In the first part of our discussion, we talked about how a modern 20th century democratic state was high-jacked by medievalism 73 years ago and is still struggling to free itself. This started the conflict between a medieval model of oligarchy and the hopes and aspirations of people nurtured on a daily diet of democracy, rule of law, equality and equal opportunity by 24/7 world media, which lies at the heart of the political instability…
Posts published in “Pak Media comment”
After the vote: Editorial in Dawn, March 7th, 2021PRIME MINISTER Imran Khan may have received the vote of confidence but it does not resolve the major issues that the ruling PTI faces. By obtaining 178 votes on Saturday in the National Assembly, six more than the simple majority required, the prime minister has settled the issue of his parliamentary numbers. Perhaps he considered this to be the best way to deal with the shock defeat…
THE ‘cornered tiger’, Prime Minister Imran Khan, has won the vote of a majority of the house for a resolution reposing confidence in him, capping a tumultuous week, but the question being asked is if he’d been lamed in the fight to save himself or has he retained the agility to pounce on his opponents? After the Senate debacle on Wednesday, Imran Khan’s supporters took to social media to remind everyone that in 1992 his…
Prime Minister Imran Khan’s address to the nation on Thursday was more of a lashing out than the discourse of a seasoned politician. The PM looked angry and beleaguered and focused more on the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) than his own government’s performance. In what seemed like a desperate attempt to shift the blame of his own party’s failures to the ECP, the PM said that the ECP was ‘protecting those who made money by…
Who is the most powerful communicator in the world? A new born baby. Hungry, sleepy or sick, a baby needs to communicate everything to her parents to stay alive. But she can’t say a single word nor has conscious control over her body language. But by varying the pitch of her sounds, she has all her needs met. Perhaps the most surprising need of a baby — more frequent than being fed or having their…
In the words of Judge Devlin (1905–1992), a British lawyer and jurist, “an established morality is as necessary as good government to the welfare of society. Societies disintegrate from within more frequently than they are broken up by external pressures.” Gen Douglas MacArthur once stated almost the same idea in different words, “History fails to record a single precedent in which nations subject to moral decay have not passed into political and economic decline.” These…
“The usefulness and the mandate of….an elected body under the Constitution have been defeated by continuous and widespread corruption including misapplication of public funds and `horse-trading’, change of loyalties in violation of law by the holders of representative offices for political and personal gains, by the functionaries of the Government, local and statutory authorities functioning under its control..“—Federation of Pakistan v Aftab Ahmad Khan Sherpao [1992 PLD SC 723]. All public power is a sacred…
The elections of 48 Senate seats have been concluded. Barring the one, all seats have yielded the expected results. Yousaf Raza Gillani and Hafeez Sheikh vied with each other for the general seat of the Senate form Islamabad. In the tightly fought contest, Yousaf Raza Gillani, the ex-boss of Hafeez Sheikh (Hafeez Sheikh has worked in the Cabinet of Mr. Gillani) flabbergasted everyone by defeating him. The ruling alliance has 185 seats in the house…
As the state of Pakistan secured freedom from colonialism after WW2, did the people of Pakistan also secure liberation from the inequities of medievalism and feudalism that had suppressed their potential for centuries, and were further compounded by the legacies of a century of colonialism? Or, were the sacrifices of the millions in the struggle for independence merely for a change of rulers – from white Christian to brown Muslim – who ruled the new…
Regressive values appear to have seeped so deep in our society that even a set of statues of a father introducing his daughter to books becomes a victim of vandalism. Some ‘unidentified people’ vandalized these statues near Daska’s city college in Punjab. According to reports, a local philanthropist with the permission of local administration had sponsored a set of statues near the degree college of Daska a couple of months ago. The statues were a…
Secret ballot box for legislators a security risk for state of Pakistan: op-ed
Every citizen of the global village has three vital social drivers of life: interests, ideas and desires. Without these drivers, life becomes dead and meaningless. In the civilised world these drivers require legitimacy, expressiveness, information-giving and equality. The democracy is one of the popular system which fulfil these requirements as promise to citizens through fundamental right of voting to stamp citizens democratic will and self-governance. Social and Moral contract between legislator and voter-In the dynamic…