Where We Headed?
Today was supposed to be an auspicious day for us. The sixth of September, the defence day, the day we showed the enemy that we're united and willing to fight to the last man. But is that passion and unity the same as it was in good ol' 1965?Frankly, the Quaid's principles of Unity, faith and discipline seem like a pipedream now for a nation like us. One of the worst experiences I had was when I witnessed the looting of a shop, as the Police had just taken away the shop-owner for allegedly selling some stuff at higher prices on purpose, and behind his back people on the streets looted the shop, AND THIS WAS IN RAMZAN! :(
This seems typical of the Muslims, who despite being God's chosen ones are sufferring in this world because of their lack of discipline and unity. Someone aptly said on his return from one of the western countries ...
" I found Islam everywhere, but no Muslims. But once I came back, I saw Muslims everywhere but no Islam. "
(referring to the inherent values of honesty, discipline and sincerity in the people of the West and none over here)
Indeed, the essence of Islam after the Prophets has been that of AMAR MAROOF AL-NAHI ANIL MUNKAR, that people in a society guide others to do good and repel them from doing harm so that the society improves its own self. But sadly, in a society like ours you would find more hate for one another, than love. All this sickens me to death and sometimes I just lose hope. Is there a way out? I can't see it.
posted by Unknown @ 7:19 AM
9 Comments:
Well, I feel the pain! The sorry part is, no one is interested, no one realizes, or at least few.
We are not interested to wake up. Most people realize the problems, and rant about them, but indulge in the same misbehaviour themselves. Munafiqat. One thing that this regime has given Pakistanis is the microphone. Interesting thing to engage people into. Let them rant and talk and talk uselessly and do whatever you want to do. There are talkers, there are so called self-imposed intellectuals, even the most corrupt pretneds to be an intellectual (guess who?) but no one has the solution, and even if one does, they do nothing to bring about change.
I'm actually at a loss of words but I believe what we need is... less words and more action. We could start from our homes and university, bring about a difference in the smallest things of life. I think I've been trying to do that but I have a pretty offensive attitude.
As far as your little incident is concerned I have this to say: the problem, I believe, is that we don't feel secure in our country. If you read one of my posts below it clearly says that SAFETY NEEDS are just above the physiological needs of a human being. If one of them is not fulfilled you cannot go to the next level and for a civilized society, you need to be at the peak. See? Lots and lots of words... no action.
Pen is mightier than the sword. I think it is sham for a society where the media is the de facto truth.
I don't feel great having written all that because I know it doesn't make any difference. I'd rather go outside and tell a person that they must walk on the footpath if there is one.
The people who CAN bring about a change are never arsed, and the people who WANT to bring about a change are pushed aside and discouraged so much, that they give up.
How many of us think of the country before our personal interests? Nobody wants to stay and work here, 9 outta 10 people would LOVE it if they were offered an H1 right now.
I don't see this debate going anywhere. The reason is same for H1 visas point, security! We all know of one person who recently left us who silently tried to make a difference... battered and frustrated at times but still he was able to inspire the like to follow. We need to understand that no magic will change everything, it has to be slow and gradual natural process. Doing something is the best of changing, I don't think words will have any effect, because they are inert.
When you don't have your own worries you start to think about others and society in general... climbing up the ladder are we?
Well, the incident that razz just mentioned in his post transpires the fact that in muslims there are lot of people who can easily go astray and even can work against their own fellowmen. We blame superpowers for whatever happening to our country but i dont think so, your own muslim ppl want money so badly that they can even sell their souls and do whatever they are told to. If people had followed Islam then Pakistan wont have been in this position at all. Our past leaders who are outside the country right now were corrupt and even they are not ashamed of themselves and still they are all looming large on the political arena of Pakistan. We have lost many of our sincere people who were working for country but there are corrupt leaders who took the money of Pakistani ppl and made their own palaces and are working against and are still alive. The enemies of Pakistan never kills them because they know they will be doing a favour by killing them.
I think that revolutionists would be discouraged in many societies. The key would be for such people to flock closer together. Unfortunately, though, people in our society easily find differences amongst themselves and would not be able to flock together. And then, many such people have to give in to the earning of the livelihood rather than invest time in revolutions.
As for the "defence day," I really dont know. A war in which we pulled back? Another war in which we laid weapons down. A war in which our military aircraft were captured in the ex - East Pakistan, which our military claims our brave soldiers had destroyed rather than have them captured by the enemy. Such aircraft, I am told are evident at many a museums in India, as evidence of the lies that our military has been telling us. Leaching our economy, being the priority for so long. In fact, we are no match for the might of Indian forces. No matter how professional our forces might be, the fact is that we can not sustain a war beyond a week (optimistically). In power, now, the military realizes that they can not sustain the kashmir issue, previously they had been pushing the political or semi-political regimes to keep the issue alive so that defence investment stays high, for which the entire nation suffered. Now, knowing that they cant sustain it, they are throwing it away. Let's face it, why else dont we have anything remotely close to a decent infrastructure? We cant even have smooth, stable uniterrupted powe supply. Priorities, my friends, priorities, are upside down, in the regime, but more sadly so, amongst the nation. What are our priorities as part of the nation? Sit on the couch and watch a cricket match is our idea of fun.
To Sir Saqib:
I was having a brief discussion about the Defence Day the other day and my father told me just one line which I'd like to reproduce here:
In a war, the first casualty is the truth.
I think this makes my point.
The military is not to be blamed for the lack of infrastructure in Pakistan. True, it has intervened alot over the years but what exactly have the Civilian governments given us? Nothing but corrupt rulers... and don't tell me they didn't get enough time!
We've never had the true application of 'good governance' in Pakistan whereas our neighbour, despite being 10 times bigger, is much stable and reaping the benefits of good democratic governance over the years.
I dont think there is any such thing as good governance, at least as far as the political government of a nation is concerned. Even in the US, the governments are corrupt in many ways. You find corruption of millions in the government stakes and military orders etc, lots of play acting. Unfortunately in nations like Cuba, India and Pakistan, the corruption is down to the grass roots level. You can hardly drink a glass of water without bribing someone. That's just proverbial, but I think we get the point. So, no such thing as good governance. Maybe better governance could be possible, lesser of evils, so to speak. At least, I agree with you, in India, when there is a train wreck, the railway minister resigns out of a little bit of ghairat. I dont know why, perhaps there is lots of competition or whatever. In our case, some poor dumb ass signal operator and station master gets "suspended" with full pays and perks, mind you, while he doesnt have to do anything. He comes to the office every day, marks himself present, sits there, chats with the rest of the corrupt colleagues, and then leaves when the others do. There's an inquiry commission, you know the rest of the drill, and then the employees are punished by perhaps being reinstated, or transferred to a hell hole in some remote part of the country. That's no punishment. The responsible should've been hanged. Everything, then, boils down to the lack of justice, doesnt it. At every level. We are not doing justice to our existence, ourselves, our family, our neighbors, our street, our city, our nation, our country, whatever. We are not sincere to anyone, except perhaps our pockets.
A nation can not survive without justice.
I agree fully with Faisal. We talk a lot, but we talk on issues, we dont talk about a solution.
The only solution, I think is to play our part and do what is right. We need role models for others to follow. Unfortunately, the role models that we have are Shahid Afridi, Reema, Ali Azmat and the likes. They are play actors. They are commercial figures, they are pretenders, worshippers of the currency bill in the name of art. People, who like everyone else, sit there on talk shows and speak bull shit what they themselves dont practice.
As for the military vs political regimes, some background military based elite is always the driving force, whatever the regime may be. The military is immune so we dont see the amounts of kickback they do. Not just when buying fighter aircraft, mind you. Even at the lower level of logistics down to the level of Major, I have personally known of it. They're one of us, arent they. They're corrupt because we're all corrupt. Whether we sit in uniform, or as a civil "servant" which is a big misnomer, or as whoever.
People are empowered. There is so much that we can do. There is so much that we cant, but we dont have to worry about that. Let's just do what we can. But by all means, let's project ourselves and each other when we do the right thing, so that others see us as the good ones and as the example to follow.
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