Tonight I grieve for my country. Truly, deeply, madly - feel sorry and sad for this already dismembered, halved, mutilated and maligned piece of land, the land of five rivers, the land of Harrappa and Mohenjodaro! The country in whose lush plains civilization sprang almost 5000 years ago, we are the proud inheritors of world's first planned city, with complete sewerage system thousands of years ago... a feat that was not known in 18th century Europe. A country won with endless effort of the Muslims of the Sub-Continent whose journey to win this freedom from the English we have studied ad nauseam in our history classes all through school and college, and yet fail to appreciate at all!
In 2011, my country, our country is truly rudderless. It has no direction and multifarious factions, schisms, gangs, and other militant groups are pulling it left, right and center. What does one do? On the eve of Altaf Hussain's address to the media in which strangely he appeared green? (is he a real ogre?) and of course quite high on spirits, one is forced to think and mull over what exactly are we doing and who if anyone is leading this country? For it seems to be completely rudderless, out of leaders, out of a compass, out of a direction and seems to sway every which way and might soon just topple over.
I believe we are all sick to death pointing the pointlessness and total failure of all our leaders of both houses combined, our judiciary is compromised no matter what we hear about the impartiality of the higher courts, our youth lethargic, our education outdated and our vision completely warped. What was one considered seditious and matter of high treason is the talk of high street and at the lips of every so-called democratic leader in the country. From Altaf Hussain to Zulfiqar Mirza to Rehman Malik the talk is of "A map of divided Pakistan" in fact it is a non-map of the once upon country of Pakistan won with a lot of sacrifice and hard work of our forefathers. Slowly, we are being made immune to the idea of a country no more - a Pakistan which is divided into different smaller countries on its "highly charged ethnic fault lines" We are told day in and day out that Pathans have been systematically killing mohajirs in Karachi, and in the same breath, mohajirs are planning on a separate country by cutting off Karachi for themselves from the rest of the country!
Tonight, in his dramatic address to the media, from his hiding hole in London, The literally green Mr. Hussain cut a sorry and a rather comic figure. He basically told the people of Pakistan that Mohajirs are being victimized by other ethnic communities in the city and are not to be blamed for the situation in Karachi, which is being turned into a killing field by the very militarized Pathans. He flicked various documents in front of the camera one being the map of the broken country apparently staged and touted by the US.
What are we to make of this virtual war of words on TV? Every other week its one leader or the other having a nervous break down in-camera! We have the Zulfiqar Mirzas and the Altaf Hussains having meltdowns in total and absolute view of the public! WHY? I ask are we reduced to witness such filth and treasonous allegations and counter allegations, which if found even slightly true, should earn them at least a life term with manual labor!
Is there hope for this country? where the law of the land is only a phrase and nothing more, where governance, whose main purpose is to maintain law and order, does not exist, where rights affirmed under the constitution are merely written clauses in the body of statue and nothing more? Or, are we hurtling towards a massive explosion?
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