Today our nation
stands confused and directionless with polarized political structure. The
Constitution of Pakistan is under attack, institutions are undermined, terrorism
is raising head again and the economy of our country is almost nearing
crash.
The question is where
we went wrong despite having rich resources and immense talent? We fail to stop
the decline of the governance and the rule of law. I have tried to mention some
of the factors, which have contributed to erosion of our national
infrastructure. The nation building is carried out with dedication and just
implementation of the rule of law. The basic parameter of nation building is
through having regard of the given responsibilities either by way of respect of
law or fear of the law. Both factors make a citizen a responsible one.
This element of
individual responsibility becomes collective only with the national spirit of
responsibility at every end. So citizens have to draw a clear demarcation
between the responsibility and rights. The scholars say: “Optimism is a
strategy for making a better future. Unless you believe that the future can be
better, you are unlikely to step up and take responsibility for making it so”
and “life is a balancing act. While we have all the rights to be in freedom,
peace, harmony and bliss; we do have a responsibility to ensure that others too
enjoy their own freedom, peace, harmony and bliss. ”
Disciplined and strict
enforcement of the policies and laws of the land may be seen as harsh by many
but viewed as a necessary tool by others. Whatever their reasons, China, North
Korea, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Argentina etc. are champions of strict
governance and implementation of their laws. These countries sternly follow
their policies and this is something we must consider in order to succeed. All
these mentioned countries are booming economies that have taken the world by
storm, and their success formula is not hidden from anyone. The anti-state
propaganda is always traced and those responsible are dealt severely. Moreover,
it is a crime to instil irrelevant and antagonistic thoughts which can
influence the minds of their youth. Their media is controlled and so is the
access to the Internet. Nobody is allowed to discuss topics that pertain to
rebellion, change and reforms.
The major problem with
countries like ours is that most of us do not participate in the political
process or even bother to vote and yet when some corrupt leaders and
politicians are voted back into power, we are shocked and wonder as to how
unwise we could be. We are all sincere for our love for Pakistan, but
unfortunately mere love and affection is not going to change the destiny of
this unfortunate nation. Because of our lack of participation in the political
process, we have been made the sacrificial sheep, thanks to a few of our
misguided short-sighted leaders who became subservient to America which used
Pakistan first to help Taliban and later to eliminate them. And after the
unwilling sacrifices of thousands of innocent lives, we have been declared the
most dangerous country in the world despite our subordination and uncounted
sacrifices.
Furthermore, since
independence Pakistan has been experiencing recurring military coups, unstable
democracy, crippled economy, fragile judiciary and social stagnation due to
some brain-dead economists with crippled and jammed bureaucracy, egotistical,
feudal, religious warlords, profit oriented industrialists building empires
with illegally extracted funding from banks and finally terrorism by extremists
and hardly any contribution by illiterate masses. The list of failures
surpasses the achievements, rule of law, an independent judiciary, and respect
for fundamental rights, free media, merit-based procedures, and questioning by
masses are some of the essential features of democracy. Unfortunately, these
basic rules have openly been violated since independence and by every
successive government.
Democracy has always
faced utter hardships in Pakistan, a variety of factors contributed to the
political and economic instability of the state. Military regimes have also
added to the cause. The dictators manoeuvred the circumstances in their favour
and implemented such policies, which strengthened their illegal hold.
Furthermore, the civilian governments in Pakistan are of transient
significance. The military, the higher echelons of the civil service, and the
intelligence services are the permanent features of the state. There is little
or no evidence where the civilian government has any meaningful autonomy. I
strongly feel that the weakness of the civil government is to not act in
support of the common man with an exemplary conduct. It is unfortunate that the
world powers have always preferred military hold over Pakistan as history
itself is witness that dictators like FM Ayub Khan got US assistance due to
cold war, Gen Zia due to Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (1979), and lastly Gen
Musharraf due to front-line role of Pakistan against war on terror. Were these
actions right and why there was no collective national response to show
resentment and to block it?
Another reason of our
demoralisation and isolation is our poor foreign policy which has resulted in
the current situation. We have failed to retain trusted allies even though
there was huge opportunity to do so. Egypt and other GCC states had good
relationship with Pakistan yet it failed to further enrich that relationship.
Pakistan failed to establish economic ties with these countries on bilateral
level. Today we see that apart from other GCC countries, Kingdom of Saudi
Arabia and Egypt have commercial and military pacts with India. We failed to
attract buyers of Pakistan commodities and investors from these friendly and Islamic
countries. More so we have failed to build good relations with Afghanistan even
after being a generous host to three million Afghan refugees. Our failed
foreign policy could not convince the Afghan government and the people of our
sacrifices firstly for the liberation of Afghanistan from the clutches of the
erstwhile Soviet Union and secondly for hosting more than three million of
their brethren and sisters in our country at the cost of our own fragile
economy.
Iran's government is
very conservative and does not have diplomatic relations with Israel for its
obvious reasons. Iran was the first state, which recognized Pakistan as an
independent country immediately after its independence in 1947. The patronage
of anti-Iran militant zealots of Pakistan by Gen. Zia had sown the seeds of
mistrust between Pakistan and Iran, which the successive governments have
failed to clear. India, on the other hand, had taken advantage of this vacuum
and became closer to Iran by fanning the already tense relations between
Pakistan and Iran. We could have used the advantage of relations between India
and Israel and used these relations vis-à-vis Iran in our favour to improve
relations and secure investment from Iran.
Sri Lanka had sour
relations with India due to the latter funding and supporting terrorists there
yet we did not use that opportunity to strike a military or financial pact with
that country. Imagine a friendly nation on the border of India, which could
have been of great benefit to us. A few years ago, another neighbour of ours
Bangladesh, when began to have sour relations with India, Pakistan could have
used that opportunity to heal the wounds of mistrust and unfortunate events of
1971 to bring that country and its people close to our folds. We had missed that
opportunity and let Bangladesh fall in the lap of India once again.
Moreover, we have yet
to score investors from Europe and Japan, who would love to invest in a country
which has cheap labour. But our failed national policies with a blend of
unstable political system and poor decision making by our rulers lead us into a
deeper mess.
These erroneous
policies the highest number of causalities and yet is blamed as responsible for
it. We are suffering at the hands of terrorists today as we have not been able
to give a united and collective response to terrorists for the nation still
stands divided within on sectarian lines. We today are branded as facilitators
of Taliban, Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda.
We as a country are
also facing international intrigues and are being isolated by design by the
anti-Pakistan forces. Unfortunately our important institutions and government
are not on one page and it is going to prove dangerous at national level, both
at home and abroad. As we are getting into a more complex situation, we must
give positive hope to our new generation for the betterment of our country’s
future. More so our concern lays in some very important questions; will the
government take an initiative to build a narrative for a collective response to
our crises to get out of terrorism? Will media play its role to bring the real
spirit of unity of 1965? National unity is the basic component, which can help
in building collective response. We never acted responsibly and we continued to
run Pakistan on ad hoc basis. The system has lost its value, its writ has
evaporated and individuals have taken over the system; hence the system is
being dented by corruption and nepotism. Lack of respect or fear of rule of law
and accountability, allowed the system to become hostage in the hand of a few.
In short we are today victim of our own failures and blunders.
We as a nation, over
the period have developed a national trait of shifting the responsibility to
others and avoiding being responsible ourselves at all levels of government or
private sector. We do not have fear or respect of the law, nor are we
apologetic for being irresponsible. This trend of ours has destroyed the basic
fibre of the national cohesion and responsibility. Today we are far from the
notion of collective responsibility, which in fact is the need of the hour to
face all our present challenge. Collective responsibility is the main factor
and a guiding principle of progress for the leading countries. It is nothing
but the failure of our collective responsibility that we even are unable to
elect our proper leaders. This spirit of collective responsibility was last
truly seen in all its colours, in the 1965 war where with unity and undivided
will, we as a nation defeated India. To again instil the spirit of collective
responsibility, the Parliament has to play its role, as in the first place, it
is the Parliament that should have been the forerunner in spreading the culture
and spirit of collective responsibility. Unfortunately it failed in its role to
create the spirit of unity; instead it aided further national polarization. It
is heartening to see that those to whom the trust of the public was posed; not
only broke it, but acted against the basic narrative of nation building. Their
acts of omission on the streets of Islamabad; where personal elevation and
interest were more dominating in the streets theatres, were witnessed by the
entire nation.
Now perhaps a time is
approaching when a common man will ask for his rights aggressively and work for
their genuine leadership which is determined to bring the nation on same page,
to forge unity as per the pressing national requirement. As a nation we have
started to feel comfortable with status quo and dare not challenging it; which
means that we do not look for other avenues to lead us to progress, prosperity,
national cohesion and harmony. We need to break this status quo if we want our
due share nationally and internationally. Let’s make a pledge that we would
revisit our past and plan for our better future for all.
I will sum up by
saying that we might not have been in trouble today, had we shown collective
responsibility to ensure the rule of law and stood against the corrupt and
inefficient rulers.
I urge everyone,
especially the youth of this nation, to please come forward and show their
collective responsibility to elect honest and competent leadership so that we
drive ourselves out of this crisis. Collective national responsibility is the
only hope and the right way forward.
The article has been published in ‘The News International’ on 11
October, 2017
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