If we are to move forward, democracy is not the way
It’s been more than 60 years since we got independence from the Great Britain. We still celebrate the day we got independence as a sign of victory for the Muslims of this part of Asia. Why do we call 14th August as the day we got freedom? Is it freedom from slavery we think? If that’s the case, I strongly disagree. What has changed for us in these two eras (pre and post British)? No food for thought, the answer is that simple. We were slaves then and we are slaves now. The only thing that has changed is the misconception about freedom.
The British Army came, stayed and went away. They were magnificent in what they did. Be it war, sports or construction. They defeated the Mughals. They built structures that are still in working conditions (even though their dates have expired). I would say that they deserved to rule the World. There is no doubt that we were the slaves of that great country. We gave them Lagaan and whatever they asked for. We had no other choice.
What made that country so great that despite being very limited in population, they ruled and dominated the world? It was just that they (people of Britain) had the will and hunger to make their country great.
What do we have? We neither possess the will, nor the hunger to make Pakistan move forward. We just have the desperate hope in our hearts that maybe….maybe “The next one” will bring some positive changes. Pakistan is not going forward, rather we are pulling it back with our absurd thinking.
We are not free, we are the slaves of this system. We are slaves of our so called leaders who are leading us into the wrong way. We are the slaves of Nawaz Sharif and Zardari, who run this country as a private business. We are not an independent state. We are in a worse position than before. I say ‘worse’ because we have that illusion of freedom we don’t possess. This prevents us to wake up from the deep sleep we are in. After elections, we abuse our elected leaders for 5 years and regret the decision we made and right after the next elections, we start abusing them again. Hence we are just cursing ourselves whereas the rest of the world is progressing too fast.
I have somewhat deviated from the actual topic of discussion. I am actually quite disappointed with the people of my country. Now coming to the topic. Why is democracy not the way?
What is the literacy rate of Pakistan? It is 58% as for the year 2015 where it missed the targets set by the United Nations for education. Please anyone explain to me how are we running democracy in a country like Pakistan where almost half of the votes are in the hands of people who are uneducated and mind you, these are the people who sell their votes for mere thousands of rupees. It is just because they don’t know how to operate a very useful machine Allah has gifted us with, the human brain. Education is the only key to operate it properly.
I strongly believe that Democracy is for those people who have the ability to think. Unfortunately, our people are bound by the lame political parties with lame slogans. I wonder till when will PPP and PML-N cease to take turns? If it continues to work this way then I would guess it would take some decades before we see another party taking over. If our people had some sense then Ayyaz Sadiq wouldn’t have won the NA 122 seat again. It was very disappointing to see someone with the rigging charges winning the seat again.
I am very much in the favor of 1962 constitution when anonymously around 80,000 basic democrats used to select the president of Pakistan. It was the system that had the capability to suit our system, but of course with some modifications. Dictatorship is a last resort but I think that too would be better than democracy for the people like us.
I was very fortunate to visit Saudi Arabia. There I met a lot of Pakistanis. Visited a lot of Pakistani restaurants. But unfortunately our people weren’t making our country proud. There were people who came all the way from Pakistan to beg in Haram. The food in Pakistani restaurants was below par. Our people were embarrassing us. They were showing the world that if there are just beggars or starved people who live in Pakistan. I was embarrassed to introduce myself as a Pakistani because of the way people looked at us. I met a lot of people from other countries as well. Be that Jordanian, Syrians, Turkish etc. All of them I met were honorable and had a self-esteem. They owned their country and cared for it.
So if people like these in Pakistan are to vote to elect their leader, then unfortunately we are digging a hole for ourselves. The situation is pretty messed up, since our people aren’t ready for a revolution neither are they prepared for anything. They are like the cow which thinks everything is okay till the food ceases to come.
May God bless us all and bring some sense into our people.