by Ali Moeen Nawazish
Politics is at best a bearably unfair playing field, the players seen as indifferent despots who choose to reign with nothing but terror and wish nothing but what is the worst for all the people of Pakistan. Eventually what happens is by these very assumptions that the only we can actually trust our ourselves or our close friends, and not to mention the prime root taken by many a state of political indifference.
In my recent interview of MNA (NA-96) Engineer Khurram Dastgir Khan, I saw a few things from a different light- a light that is perhaps not much reflected upon. However, I want to make clear that as is the universality of everything no extreme exists purposefully and absolutely perfect in any form, yet a reflection on what both extremes are is essential to lead to a compromise.
“Those who do not believe in Politics, have politics foisted upon them.” – were the words conveyed to me by Mr. Dastgir. It sheds light on the flawed reasoning that exists in anyone’s indifference to political activity. I am under the effect of the policies (existent or not) of our ruling politicians. If I believe the policies are flawed I must speak, for the consequences in the future or the present can be dire for me and those around me. I cannot chose to be indifferent, it is not a choice. I cannot be indifferent to load shedding, shortage of food, poverty and I can’t bear to go on, for indifference leads only to further problems never to any solutions. Someone won’t know he or she is wrong until I and others tell him or her that!
Further to this in our discussion the focal point was the part that I can play, as an ordinary Pakistani or as I with my friends as part of the upcoming generation of Pakistan. The question is simple what have I really done to change than just agonize for the most part? Why agonize? Why not just choose to organize? I for one admit that I am yet to meet my own MNA or MPA, and many are guilty of this. Granted that the MNA or MPA might not want to meet me or any of us, might ignore me. However, if I have values and beliefs and hold them with conviction then at least I should try to do so. I have never written to my MNA or MPA about any issue, I haven’t done things in this regard more productive than most Pakistanis.
I recall last year at university, there was an issue about the presence of gas stoves in the college kitchens. The college representative in charge of the issue wrote an email to all the students informing that there was a council restriction, and that he had written to the local MP (member of parliament) to reach a resolution. I know what most would say at this point, that perhaps we are not as evolved a democracy – but I argue why do I, why do we need to go through the same cycle we can learn from others mistakes, but that is another discussion altogether.
The key to organization is our ability to come together leaving behind individual differences for a greater purpose, and we have before during the Long Marches in this decade have defined a new era of civil activism in Pakistan, one that has to be maintained, sustained and continued. Khurram Dastgir held that MNAs and MPAs do read their letters and that if attempts, sufficient attempts, are made the message does get through. So, I say why not at least try once before abandoning everything? Granted, that their is a possibility of no one answering (as I stated before I am arguing at one end of the extreme), but the fear of losing should never keep anyone from playing the game.
It is indeed importance for us, to be organized in this regard, strength does exist in numbers. If fourteen or fifteen people were to approach an MNA or MPA together, at least they would be forcing him or her to think about his or her actions and be more careful. After all a politician always has to care about his or her constituency, consistent and sustained effort can lead to changes, not overnight, but at least their can be a forced reevaluation.
Therefore, why don’t we just embrace this idea of a combined national identity and interest, and work within a system to change it, improve it and improve living for us all. Yet, more so for the ordinary Pakistani who has not been fortunate enough to have an education, not been fortunate enough to have access to the internet, not been fortunate enough to voice his or her opinion in a letter. Ultimately in this twisted iron it is us on whom this responsibility ultimately falls not just for our own sakes, but of those less able and less fortunate.
The DO’s are very simple:
- Honesty in our own profession, with self-respect and respect for others
- No more agonizing, but more organizing
- Leaving self-interest aside, and focusing more on collective interest
- Reading about issues, finding out, taking an interest, and being more proactive
- Getting in touch with our MNAs and MPAs – giving them a sense of public accountability
- Demanding for our rights, and of those unable to do so for themselves
- To realize that without consistent effort nothing is possible
As it is, I don’t claim perfection, but what I claim is that until we do everything that we can in our own power, we have no right in demanding from others to do their fair share. This is a two way process, and election day isn’t the only day democracy exists.
I chose today not to talk about the personalities of politics or practicals of democracy, I chose to talk about the idea of democracy, and our role within that idea. All of us just need three basic things to achieve this purpose, and they have been said so many times that perhaps they begin to lose meaning, we need to be united, have faith and hope of success, and most of all be disciplined enough to continue our efforts. The great wall of China wasn’t built overnight nor was the moon landed upon, everything that is truly great and remarkable requires effort, and settling for anything else is just not worth it.
The price of liberty is external vigilance, and democracy is my responsibility too.
Ali Moeen Nawazish Warraich
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Below video is the Part 1 of my interview with Engineer Khurrum. Part 2 can be watched here.
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Who is this obvious philosopher of truth and justice or insane man who has just learned English and translating his deep inner Urdu feeling in an incoherent manner?
Good Article where Leadership with a Strategic Vision is actually a part of democratic right of every citizen which all Governmental and Political leaders have to fullfil…
Can we ask this from our stupid and jahil prime minister???? Who says that he has to defend the rights of parliments but actualy he is trying to say…” i have to defend Ali Baba and his chalis chor” , which actually constitute our parliment.
Good article, agreed we need to have courage to ask.
A good article, indeed. But do we have the NECESSARY courage to ask or postulate?
You can write as much as you can regarding our role in a democratic society, you can talk as much as you like on the talk shows and you can blame as much as you like on “others” but the root cause of our suffering is corruption.
If we were not corrupt everything would work. We would not be despondent about meeting our MNA or MPA, we would not be afraid to report on the wrongs of our police, or our teachers, or the lack of our medical facilities, or our electricity being stolen, or our cars being robbed, etc etc etc.
To solve it we should start punishing people who are named corrupt. The wealthy and powerful first. The idea should not be to finally dish out a sentence against our corrupt President only, but to start with and proceed with the other over 8000 named “convicts”. Don’t stop there. Look out for others who may have escaped our notice. In every party and institution. Don’t leave the army alone. Sentence them one by one.
If we do that, you will see much more sooner then you think democracy and peoples participation improve
@scary,u can only eradictae corruption with stable democratic system,more u weaken the system more u spread the corruption.
Dear Scary!
I 100% second your thoughts…. the actual root cause of all issues is a corrupt nation and leadership. If we want to modify, we must eliminate corruption…
Thats why i said…. “first bring Ali Baba and his Chalis Choor to justice” and later implement a corrupt free social system for entire nation.
@Scary and proudpakistani85
“but the root cause of our suffering is corruption”…
In my humble opinion, Every nation is same.If corruption does not exist in the west then it should never be concluded that the westren nation is like angel.Public representatives did work well in the west and made the instituition strong.
I disagree with you and do not think the corruption is the main or foremost issue in the country.
We ,as pakistanis living outside the country especially in the west,do obey each and every law of the country.
I believe that the enforcement of law is a big issue and requires strong instituions like the current supreme court.
Imran Khan should be given a chance…..Just my opinion..
Regards,
Eeveryone talks for good..! i hope that this time we do something about it…hopefully!
Sound article…I always have so may ideas reagrding the current situation… but am unsure of who to forward them to..but reading this has made a few things clear!!Thanx
My first post was a demonstration of my assay, which I have written today about the worse kind of democracy in Pakistan, where the personalities are more important than the issues. My purpose was not to ridicule the ability of English, but to reject the message or expression of a person.
Democracy is a double edged sword, it cuts both ways. A nation of suppressed, uneducated, under educated, wrongly educated(religious schools) and divided people on the basses of racial and religious basses will elect people not on the basses of the qualities they represent, but on the basses of ethnic background or religious affiliations.
The good examples are the behavior of people of Karachi, electing an ethnic Mafia MQM, Sindhi’s fondness of grave worshiping, thus electing the party with most graves, the Punjabi’s electing feudalist on the basses of cast and a non democratic family Mafia boss, Nawaz Sharif, just for his power of wealth and a large Kashmirey community in Lahore, on ethnic basses.
People in north tend to elect the religious parties, because of their strong Religious indoctrination by the Saudi-financed religious madrassas in Pakistan that teach Wahhabism, planned by the American war machine, CIA and ISI during the eighties to produce religious worriers.
The more and more I have contemplated about the voting behavior of the majority poor people of Pakistan, which is more than 90% of the population, the conclusion (which is still work in process), I have come with is that the way the people have been disenfranchised, abused, ruled by the feudalist monarchies, ethnic based leaders for life, religious monarchies, family Mafia’s and huge business family monopolies, has made the majority uneducated, undereducated, subject to malnutrition and poor health , the masses, mentally and physically have never developed the confidence, the physical strength or self esteem or self respect to stand on their own or elect one of their own.
Majority people of Pakistan, systematically have been pushed into an everlasting inferiority complex, helplessness, hopelessness and dependence on the so called English educated minority elites. They, instead of finding power in numbers, look upon themselves as no more than heard of sheep compare to the a very small minority elites.
In their minds, which are full of anxiety, guilt, shame, anger, embarrassment and stresses of daily lives, 1000 sheep can not defeat, even one Dog, let alone the Pakistan ruling elites clans of vultures and hyenas. They have accepted to be the at the bottom of the food chain as subservient sub humans to the Pakistan elites. The majority people of Pakistan are in a constant stage of cognitive dissonance.
In a very sad way they have still the mentality of the peasants, who look up to their Political Kings, Queens and the princes and princesses lifestyle as their own elected monarchies, and live their rest of the life in envy and appreciation of the ruling classes as worker bees and go to bed convincing themselves that the Prince Bilawl Zardari Bhutto, offspring of their own ethnic clan or party leader, is enjoying the life of luxury, which they could not afford or even imagine for their own children, at least one of “them” is living lager than life lifestyle.
Since the independency from the British rule, the Pakistani people came under the “English” rule, the people who had the command of the master’s language, became the masters, so in reality they have never been free. Evan the founding father, whom I have respect for , was a brown “English man“.
Even within ruling elites or educated Pakistanis, there is a “English speaking Mafia”, who will open their guns on you if they do not like your message, will ridicule your ability of written English, thus will challenge your worthiness and will deem you stupid and unworthy of expressing yourself. My first post is a good example of that, even though, I do not consider to have great command of the English language, still, one can reject a message by clamming the “bad English, thus not worthy“ lame excuse.
Pakistan’s tragedy is that it has been run by the Dictators or by the Thieves, so even the democracy has been turned into rule by the ethnic and family cartels and Mafias, and democracies have been turned into “Plutocracies and Kleptocracies”.
We the Pakistanis have never experienced a democracy, so talking about a Pakistani democracy is a falls premise on the first place. Unless and until Pakistani people are freed from the slave, servant and peasant mentality and the inferiority complexes due to the duplicity of three tear education system(Urdu, English, Madrassa based), we will never be able to demonstrate true democratic values.
Dear Concerned American Pak:
Your conclusions about Pakistani Nation and Democracy are true and logically. So you think we should go for a good dictator?
Dear Pakistan,
Please explian if its not corruption then what stops us here in pakistan NOT to follow the rules?
In 90% of the cases you will come to the same conclusion that “It is actually the corruption” that is the root cause of continuous implementation failure at every level.
@Proudpakistani85’
No my dear friend, there is no such thing as a good dictator, It’s like calling skin cancer a good cancer vs. lung cancer. Your question is the most difficult one to answer by me, since I haven’t been back to Pakistan in more than 10 years, due to my health issues and cannot go back and participate in the democratic process, nor I have that kind of money to make a difference, all I can do is to express my concerns and bring out some matters for discussion.
The best chance we have right now is the free and functional judiciary, which can make the top of the political leadership accountable for their past and present crimes and with the process of elimination in next 10 years or so we may have a better group of politicians who will work for the people rather their own best interest.
We need parliamentary changes and constitutional changes regarding political parties and the election process, legibility and accountability before the election process.
Any person who can not prove their source of income vs. his/her wealth should not be allowed to take part in elections, tax cheats like Nawaz Sharis should be rejected, every party must have free elections, with in the party or else be ban from the democratic process for being undemocratic.
No properties and investments more than a certain amount should be allowed , out side the Pakistan, by the party leaders and parliamentarians. This could be a start of the process, than a huge overhaul of the education system by unifying it with one standard for all.
s/b
We need parliamentary changes and constitutional changes regarding the political parties and the election process, politicians eligibility and accountability issues, before the election process begins.
A different article and a good one as well! May be a term “Political Activism” is more suited to the behavior suggested in the post by Ali.
There are questions raised by some community members that it is not going to work or that most of us do not have the courage to do so. Fair enough, yet I feel that the dilemma for all well wishers is the time period required for this change. As a nation we have a 20-20 attitude which I call as “shortcut syndrome”. By this I mean, we are a nation which works in small bursts and after the burst is over, we are flattened. For everything we want short cuts. We want that we get up in the morning tomorrow and feudalism is eradicated and all the ills of society are gone.
I think that we need to realize that kind of changes we want to see in our society, on all levels, cannot be achieved overnight and certainly not without a great deal of patience. These changes may require effort of generations. I am in my high twenties and realistically speaking I do not expect these changes to take place in next few years, yet I am hopeful that with the mercy of our Lord, I shall be able to see these changes in my life time.
Having said that, I do not mean that we become idle and stop trying to make any changes. Continuous, diligent effort like a test batsman is needed who keeps defending dangerous deliveries hours and hours. Yet, he does not miss the opportunity to send a bad ball across the boundary, making sure his team wins the match.
@proudpakistani85
You are right that corruption is the biggest one But still question is Why we as pakistanis living outside do obey the law and do avoid corruption.I believe it is the law of the land prohibits us from doing so otherwise we are same people from the corrupt country.
I can tell you that I have totally clean driving licence since more than 10 years.I always tried to obey the laws of trafic.
Most of people in every country are same.They do corruption whenever they get a chance.
It is the law enforcement makes them to refrain from these eveils.
Regards,
Pakistan
Articulating thoughts and ideas is not a big deal for a person who is a product of british or american education system.The message Moin tried to covey accross was very received by the small section of people having access to modren day technologies.It would be much more effective if it can be realyed to the much larger audience like Bhutto did,although being not a big fan of bhutto.
Moin should realize that the level if thoughts he got are just due the education he had.I would be happy if Moin can present an idea that how the same thoughts can be reayed to the 60% illlitrate masses.Thats the key to turn all this round for good.
Wish you best of luck Pakistan
Dear Pakistan:
My Question is that how will you enfore a law in a corrupt system???? Ofcourse u need to remove corruption first in order to enforce law… right?
Regards.
Excellent article! Why do expect out leaders to be so pious? As you have rightly said Election Day is not the only day for accountability, we need to make pressure groups and voice our concerns by writing letter s to our MNA’s and MPA’s elect so that they are aware of the fact that the community is vigilant.
It’s a traffic signal scenario say its midnight no one is watching you would be tempted to cross the line but if the citizens assert their powers we can bring out a change and have greater transparency
i have the same question..My Question is that how will you enforce a law in a corrupt system???? Ofcourse u need to remove corruption first in order to enforce law… right?
very good article, Thats what happens in western countries, i wish that could be in prctice in our country.
@scary. I am glad you bring that up. Transparency is a major issue in our country. E.g. U.S awarded almost 1 billion rupees for the victims of the recent terrorist attack in Karachi. The lack of transparency fails us to see where does all this amount go.
@ConcernedAmericanPak
Why are you too concerned about his English, read the message
@ali moeen. Honesty in our own profession, with self-respect and respect for others” . Good job ali well said. If we all could just perform our own jobs as responsible citizens then there would not be much to debate on. Good post I am liking it. Always helpful to have a broader mind vision then a narrow one.
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