Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Death of the Dream






That it would come to this! The ruling mafia would collaborate to make the most financially corrupt man in parliament as their Leader! Never in the history of this unfortunate country had any event decided with utter finality its imminent fate.
Today, I am devastated on one hand but also find some relief to think that so many romantic, idealist and passionate people for whom Pakistan was a land of hope and promise have died and gone to their graves and are saved from witnessing its humiliation and mortification.

I cannot control my tears streaming down my face and mourning for the beloved poets who wrote ballads in rapture, drunk with patriotism and romance for this land, and singers who sang immortal songs of adoration and pride.



DEATH OF THE DREAM


by Noreen Haider


That it would come to this! The ruling mafia would collaborate  to make the most financially corrupt man in parliament as their Leader! Never in the history of this unfortunate country had any event decided with utter finality its imminent fate.



Today I am devastated on one hand but also find some relief to think that so many romantic, idealist and passionate people for whom Pakistan was a land of hope and promise have died and gone to their graves and are saved from witnessing its humiliation and mortification. I cannot control my tears streaming down my face and mourning for the beloved poets who wrote ballads in rapture, drunk with patriotism and romance for this land, and singers who sang immortal songs of adoration and pride.

Today I mourn for all the men, women and children, forced to leave their homes, lives and livelihoods, lands, roots and told that they no longer belonged in their own homes and had to move to a new country if they want to live and so they chose to "live". Millions migrated in caravans of woe, wretched of the land, ousted from their homes, naked and barefoot, hungry and frightened, stripped of their dignity, with death in tow and fear gripping the entire multitude in an ominous blanket of misery. But they pushed on, leaving mutilated, starved, diseased and rotting bodies for the crows and vultures to feast on. Millions died and millions maimed for life but they treaded on and reached the "new homeland', the land of promise and hope? Where they belonged? Where they were safe? They reached "home"?

With tears refusing to stop flowing I mourn for all the men in our armed forces who sacrificed their young lives and bled on "battlefields"? Who believed that the honor of their country was far worthier than everything else. Who sacrificed their tomorrows, leaving young wives and mothers in white veils and ashen faces, hearts crushed and eyes turned to stones but finding solace in the belief that the death of a Shaheed is not in vain and the defending the motherland was worth more than the blood of their beloved. 

I mourn for the lives and death of all of them, I mourn for myself and I mourn for the loss of that dream. The sacrifices turned to a mockery and the country into a wasteland. The imminent destruction was looming large for a long time but still it was difficult to imagine the utter death of hope by this so called, elected "democratic government" who is a ruling mafia of opportunists who sold out the blood of people who sacrificed their all for this unfortunate country.

I am still in shock along with many other idealists like me who are at loss and don't know how to digest this new scenario and put any meaning to it. Why have the so called people's representatives in the parliament agreed to elect a financially corrupt person as declared by the supreme court, to become the leader of the House to "uphold the constitution" and "strengthen the institution"? What prompted them to agree? Was it just money? What possible good can even the greatest wealth bring to anyone in a land completely ruined? How can a few thugs believe that they can lead lives of riches and luxury in isolation and enjoy anything at all where now tens of millions of people have reached the last level of degradation and ruin economically, socially and morally? Let there be no pretense, there is no bubble existence, and the ruin will be complete for all. When a country come to this stage that corruption and dishonesty is blatantly celebrated and laurels are placed on the heads of the looters then nothing can stop the implosion from happening.

The people of this country are facing the worst energy and power crisis imaginable. I shudder to think of the people especially the children, their poor mothers, the sick and the elderly who are forced to live their days and nights in torturous heat, having continuous sleepless nights and endless miserable days. Thousands of people are on the streets demanding an end to this pain. For what sin they are being punished is not known. Especially the people of Punjab are being punished with twenty two hours of power cuts every day. I don't know when the last time I slept through the night was. And the answer to the wails of the millions of people is that the one person who personifies the woes of electricity has been made the chief executive of the country; the Prime Minister of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan? Why?

Is there actually a sadistic pleasure that Mr. Zardari is drawing from the torture of people of Pakistan and showing once and all to the world that the screaming millions here mean less then creepy insects crawling in the mud in their own sweat. Their deaths are as meaningless as their pathetic lives and they are of no consequence what so ever. If they are miserable, well they were born and destined to be just that and it is their fault that they cannot afford a good life like Mr. Zardari and his cronies.

It is but a brute act of defiance to the apex court that the man implicated in the biggest scam in the history of Pakistan has been awarded the highest office. The Supreme Court of Pakistan gave its verdict and declared all Rental Power Plants contracts null and void for illegal and non-transparent policy of the government and in violation of law. It said that all concerned persons involved in the scam including Raja Rental "are liable to be dealt with for civil and criminal action in accordance with the law".  The court declared that he as Minister of Water and Power along with several other public office holders have grossly violated their oath and deserve severe punishment. So, now in compliance the verdict this is the "punishment" that he has been awarded by the ruling coalition parties. The message is loud and clear to the miserable people who are not part of this mafia. There is but one law in this wretched country and that is Mr. Zardari himself. All the other people are merely pawns in his hands and he is cleverly playing his nasty game and enjoying himself to the hilt. This is the reality of "Democracy is the Best Revenge" indeed.

There is not enough space here to divulge in the details of the power crisis but the fact that not a single rupee has been allocated in the current budget to pay the 400 billion rupee outstanding circular debt to IPPs shows how vulgarly the government is deceiving the people. The cronies of the ruling mafia state in media about allocating funds for power projects but the reality is that all the major Hydro-power projects including Diamer-Bhasha and Dasu Dam cost on an average twelve to fifteen billion US $ but every year some 4 billion rupees are allocated on paper for these projects which is not even 0.05 percent of the total project cost. Even with the availability of total funds it would take would take more than a decade to build a dam the size of Dasu for which currently there is no funds. In fact nobody has any intentions of doing anything in this regard and it is mere eyewash. There is no possible solution to the power crisis in sight.

The ruling elite has no answers but they have some very well-rehearsed phrases which all of them learn by heart and start to recite on slightest provocation and it goes like that, " qurbani,  lashain, blah blah NFC, blah blah blah Aghaze Haqook-e- Baluchistan, blah some more and eighteenth amendment, blah blah…."

The country has been ruined in the name of saving the system and maintaining the status quo. The much trumpeted eighteenth amendment is a jugglery of words. There is very little authority that has actually been transferred, if at all to the provinces. Even if any authority is transferred to the provinces the mere transfer of power from center to provinces does not have a cause and effect for improved governance.

As in the center, so in the provinces there are autocratic governments in power. In Baluchistan and Sindh there are two half dead and dumb witted Chief Ministers who cannot even speak a single coherent sentence and are often swaying on their feet for some mysterious reasons. In Punjab which has now the worst law and order situation in the country, there is an autocratic rule of Mr. Sharif and his family and in the terror ravaged KPK the family of Wali Khan are on a record breaking spree of corruption as declared by Transparency International. 

On the other hand millions of people in interior Sindh are living in sub human conditions, probably unchanged from the pre historic times. No food, no water, no shelter, no hope, no answers, nothing at all. The blood continues to flow in Baluchistan and KPK and Punjab is now worst of all with the sky rocketing crime figures, unemployment and poverty. Yet the children of the ruling class are getting richer by the minute by some miracle and their wealth is multiplying every day and their businesses flourishing. Even the son of Chief justice of Pakistan who was unemployed just a few years back, became a billionaire almost instantly by some special grace of God and was able to take his family on European vacations costing millions of pounds.

I wish there was some light at the end of proverbial tunnel but the fact is that now I am even afraid to die and be buried in a graveyard here where the news of abuse of even the dead bodies is recurring news. The ruin is complete and the vicious circle of poverty, ignorance and crime is whirling at full spin. 

*** 

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Socialist Pakistan News (SPN) is managed by supporters and members of Labour Party Pakistan


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