Raiwind
Prison or PM House?
The attempts at reforming the NAB laws and other such related steps by the elected representatives are only aimed at saving their own skin as well as their stolen wealth.
Pakistan’s politics reminds me of a Hollywood film called Speed. In the film, Keanu Reeves is on a bus in which a bomb is planted. If the speed of the bus goes below 50 mph, then it would explode and kill everyone on board. They continue to drive the bus not for hauling the passengers but rather for saving their lives.
In Pakistani politics, we grew up watching the crooked politicians turn this country into an absolute swamp. They remain in politics not to drain that swamp or to help people get their basic rights but rather to stay alive and stay out of prison. Because they know that the corruption they have done is enough to result in their lifetime conviction in any civilised society. They can only make a deal or twist the legislation that affects their fate while they are actively in politics. Just like a little while ago, the former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu knew full well that if he left politics and power, his fate would be that of a prison inmate. He was either PM housing bound or prison bound. There was no other choice for him. That is why he struggled very aggressively to remain in the office or strike some sort of a deal so that he could avoid the wrong government housing.
We in Pakistan have traditionally called it Muk-Muka politics or the politics of deal-making. The PDM alliance is a group of all the crooked politicians whose sole purpose in clinging to power is to stay out of trouble and avoid the countless corruption cases that are there against them. But anything is possible in a country like Pakistan, which is truly the land of opportunities where anything and everything is possible. Over here, a poor man cannot get a bag of flour to feed his family and will die in the effort. However, those with the right names and titles can have the doors of the highest judiciary open at midnight. Even courts are no guarantee to get justice or see the law win the day.
The attempts at reforming the NAB laws and other such related steps are not meant to guarantee the rights of the poor people or to help provide them with basic necessities such as food, shelter, and electricity. This is about saving their own skin and the stolen wealth. The just cause is just a cause, meant to make noise about and lay claims to. The real motive is rather the pursuit of happiness such as being able to drive luxury cars, wear luxury watches, put some sort of plastic on one’s face, buy newer and better noses, do chin jobs, buy expensive flats in foreign lands, have stolen cash be parked in Swiss accounts, and so forth. The result is the ultra-rich few and the starving many.
It is a vicious cycle. Corruption gives rise to more corruption. The days of just one TV channel are gone. Even the days of multiple TV channels are counted. This is the age of social media. The stolen wealth has a reserve kept separate for buying journalists and opinion makers so that while people’s tongues can’t be controlled anymore, why not control their minds and render their speech blunt. The spin doctors are able to make more money than real doctors. I’d advise young people not to become doctors like Pakistanis always do but rather become spin doctors. There is more money there.
More than 765,000 young Pakistani educated people have left Pakistan in search of better opportunities. There used to be a time when those who were not very good at studies were the ones trying to leave Pakistan and go to some foreign land in search of some grunt work. That has changed. It is the doctors, the engineers, the scientists that are standing first in line trying to flee this land. It is no more a sign of cowardice to leave Pakistan and find an easier life abroad. Now it takes smartness to take that route. No wonder the ones left behind make TikTok videos such as Lahore da Pawa or dance to Indian songs and become celebrities overnight. Who else is going to become a celebrity here? The talented ones and the serious ones aren’t here anymore.
The US dollars inside Pakistan are being smuggled into Afghanistan, which causes the dollar rate to rise enormously inside Pakistan. Low supply and high demand and the noise about it especially affects mass psychology, all resulting in the dollar rate going through the roof. In return, Afghanistan is sending trained suicide bombers inside Pakistan. The 22-year old boy who blew himself up in Islamabad in December last year was trained in Afghanistan and sent to Pakistan for an attack.
Whether the youth leaving Pakistan or the ones blowing themselves up, there is only one factor common to both: the chronic corruption that defines Pakistan’s politics. Young men wouldn’t want to leave Pakistan or kill themselves if they had the opportunities and the resources to grow. It is the lack of opportunities and the lack of any hope that cause young men to find refuge in going to the other side: a foreign land or the after-life.
It is also the corruption of the system that ensures the smuggling of the dollar into Afghanistan. And very sadly, much of the dollars that are smuggled into Afghanistan are the ones sent as remittances by those overseas Pakistanis who had escaped from this system in the first place. I don’t like to bash Pakistan, but it is no country for a decent survival.
The writer is a political analyst. He can be reached at imran.jan@gmail.com
Raza Rabbani calls for declaring 2023 ‘Year of Constitution’
GO Installs RO Plant
Cowasjee Institute to be made psychiatry university
PM approves outsourcing management of three key airports
Film on forced conversion bags international award
Veteran Journalist Mudassir Mirza passes away
NBP Awarded (GDEIB) Awards in four categories
Emirates Group returns to profit
American TV journalist Barbara Walters dies at 93
Faysal shifts to ‘Islamic only’ banking
Leave a Reply