The PM’s second address to nation within a month following Panama disclosure of Offshore companies owned by his children does not evoke any sympathy rather it reflects an image of betrayal. Coming from a very humble background, a small village in East Punjab, this country offered his hard working father numerous opportunities to rise from almost nowhere to a man of means, owning a steel mill Ittefaq Foundry.
Agreed, that an individual named Gen Musharraf had no moral or constitutional right to force a Pakistani national, elected as PM, to exile, because there is no law on statute books that allows such an abuse. What Musharraf did was illegal. He abused the trust this country reposed in him, a trust which he has betrayed by abusing his powers and abandoning Pakistan after relinquishing power.
The PM must remember that it was Pakistan which offered his family abundance, because there are numerous others who faced greater hardships, sacrificed far more and may have worked as hard as Sharif clan, but yet have chosen to live and die in this country with their assets and family located here. There are thousands who have sacrificed their lives for this country but their orphans did not abandon their motherland, because the bond between son and mother is very strong.
People die for either faith or country, because their commitment to both is strong and binding. You do not abandon your motherland on first sign of adversity, unless you consider Pakistan a convenient financial transit stop over, where you make loads of money, evade taxes, but yet justify transferring all your assets abroad and still consider it moral to seek an elected office, where you decide fate of millions who have chosen to live and die here, for better or worse, till death so that their bones are interred in this soil. Nothing can justify abandoning your motherland, especially when it has offered you so much in terms of financial growth and respect by electing you to highest office not once, but thrice. You Sir, owe a lot of debts to Pakistan and the least that you can do is to transfer all your assets and force your family to move lock, stock and barrel, if you consider Pakistan to be your motherland.
Ali Malik Tariq
Lahore
