Daily Times

The progressive segments of the society on Saturday protested against ever increasing living cost in the country, particularly in its urban parts.

Scores of working class people, residents of capital slum areas, students, trade unionists and progressive political workers participated in the protest.

The protest centered on the core issue of economic justice and how the Pakistani economy, built around the consumption and profits of the narrow elite at the expense of everyone else, had failed to provide it.The protestors criticized the way mainstream political parties were cynically pushing unpopular IMF demands on to one another without offering a genuine anti-imperialist alternative.

Speaking on the occasion, General Secretary of left wing Awami Workers Party (AWP) Iqbal Ustad said that the current hike in prices were predicated on anti-poor measures, taken by an elite that refuses to reduce its own consumption.

He challenged the government to cut the billions in subsidies that it gives to businesses in the form of SROs, or reduce the ever-increasing exemptions and privileges of the military and bureaucracy.

The Secretary General questioned why mainstream parties, apparently claiming to champion democracy and anti-imperialism, refused to offer any alternative to IMF imposed cuts and conditions.

He claimed that PTI’s recent electoral success had everything to do with the failure of PDM to genuinely empower the people. He emphasized that IMF’s undemocratically imposed conditionalities consistently targeted health, education and public spending but left the ballooning military budget intact. He said that the IMF was the true face of US imperialism. The endless cuts to the civilian budget and the ever-increasing military budget were the legacy of dozens of IMF programs. The goal he said was to leave the country open for capitalists to plunder its resources, and destroy any capacity for working class people to escape their exploitation. He claimed that it was time for people to rally around a genuine anti-imperialist alternative because things are set to continue getting worse. He insisted that UDM was such an attempt by progressives across the country to unite in the face of exploitation and ecological catastrophe.

In his address to the gathering Senator Akram Dashti recalled that it was essential for ordinary people to understand that elite consumption of imported goods directly made their lives worse.

He insisted that to make progress it was necessary to understand that the national economy was stuck in a cycle because elites expect the IMF to bail them out at the expense of inflation that hurts the working class. He claimed every bureaucratic perks; increase in military budget, every unnecessary import was made at the expense of the working class.

Dashti claimed that young people were set to face an economic and ecological breakdown. And that the only way to fight was a spiritual and political revolution. He insisted that it was necessary to recognize our choices as part of an interconnected whole and that it was to organize, join progressive causes and build an organization that could seize back control over the state’s economic policy.

Another speaker explained that the current rise in prices had forced families to make brutal choices. He claimed that rising prices had made it incredibly difficult for Katchi Abadi residents to travel.

He said that not in a heartless state. Policies forced families to choose between meals and paying for their children’s education. He said that families were being forced to make brutal choices and the state seemed completely unconcerned.