Pakistan Today

Breaking from rustic customs

It has been more than six decades that we became a sovereign independent state after a constitutional struggle waged by men like Allama Iqbal, Maulana Fazalul Haq etc, led by Quaid-e-Azam Mohammadd Ali Jinnah. This was to rid Muslims of economic slavery by an affluent Hindu majority with large feudal land holdings and political clout that they held. The British occupation used lands as bribes to win loyalties of natives recruited in bureaucracy and uniformed services to perpetuate their rule, a practice which they never adopted within their own country.
Even after more than 65 years, vested interests continue to cling to this culture of state lands being doled to paid servants and political loyalists. This insatiable greed for assets has made these vultures biggest collaborators of land mafia, with few rogues going from rags to riches, getting political power, destroying our moral and ethical value system and compromising individual rights of citizens granted by constitution.
Instead of adopting political culture of Quaid-e-Azam, what we have acquired is sickening feudal political culture, where brute force and bondage has served the interests of former collaborators of Colonial Raj, who were showered with state lands and titles as a reward for betraying their motherland. The consequences of adopting culture of violence and abuse is rise in street crimes, kidnapping for ransom, target killings, rape, slave bondage, human trafficking, drugs and unchecked flight of capital. The British may have left, but those who have sworn oath of loyalty to UK or USA continue to plunder this country and destroy our economy.
Nations prosper only, when they shed the negative customs adopted over years, and accept what are universally accepted norms, such as freedom of expression, equal access to opportunities, supremacy of law and submission to majesty of the writ of law. American reformation from the Wild West culture started only after Lincoln abolished slavery in 1865, inspite of fierce opposition from Southern states, who insisted it was part of their culture. Norway broke away from brutality of its Viking past and is today become a symbolic welfare state.
Far East places like Singapore and Malaysia used to be littered with filth, until state moved to enforce writ of law by severely punishing those involved in drugs etc. Today if anybody spits chewing gum or beetle leaves known as pan in subcontinent, or even a piece of paper in public place anywhere in the developed part of Far East, heavy fines equivalent to US$100 are imposed. No private citizen, other than uniformed law enforcement, can dare carry a gun in public. It is the strict penalties that enforce the rule of law, not mere enactment of laws, rhetoric or seminars. The choice is that individuals, without any exception and society as a whole submit to laws, or else anarchy and jungle law prevails.

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