Daily Times

If I were to say that the heat is on, it would be an understatement. Everyone has been expecting this for a while. Post Eid, the temperature of Pakistani politics has reached boiling point. Everyday, pseudo-gladiators get ready for the much-awaited showdown in Islamabad. It is one of those tussles where, if you were to ask any common person on the street, he or she would very disgustedly says it is of least relevance to them or their daily challenges. Thanks to the nightly circus on the idiot box that has created hype of epic proportions, the so-called “independence march”, “revolutionary march” or “change march” that is being peddled will not bring anything but more litter to the streets of Islamabad.
Some capital it must be, to endure all these stunts and prepare itself for more. None of this inane and hyped agitation can bring any significant change whatsoever. Ironically, it is being timed with our day of independence. One has to reflect and ask a very simple but poignant question: independence from what? The idea of independence stems from persecution, violation of fundamental rights and exploitation. Our textbooks go into a lot of detail informing us of the cunning British rulers and somehow overlook or, for that matter, discredit the system they gave us. Look very candidly and when you take stock of what the British left for us as a system, it is still in place whether it is education, healthcare, transportation, local bodies, systems of governance, class structures in society, business or economics. The list goes on and on. If we had none of this as a foundation, I can very convincingly say that our illusionary and imaginary nizam-e-this and nizam-e-that would have failed. We as a people and as a nation are so segmented, so narrow-sighted and so blinded by our egos and self-righteousness that we have had a major civil war in pursuit of our puritanism.
Thank God our religious fanatics have not been able to succeed in their psychotic ideas, or else more than half of the population would have been sleeping forever and that too six feet below the ground. It may hurt a lot to hear that this structure and system that the gora (white man) left for us was one of the reasons behind our survival. Had there been none of this, it would have been chaos unlimited. You hear the critics yell louder and louder blaming the failure of this system. I beg to disagree with their assessment. The system does not fail, the people in charge of the system do. The British have a functioning democracy and so do our next-door neighbours who share our values and our background. The reason why the masters and their former subjects next door are thriving is because they have not tried to reinvent the wheel. What I am about to say will infuriate many but it is one of those things that needs to be said. I hear many pundits giving their verdict on how the civilian governments have failed and that this country needs a “general” who will set the path straight, and from there on a foundation for “good governance” will be laid. To those pundits I say that after four generals and almost 30 years plus of experimentation with this fantasy, one has to broaden one’s horizon. Why expect much from a general who is trained to run an armed force and not a government?
Two different functions and two different forms of expertise are needed. Why not invite successful government consultants from countries where the system works? Rather than giving a clueless general the keys to the capital, why not bring in top political scientists, former administrators, educators and presidents to assist and opine? A council of experts must be created and, with an amendment in the constitution, that council must be hired for the next 50 years. The recommendations of that council must be implemented and enforced. One may vehemently disagree with such a move but cannot deny the fact that one cannot expect change or miracles from the people we have tested and tried over and over again. Now a harsh reality to toy with for a change: we left India because of economic reasons. We were afraid that the Hindu majority was going to exploit the Muslim minority in a united India. The religious angle was used to extract that end. Now please look in the mirror and tell me if the majority of the population in our country is still perhaps in the same position it was in 67 years ago in terms of economic freedom. So, independence in essence really meant a change of faces for millions. On that note, happy Independence Day. When you can figure out independence from what, please let me know as well.

The writer is a Pakistani-American mortgage banker. He blogs at http://dasghar.blogspot.com and can be reached at dasghar@aol.com. He tweets at http://twitter.com/dasghar