtue from pro-government ones. We are tired of VVIP movements. We are tired of asking why housing societies are allowed to skin unsuspecting citizens; why stock market scams continue to rock the markets; why car makers are able to influence government policy and get away with exorbitant premiums; why we can import cheap goods from far away China that hurt our local industry but not from next door India; why we still need more tanks and missiles and jets and ships when we have made the ultimate nuclear deterrent against war; why with 7-8% growth rates, billions of dollars in debt rescheduling and foreign aid, and unprecedented increases in tax revenues, we are still unable to dent the 30% poverty line and the 70% illiteracy rate; why we have a system of apartheid in education in which the vast majority has been denied access to English as a second language in the name of Islamic ideology and Pakistani nationalism and is rotting at the bottom of the social and economic heap while a small English-educated, Westernized elite hogs all the space; why the green passport is a sure shot recipe for suspicion and hostility abroad instead of being a welcome calling card, and so on, ad nauseam.

We are tired of self-serving reformers and faith healers. We are tired of democrats who act like dictators and dictators who pretend to be democrats. We are tired of tribal sardars, ethnic warlords, and feudals. And we at The Friday Times are VERY tired of offering the solutions over and over again!

posted by atrophyingsenses @ 4:35 PM