Daily Times

Bureaucracy, politicians, judiciary, police, business community, and even public at large- Corruption has afflicted all parts of our ecosystem. The gluttonous desire for power to dominate others has inflamed our hearts more than any other passion. This hunger for power is devouring us all, silently eating us, piece by piece, thought by thought, our character, our morals, our esteem.

Quoting Lord Acton’s most famous and indeed justified remark:

“Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely!”

Bureaucracy, politicians, judiciary, police, business community, and even public at large- Corruption has afflicted all parts of our ecosystem. Corruption is devouring us all, silently eating us, piece by piece, thought by thought, our character, our morals, our esteem.

Elaborating the term corruption: Generally! It is taken in monetary terms but it has many other aspects too.

By corruption we mean moral corruption, by corruption we also mean financial corruption- the corruption which we all generally know about- say bribery, hoarding, smuggling, money laundering, nepotism, favoritism, and red-tapes. The misuse of power, the misuse of authority, and deliberate negligence are also considered corruption.

Extending the argument on the corruption of and for Power, the moral parasite, it refers to the immorality which is quite common in developing countries. By moral corruption, we mean how we deceive others, how we show hypocrisy, how we tend to defame others, and the propaganda we use against our rivals to defame them. It defines all our evils! We say power corrupts – yes it tends to corrupt, the absolute power held by the sovereign of an absolute monarchy. The power is held by a leader of autocracy or dictatorship.

Let’s wonder about the cause of this problem. The main obstacle is the leader principle: “they cannot resist the urge for power” Even if a man holds that much power today with the best of his intentions- just can’t resist the urge to ‘PLAY GOD’.

Time has cleverly proven that the very iconic men like Ramesses, Alexander, Caesar, Napoleon, Hitler, and Laquan- name it: Your whole of history is made up of men seeking absolute power. We need to understand that when the rich and the powerful rise- they leave the powerless and poor all helpless without possibility.  We need to understand that we shouldn’t fear the loss of power rather we should fear the punishment, fear the loss of dignity, and fear the loss of integrity.

Listen Up! Our warfare is not against flesh and blood. But against principalities and powers and wickedness in the high place. When we spoil the purity of anything –we corrupt it and we do so, we do so because we are wicked in this sense, we are wicked in every sense. We begin to destroy our honesty, we begin to destroy our integrity.

The Pakistani nationals, it is time to redefine liberty. The liberty gifted by our nation in the words of our leader Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah:

“You are free, you are free to practice your religion in this state of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed that has nothing to do with the business of the state.”

The concept of liberty can quite easily be explained by an incident that took place right after- Yaum-e-Takbeer, when a young Palestinian boy, held a stone in his hand, stood in front of the Israeli army and yelled with some heart-rending words, “Don’t look at the stone in my hand, look at the bomb in Pakistan, we are coming after you.” These words sum up the idea and the importance of liberty that we are enjoying in our beloved homeland.

The hatred, oppression, cruelty, and corruption should neither exist in books nor in reality. Let this gluttonous desire not cloud our vision but let us audaciously put an end to it. Let us bring revolutionary changes from the grass-root level. Let us put an end to these white-collar crimes. Let us stand for strong accountability to live a life with dignity and reach death with honor.

Since “EVERYTHING IS FAIR IN LOVE AND WAR” so this is a war; a war for the love of this nation- a war against corruption, a war with ourselves, a war for dignity, a war for renaissance, a war for prosperity, a war for revolution, a war for renewal. We need to fight this war with emotions of pure indignation in order to fetch back our pride which we once dreamt of.