Category: Politics

Post-Virus World Order

Un-globalization in process.

How many companies will adopt work-from-home model when this will be over? Isn’t it less costly?

How many people will re-shape their work-family balance?

Will the business and strategy books keep on teaching “globalization” like before?

Will China remain the production hub of the whole world?

Will the nations keep on buying weapons to build on arsenals or will healthcare get some light?

Will healthcare be adopted back by the government, as it was being privatized and outsourced in most of the countries?

Will there be Hajj this year?

Will secularism / liberalism see a boom or will the world keep moving towards populism / conservatism?

Will science be considered as important as orthodox beliefs?

Will the neighborhood life resume as before?

Will we have more divorces or more babies?

There are so many questions. We don’t even know how many will perish before a virus-free world sees the daylight. But who cares?

We deserve this.

First of all, this debate of science vs. religion will never end. It is as ruthless today as it was when Galileo said that the earth is a ‘globe’. One side can claim that science has failed to prevent the world from this invisible virus. And the same can be said for the other side.

Exactly same arguments can be thrown on both sides of the pole.

The question is, why is this even polarized. For me, it is exactly the same side of a single being.

Anyway,

We deserve this.

With bloods on our hand, we deserve this.

When kids were being killed in Yemen through drones, we didn’t record resistance. We took Sunni / Shia split sides. We defended our troops and blamed others.

When Afghanistan was being bombarded – with Jihad and without Jihad – we played dollar-based-politics. While counting dead bodies, we never shuddered and continued counting dollars.

When Rohingya were undergoing ethnic cleansing, the world watched it as silent spectators watching a horror movie.

When Syrian refugees were drowning in the water, we cried, wiped our tears, and went on to buy products of the same people who pointed guns at the refugees.

When kids were being raped and murdered, we were unable to make policies to tackle the situation. Now, see, kids are safe. Or maybe not?

We never thought of the consequences of our consumerism.
We never changed our lifestyle. Because we never had an ideology.
We never had conscientiousness.

We deserve this.

With arsenals rising, missiles getting bigger, drones getting smaller and jets getting swifter, poor people became poorer.

Those who were unable to be fed, were bombarded.
For narratives. Ideologies. Politics. Business. Religions.

We deserve this.

So, here we are.

I hope we will learn a lesson.
I hope it will be classless and ruthless.
I hope it will be liberal and secular in selection and conservative and fundamentalist in implementation.
As we have been for centuries.

Because, we deserve this.

And I hope and pray this virus will spare kids.
Because the next generation is the only hope this world has.

CSS – Neither Civil, nor a Service

Jawaharlal Nehru famously mocked the Indian Civil Service as “Neither Indian, nor civil, nor a service”. Lord Samuel wittily lauded the British bureaucracy’s faultless ability to “provide a difficulty to every solution”. Mrs. Margaret Thatcher, soon after becoming PM, thought she should make an informed assessment of the civil servants for herself. In May 1980, she invited 23 permanent secretaries in her government to dinner at 10 Downing Street. She groaned afterwards: “This was one of the most dismal occasions of my entire time in government.” In the UK, according to Mrs. Thatcher, a former head of her civil service beli¬eved that bur¬eaucracy’s function was essentially “the orderly management of decline”. A report on the Indian bureaucracy by a US think tank concluded that “corrupt bureaucrats are despised but thrive; the honest are respected but do not rise; and idealists end up nowhere”. Now come to Pakistan. CSS is one short-cut to an elite life. Just pass one exam – and with luck on your side – you can be sitting along with PM or CM in a decade; distributing your dufferness with etiquette. Let me elaborate. What most of CSPs deal with is the budget. There are two kinds of it. Development and Non-Development. Non-Development is the usual non-technical shit; like salary and non-salary expenditures. Development is about PSDP (federal level) or ADP (provincial level) development schemes which pass through different forums and feasibility steps before seeing the approval day. After which starts the release of funds and execution of the schemes. That’s basic to know the least before chairing a meeting. Even after serving for decades as CSP, bureaucrats are clueless about development. But then, they sit in every single development meeting and make decisions. Result: National misery. Sahiwal Coal Power Project was infeasible. Peshawar BRT is a slap on the face of civil bureaucracy. Lahore’s Orange Line is nothing more than an environmental catastrophe with billions of rupees wasted. And the bureaucratic crap is faced by the Ministers. Ministers are guided by these bureaucrats and they face all the media trial. However, the real failure is mainly because of the bureaucrats who are responsible to guide the ministers in the right direction with right decisions. But as CSPs are surrounded by lickers, they themselves behave like lickers around ministers. To keep posts. To stay in big cities. To save humiliation of thrown faraway or becoming OSD. The purpose of CSS was to offer secured jobs to exceptional candidates so that they can stand against ministers with infeasible demands. Yet, every single major project in every single field is political. I remember a Secretary with 22+ years of service – who remained a Divisional Commissioner too – once asked after a development meeting “what do I have to do here?” A file was placed in front of him for signatures, which he did. Job done. Railways. Always remained under CSPs. Ugliness of this department is a routine news. Pakistan Post is an example which doesn’t need elaboration. Police is another nightmare. People – even after robbed of their property and prestige – prefer not to visit police stations. With increasing bribery and crime and police brutality, one can see how dumb and clueless their top hierarchy is. Health, education, roads and all similar departments fall under the ‘prestigious’ PAS – former DMG. And 99% of DMGs are suited duffers. Manicure, done. Pedicure, done. Cologne, done. Accent, done. Mess, car, driver, chef, a couple of lickers around. Other than that, a couple of poetic verses – preferably Faiz and Shakespeare – and little Marxism to impress you with historical jargons. And that’s it. National misery sustains. CSPs don’t know but every single one is made fun of behind their back. People, their subordinates, laugh at them and mimic how the clown acted like Lincoln. So, what’s the solution? First thing is, CSS is outdated. CSPs should be promoted after their fair performance assessment. Those who were behind serious mishaps – train delays and accidents, merciless killing of people in police custody, billions of rupees wasted on non-feasible projects, etc. – should be punished with termination. Technocracy should be promoted. CSPs should gradually be put into clerical stuff as they are nothing more than white-collar-clerks and have no technical knowledge. IT sector should be managed by IT veterans. Police should be guided by those who have done research work in criminology. Health should be under health professionals. Development should be seen by those who have spent years in development and planning jobs. Here, people with exceptional education and research work stand in queue and wait to salute a BA pass bureaucrat. Don’t get offended. But if that will continue, Pakistan will keep on begging IMF and the world to sort its mess.

Unjustifiably Justifiable

I don’t know why people are hating Vawda. He should be awarded Haram-e-Imtiaz for what he did. With just one single dumb act, he summarized the complete political history – and curse – of Pakistan.

Boot. On table. The place where pen and paper (or constitution) are supposed to be. But here – in the land of pure – we have boot. Everywhere.
On our heads.
On our bums.

The debate Vawda initiated was that PMLN is a boot licker. But before going further, he said PTI is a boot licker too and is proud of it. PPP guy tried to rank himself third in the category of boot-licking while Vawda was emphasizing the opposite. That was the whole debate.

You get the message?

It is that: Everyone is a boot-licker. The issue is only about ranking in boot-licking.

Thar’s it. Simply done.

He told everyone that every party and parliament and senate and laws and everything is under the boot.

But there is an issue. The act displayed a disgusting note. That being a boot-licker is filthy. It is what it is but it’s bad. It’s inevitable. It’s unjustifiably justifiable.

Don’t hate him. No one could have done it. Historians and writers have to write hundreds of pages to publish what he presented within 10 minutes.

Hail Vawda!

Patriotism, Nationalism, Militarism & Kashmir

For a particular group of people and militarists, on both sides of the border, nothing could have been as beneficial as Kashmir. It is a cash-cow, giving budget, billions, lands, and above all unquestionable silence.

Do they want it resolved? Obviously not. It will end a big chunk of budget. What will we do then?

The defense of a country has a purpose. But it is not just that. War and being a ‘security state’ has certain perks. Because of war in Afghanistan, dollars rained over us. During Soviet times, we were over the moon. Even our religion was all about ‘Jihad’ at that time. Zia cashed the opportunity as best as he could, ignoring all the side-effects.

But, times change. The Soviets went home. And then came Taliban.

Again, we played the game so that we could get dollars. The same happened during Musharraf’s era. All we had to do was show dead bodies and ‘do more’. And we showed 70,000 dead bodies over the years to get what we wanted. Until they hushed us away.

Remember the APS incident of 2014? It is not what is shown on the media. It was a trump card move. Guess who it gave a blank cheque to? Military Courts were born without a question.

That’s how you play the game. One move at a time. But no move to end the crises. Just keep on playing the bloody game. Nothing personal. Strictly business.

Coming to Kashmir. It’s old news. A part of routine. But it is the real cash. Uninterrupted. No one wants to resolve it. Even some Kashmiris.

Back in 1965, when Pakistan moved to liberate Kashmir, it were Kashmiris who did nothing and, in fact, sided with the Indian troops, resulting in an embarrassment. Do read about Operation Gibraltar and Operation Grand Slam of 1965.

Mourn as much as you want. Wear black. Play anthems. Block the roads. Burn Modi’s pictures. But it’s all bullshit because it’s all business.

Even then, if you are too sensitive to ignore blood and mayhem, look inside. Balochistan. Hazara. Missing people. State terrorism. People being killed by police and agencies. Waziristan. And constitutional demands of thousands of PTM workers who are being labeled as terrorists.

If you can’t see inside, you are only a hypocrite who is pretending to focus outside. The same hypocrite who ignored the Bengal issue in 1960s which ultimately led to the surrender of 1971.

First and foremost, Kashmiris have to stand for themselves. They are unable to make a unified and impactful political platform in 7 decades. They are unable to make a clear stance on what they want. Do they want an independent state or do they want to join either Pakistan or India? Nothing is clear. There are oppressors and there are oppressed ones. And a perpetual business of war being played.

One should condemn India and its oppression in Kashmir. For sure. But blocking our own roads and making self-made-slogans of Kashmir – Kashmir banay ga Pakistan – is going to do nothing. We have already been doing that since 1947, unsuccessfully.

India undid everything with a single stroke of pen on Article 370. And India will suffer.

We should mend our ways first. We should apologize for our history and hypocrisy and things we have done wrong with our people and people around us.

This patriotism and nationalism is business of the elite of states. Not mine. I don’t even buy this bullshit. It is embedded in you with curriculum, songs, movies and slogans.

Let me give you an example:

Rashid Minhas took the plane down and crashed it because an agent was trying to take it to the other side of the border. Minhas embraced martyrdom and was awarded Nishan-e-Haider.

Who was the agent? What is the other side of the story?

Matiur Rehman was the “agent” who was trying to take the plane out of Pakistan. He was fighting for his nation i.e. freedom fight of Bangalis. From Bangladeshi point of view, he was their hero.

Matiur Rehman was awarded Bir Sreshtho (equivalent to Nishan-e-Haider) and is known as their national hero. Just like Minhas.

Two sides of the same coin. Same story. Same incident. Same plane. Same martyrdom. Same medal of honor.

Both were sons. Both had families. Both had dreams. Both had a life.

But who won? Business. Business of war, weapons, arsenals, jets, tanks…

And who suffered? Those who were sick, hungry, illiterate, malnourished, and striving for basics. Public. Awaam. Janta. They are still striving. Pakistan, India and Bangladesh have the highest pool of people below poverty line.

There are five members of “Security Council”. This council of security is supposed to make this world more secure. And these five countries are the top five countries of exporting weapons. It’s business.

Your craziness, dumbness, blocking of roads, chanting slogans… is nothing practical. You are playing in the hands of the elite. For their business. For their war. For their profits. For our blood.

Ending it with Arunthadi Roy’s note on Kashmir:
About the story of Kashmir and India and India and Kashmir, I can do no better than to quote James Baldwin:
“And they would not believe me, precisely because they would know that what I said was true.”

Anyway, relax! Take a deep breath. Inhale. Pause. Exhale. All’s good.

In the Name of Zainabs – Our Daughters

There was a Zainab before. A blind girl.

In the times of Zia.

She was raped. Gang-raped.

But as she was blind and couldn’t identify the culprits, she was stoned.

Stoned to death for adultery.

The so-called “sharia” by Zia was imposed.

Just walk through the corridors of government or private organizations and you will find corruption at every corner of this country. Employees at lower grades are as corrupt as employees at top hierarchy.

Clerks are the ones that keep the pain alive. Employees in the field are the ones keeping the bribe system blooming. Shopkeepers, section officers, businessmen… almost everyone is corrupt. We have to verify a zillion times before making any purchase in this country.

Our kids, our generation, the innocent beings, are also not safe from our corruption. We feed them with impure milk. We raise them with bigotry and complexes. We trust strangers for their development. We send them to unsafe madrassahs and schools. We use them for our gains.

Most of the people, when asked about their kids, reply that they will help them in old age. That is it. Selfishness.

Lower the income bracket, higher the number of pregnancies. The only flourishing indicator of this country. And then they are left to face the miseries of life. Which is why they get into the wrong hands.
A Basic Health Unit (BHU) is given a minimum target of 60 deliveries per month. If less, an inquiry is held. Such is the ugly state of our “population control”.

Anyway, there is a question. Questions. What to do? How to keep our kids safe? Apparently the best solution is to take contraceptives. Let the kids stay in the heavens. But our selfish nature will not allow us to do that. Then what to do?

Schools are not safe. Madrassahs are not safe. Streets are not safe. Even relatives are not safe. What to do? There is no answer. There is only selfishness and misery. And misery will prevail for long. Because we see, we shout, and we become normal. Until we are jolted again.

Young Zainab’s father said that the head of JIT should be a Muslim. His consciousness is amazing. The rapist and killer of his daughter would most probably be a Muslim. The men behind child sexual abuse scandal of (2006-2014) were also Muslims. The state should be rid of this religion card by now. Our security, our existence, and our future is as stake; but we keep this card alive for personal benefits.

People are angry. There are episodes of anger.
Political parties are playing their political card.
Religious parties are playing their game.
The father of the unfortunate Zainab is also speaking in favour of the religious card.
Everyone is playing except those who are beyond the tags of conservative, liberal, Muslim, and non-Muslim “clichés”.

Faizabad Episode

I remember wasting time on convincing people that you cannot let a weaponized group to contest in general elections. Like TLY. It was allowed to contest in NA-120.

ECP didn’t allow them. Interior Ministry didn’t allow them. ISI allowed them. That is why they are “apnay log” as COAS said.

Who are NOT “apnay log”?

People of Baluchistan.

People of Karachi.

People of Hazara.

Minorities

People who are abducted.

I can post numerous posts of public events where civilians are being violently treated by the military.

Why did COAS say that the two parties should resolve their matter peacefully?
Why were officials tweeting about it while they were not ready to follow the orders?

Why were they making political statements at all?

A minister had to resign today. Tomorrow more pressure groups will force more resignations.

Opposition members are saying big words today. Tomorrow they will be facing the exact same challenges.

The same happened in 1977 when Mullahs and Political Parties made an alliance against Bhutto, supported by the ISI.

In 1988, Islami Jamhoori Ittehad was formed against PPP. Nawaz Sharif was the key man launched and supported by ISI. Hamid Gul had a major role in forming the center-of-right political alliance.

Karma!

Reiterating again; this is not democracy. There never has been.

Such are the situations that reveal who is playing the game.

And why is the Government impotent?

Why doesn’t it take a stand?

Well, it can’t.

Why?

The top leadership of this government was born and nurtured under Zia. It didn’t form and wasn’t allowed to develop naturally or democratically.

No party in history of Pakistan was developed democratically. They were made all of a sudden to challenge the former ones. To make democracy uglier.

MQM was made.

PML-Q was made.

PPP was fully supported by Yahya against East Pakistan.

PTI got the final boost from outside the camp.

I can bet, you cannot make a national political party in Pakistan without the assistance from barracks. Ever.

That is why these parties behave like dictatorships.

This is why Nawaz is being dictator of his own party.

Pakistan is a hub of failed experiments. From sects to political parties to security state to anything, everything is a failed experiment. Yet we boast with songs that we are what we are not.

Faizabad interchange is an example of failure. Of not only the government, but the whole state and its security institutions.

We are still in 1977.

As ugly as we have ever been.

True Lies & The Real Jihad

He: I demand justice for the minorities in Pakistan.

We: You didn’t speak when that Muslim was killed.

He: I did.

We: You paid Indian agent!

 

He: I stand with the people of Balochistan. We should give them their basic rights.

We: You never spoke for Pakistanis.

He: They are Pakistani too.

We: They are agents like you. They have sold themselves. You are all traitors! I wish you were all dead.

 

He: I will stand till Hazara victims get justice.

We: You didn’t stand for Muslims ever.

He: They are also Muslims.

We: You liberal fasadi agent!

 

He: We all should stand for missing people.

We: I knew you would say that Mr. Liberal in the limelight.

He: Today they are abducted. Tomorrow it will be us. We need to stand for justice and fair trial.

We: Not us. Only you. You should be abducted too, Ghaddar!

 

He: I will go to court to get justice for the molested child.

We: Yeah right! You just want to be an opportunist in fashion.

He: No I don’t.

We: You anti-state liberal, trying to defame Pakistan!

 

He: Islam teaches us differently. We need to stand for those who are wrongly accused in blasphemy cases.

We: You always speak against Islam.

He: No. I speak against injustice as Allah and Prophet Muhammad SAW has taught us.

We: We will kill you. You are a Kafir! Murtad!

 

He:

We: Where the hell are you now?

He:

We: I hope you are dead.

 

And “we” all shined on.

For another thousand years.

For another hundred wars.

Killing our own sons.

Killing our own generations.

Yet we remained victorious.

At least in our books.

جواب حضرت نصیح کو ہم بھی کچھ دیتے
جو گفتگو کے طریقے سے گفتگو کرتے

Forgotten Lessons – Our Ignorance is Our Pride

Hussain RA went against the ruler of His time.
He stood against injustice.
He stood for what He believed was right.
He embraced martyrdom on that path.

We cry every year on Muharram for the pain faced by Hussain RA.

Yet we are all like people of Koofa. Silent. Not doing anything. Not even realizing ‘wrong as wrong’ in our hearts.

And above all, we are proud of it.

Our ignorance is our pride.

The lesson from Prophets is to stand against oppressors.
To stand against unjust powers.
Moosa AS against Pharaoh.
So as others.

But today, I guess, paths of Prophets are too tough to follow. To even realize right thing at heart is tough. We think it’s bad to think ‘wrong as wrong’ today.

Ignorance. Circling us from all sides.

And after ignoring all our Islamic traditions, we think we are the right ones while those who actually take the Islamic path are wrong ones.

These silent blind followers are the most cowards ones.
Afraid to think.
Happy to accept.
Following whatever is accepted widely.

Yeh 10 crore hain
Jehal ka nachor hain
Inki fikr so gai

Revolution vs. Evolution (PTI’s November 2 Dharna)

Expectations:
Khoon bhi na niklay or inqilaab bhi aa jaye.

Reality:
Khoon bhi nikla or inqilaab bhi nahi aaya.

Some facts about revolutions:

1. A revolution is never bloodless. Evolution is bloodless.

2. If both the leaders of pro-revolution and anti-revolution ride the same vehicle, that isn’t revolution. (Helicopters in our case)

3. If team of the revolutionist is as shady as the team of ruler, that isn’t a revolution either.

4. If it is expected that police wouldn’t beat revolutionists, then it isn’t a revolution but a way to combat boredom perhaps.

5. If the army is expected to help the revolutionists instead of the government, perhaps another revolution is needed before this revolution.

No revolution in history sustained itself in the long run. The most famous one was “French Revolution” by Robespierre. Success followed by instant failure.

Another one, widely famous and copied, was by guerilla leader Che Guevara. It succeeded for a couple of years only.

Pakistan was made on evolution, with efforts of over half a century. Revolution was not adopted. Islam was spread through evolution, over 23 years.

When Jinnah lost the elections of 1935-36 by Nehru, he didn’t make a fuss. No dharna. He recollected himself. Took charge and made a national difference. He made new waves of ideology through consistent awareness methodologies. In the elections of 1945, he won decisively.

We put pictures of Jinnah almost everywhere. Most commonly, his picture is placed at the back of the sitting leader. So as to not follow him, and we don’t.

I am for evolution.
Not for blood. Not for corpses. Not for violence.
And not for revolution.

The Case of Cyril Almeida

Miss Nasim Zehra is known for writing articles on corp commanders and military officials’ meetings. Once she wrote an article about the content of the meeting of corp commanders of Pakistan. The article was published in Reuters. There was no fuss about it.

What Cyril Almeida has done is not wrong. He got the content and he wrote it. That’s it. His article was ignored for two days. It didn’t become news until his name was put on ECL.

Pervez Musharraf was sent out of Pakistan through an inside job. No problem to anyone. He was dancing some days back. Raymond Davis was sent out of Pakistan with the help of Shuja Pasha.

What a shame!

Both army and government personnel who are being selfish here should be punished. Both are trying to get sympathy votes which doesn’t suit them. There was no need to make a fuss about this article. Those who read Cyril Almeida knows that he mostly writes the same way.

Shame on Chaudhary Nisar as he made it a big issue. Shame on those who put his name on ECL. Shame on those who brought it into the limelight.

Now coming to the content of the article. Well we all know that the article is completely based on facts. Both army and the government have their support for proxy outfits. LeJ, SSP, JD, JM, TTP, and some others are owned, protected, weaponized, and supported by people in Parliament, barracks, and agencies.

The best shot would have been to let it go. There was no need to make it such a big deal. There was no need to talk about it.

In my view, the difference of opinion between civil and military officials is GOOD. At least both are concerned about these banned outfits. Both are not ready to become scapegoats, which is fine. There can be a different strategy. For example the way Malik Ishaq was ‘done’ by Punjab Police.

Kashmir issue will remain hot till Kashmiris stand for it. Pakistan has done the job pretty well in this regard. China and many other nations have spoken for it. Washington Post has mentioned Indian atrocities. Now it is time for Kashmiris to stand for themselves. No nation has achieved independence through foreign help. You have to work for it and keep the passion burning. Unfortunately you don’t have Jinnah on your side, otherwise no foreign help would have been needed.