For more than 30 years Hosni Mubarak ruled Egypt with an iron hand. All that he earned for himself was hatred of his people and immense wealth he had acquired through sheer abuse of power.
Today his assets stand frozen, but the only thing that survives is the memory of his tyrannical rule. He could not stand up like a man to face trial because his heart failed to take the pressure, although the same coward was devoid of all feelings whilst millions starved and thousands were deprived of their basic rights and lives. History always recognises men of honour who refuse to sell their conscience for assets and titles. History tells us that tyrants or dictators never learn from history.
Few men in our brief but chequered history could find a place of honour for themselves because they did not offer themselves or their conscience for sale. In pre-partition India, names like Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah, Allama Iqbal, Maulana Fazal-e-Haq, Nawab Ismail, Nawab Liaquat Ali Khan, Shahnawaz Bhutto, Malik Barkat Ali, Maulana Zafar Ali, Abdullah Haroon, Nawab Nishtar, Allama Mashreqi, Ghaffar Khan, Suharwardhy etc stand hovering over the others.
Such men became a rare commodity and very few could qualify for having to some extent stood up to defy temptations. The few Pakistanis who history may remember will be Abdul Sattar Edhi, Justice Cornelius, Maulvi Tamizuddin, Hameed Nizami, Justice Hamood-ur-Rehman, Justice Kayani and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, whatever the critics may have to state otherwise, because even saints did not enjoy unanimity in adulation.
On the other hand, there is an endless list of villains in post-independence Pakistan, the most prominent amongst them being Ghulam Mohammadd, Ayub Khan, Yahya Khan, Zia-ul-Haq, Pervez Musharraf and those who harmed the judiciary like Justices Munir, Anwar-ul-Haq, Maulvi Mushtaq, Nasim Hassan.
MALIK TARIQ ALI
Lahore
