A Reason For Change

Rdesikan: ``Shoecide``??? Like Homicide is killing of an individual, and Suicide is killing of ones own self, so Shoecide must be the killing of the shoe. Isnt killing of innocent people bad enough that these religious nuts have to start attacking innocent shoes as they go about the sidewalk minding their own business!!

Actually, the Government of Pakistani is very much like Nelson in just one aspect.

It turns a Nelson`s eye toward all the ills you have enumerated.

Feroz:

…(shaking me head)..you are insufferable as ever…ah…why do you always pick a large canvas and then paint with a needle…

[…state of Pakistan tolerated and even, in some instances, encouraged the prevailing anarchy in Karachi…]

---what do you mean by state?…who is on the ‘bridge’?…the army, politicians, feudals, bureau-techno-crats?…nah forget it…too rhetorical…but one thing is for sure…we have mastered the art of divide and rule from our past masters and fine tuned it…through state/government/establishment/agencies…the irony and the misfortune is that the more they divide us through their machinations (sindhi language card, baluchis, mqm, paakhtoon-punjabi axis, jiay sindh, the haqiqis) the less tolerant and governable we become…predictably leading to the law and order dilemma you speak of…this may well be our Achilles heel…a not that perrenial bone of contention in the north-east…

…more digressions on law and order…

…depending on whom you speak to…there IS law and order or there isn’t…dooming the privileged minority…law and order rates higher than economic concerns for many Pakistanis… the kalashnikov culture flourished…where the citizens felt they could not get recourse to justice through normal channels…the army and successive political governments found little incentive to provide rightful and proper judicial remedies to its citizens…in fact they were in the forefront to abuse the law themselves whenever they found it opportune…

rgds,

t

You make your point in a valid, yet roundabout way. However, a couple of typos...

It`s Horatio for Nelson

and it`s Reid for the shoecide bomber

Dear Mr. Khan

An excellent piece, but as always you tackle so many issues instead of focusing on a one or two and give the kind of through analyis you seem capable of giving it. It was gratifying to read the analysis of Pakistani politics; immaturity and ideological committment that mark the politics of confrontation. Some time back, Mr. Aqil Shah made the point that the duty of the polician and political parties was to ``grab power`` - with such ``values`` animating institutions and individuals competing for public space - democracy has been hobbled.

If you would please comment on the relationship between values and change - seems to me that if our values reflect a mentality that sees rewards, even conscience in confrontation instead of concensus, we shall continued to have immature institutions and leadership.

Pakistanis need to think about values and their relationship to change. What is individualism in the Pakistani context, what should democracy mean?, simply elections? or a corrective feedback system? What is the function of a politician and political party? is ``grab power`` an acceptable answer? if not, why not? Should the state be involved in funding and administering economic enterprizes?

``... government can ensure that Pakistan has a fertile democratic soil by implementing a program of social justice, which will eventually led to economic reforms and these economic reforms will, gradually, translate into sustainable political changes in the country based on the resourcefulness and the self-interest of the Pakistani people to succeed...``

What are these programs of ``social justice``? which economic reforms? what political changes?What about reforms in the structure of the State itself?