Where is Prince Charming?

I think few of the problems that have plagued Pakistan, perheps from the very begining are:

1) Lack of clear objectives of it`s creation: For exapmle ... Was Pakistan created for muslims only, or was it created to provide a state where religious freedom will be granted to everyone? The answer cannot be some ``lines`` appearing on some ``historical document``, but what the nation, by its actions, has demonstrated over years.

2) General lack of awareness among the people: Sometimes it seems Pakistan was a fantasy of Quaid. It seems quite reasonable to think that only Quaid could have made it happened. And he very well did. Besides him (and maybe a few other leaders), no one quite knew what was going on. That`s why after the death of Quiad and other leaders, there was no consistent leadership in the nation. The awareness did not trickle down from the leaders to the average members of the nation. And with the passage of time things have kept getting worse.

It may very well be argued that points 1 and 2 basically raise the same issue. Few other points to ponder ...

Generally stating, Pakistan consists of 3 types of people:

1) The ruling class, which is very corrupt and is bent upon exploiting the nation. This includes most of the high ranking govt officers, landlords etc. No economic policies, legal changes will better the condition of the nation because the leaders of the nation are corrupt.

2) The common people, who do not have much awareness level. They are still trying to define who is and who is not a muslim, if Ahmedis, Shiite, Agha Khanis etc. have a place in the socity or not. Then there are a host of cultural issues: whether a person is a Sindhi, or Punjabi, or ..... {remember East Pakistan!)

3) Fair minded intellectuals and educated people, who are at times quite emotional, sometimes very idealistic, and quite rationl and level-headed at remaining times. At any rate, they seem to be too small in number, and/or too far away (geographically), and/or too caught up in their own lives to really make a serious effort to change the status quo. Looking at the overall condition and history of Pakistan, one can hardly blame these individuals for inaction.

Pakistan, since its creation, has gone through one crisis after another. If things do not change in next 20-30 years, it seems that catching up with the rest of the world would turn into a mere fantasy. It may just become another Beruit ... or Bangladesh ... After all, there are a many nations which are in a lot worse condition, and ``life goes on`` anyway. Since the beginig of time, nations have come to power and risen to great heights, and then vanished over time. A cold hard fact is that the same may be destined for our nation too! Keeping in perspective the historical development of mankind through evolution, it is a possible outcome. And on the other hand, things may turn around too. It is also possible that Pakistan may slowly change its course and rise to heights of glory. But it may not happen in our life times. After all, what is another 60-70 yrs in the life of a nation.

It is hard not to question the raison d`etre of Pakistan- especially in the light/distress of today. There is very little for us to be proud of as a nation- Faiz, sports, Baba-e-Qaid, Iqbal, a few extraordinary individuals, musicians- but that is about all. It seems as if partition has done more harm to not just the nation but Islam itself than anything else. The psychology of the people of this country and this region is such that division is an inherent trait. When there were on Hindus to react to, Muslims of Pakistan started to react to each other`s otherwise negligeable differences- and some of our more notorious opportunistic rulers fully abused this insight (be it Gen. Zalim Zia or Bhutto with the shameful Anti-Ahmadiyya oridinance). But here we are, our Islamic virtue has become our vice. Beard-wielders carrying swords have done their best to rape Pakistan`s non-islamic heritage, continuously shunned forms of artistic talent and embedded in the Pakistani psyche seeds of prejudice... In the light of today`s globalized economy, Pakistan is a nation that was never allowed to recognize itself as a nation by an opportunistic elite and leaders with over-the-board obsessions of Nizam-e-Mustapha. It saddens one to see Pakistan enter a globalized framework, where geographical boundaries do not exist, without an identity. It will become an insignificant dream and will go down unrecognized. I will continue to hope, continue to dream knowing it is all for nothing...

khwaab adhooray sahi...
khwaab saharay tho hain...
-Junoon

Aadabarz
Fraz
Pakistan zindabad

Good grief. It seems everyone is missing a fundamental point here. We ``the educated armchair politico`s`` have no business judging the morality or aspects of happiness for others.

The best we can do is improve everyones economic well-being, remove constraints on behaviour and let each individual make their own decision on what they want.Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of happiness is not a bad set of objectives to work from.

Why should I or anyone else care about religion or history. We define ourselves, we aren`t defined by our ``club memberships`` however inclusive the club. If it works hold onto it, if it doesn`t, bin it. IMHO I am better at connecting to my roots and to God directly rather than through a state sponsored line. My beliefs (like everyone elses) are my own business and not the mandate of some cretinous cleric who would have us believe that ``there will never be peace between Pakistan and India``..etc. etc.

Thank you Amin for the comment on freebies and the blame culture. I don`t know too many Gora`s who care what happens in Pakistan. Where do we get off whinging about their actions. If its not them its all those nasty hindu Indians who spend their time cleverly brainwashing us through LEO satellites. (The one that just got the plug pulled was actually a clever coup for our intelligence community, well done guys.)

Our grandparents and parents made Pakistan. ditto managed it. If its messed up, who are we going to blame? (The Gora`s of course, heaven forbid that our progenitors were capable of independent thought, however ill advised).

If we are incapable of demonstrating the fiscal discipline and sense of community necessary to do so we deserve our troubles and are likely to continue the gypsy existence most of us are now living.

Saima describes a fundamental inconsistency of interest in a developing economy. This is a flawed economic viewpoint. The problem is in centrally planning the economy and allowing our legislators to decide where our savings should be spent. NOT in making capital available to legitimate users.

The distribution of wealth need not be even as long as peoples overall well being improves. This is one of the costs I spoke of in my article. The best way to dilute growth is to spend money on the urgent rather than the important. Even distribution of wealth, and similar socialist tenets come into this category.

My key point is that we need to work ourselves out of the mindset that we will always be poor in US$. Pardon my french but ``bollocks``. The idea is not just to ``catch up`` with the developed world, it is to make ourselves an equal participant in it.

Finally it is a mistake to say we should not question the ``basis of the Nation`` and a bigger one to assume that if we do Pakistan will disintegrate. I reiterate my earlier posts. There is no such thing as sacrosanct knowledge. We can`t clean a room by sweeping everything under the carpet.

Our existing constitution and raison d`etre are clearly not working. Lets try and fix the major problem rather than coming up with ``bubble gum and elastic band`` tweaks to work around it.

There is no Prince Charming. The sooner we realise that the better.

It is time to think about the following:

``Ask not what the country can do for you
Ask what you can do for the country``

We are so quick to condemn the rich and not so rich (who may be providing capital). The idea is that we are a nation that would only be happy if everything was provided to us for free. From the day we are born, we are always trying to find ways of getting stuff for free. Whether it is free health services, free education (right up to University level), free phones, free utilities, free food and not to leave out an interest free economy. Now I have used the term free, loosely. The reason is that while we want our profits, salaries, and revenues in general, to rise in response to inflation and supply imbalance, we would not like the suppliers of goods and services to do the same. We forget the basic principles of economics that price is the regulator of demand and supply of economic resources. Push the price of the product to a level inconsistent with the production price or the supply volume constraints (short term inelasticity) and you will find that the product is being horded, either by consumers, middlemen, or producers.

Capital is no different. Riba, in Islam, is prohibited. But if you see Dawn`s recent letter to the editor where it presented facts succinctly, and that is, that the Islam banned Riba on Personal Loans (that even those taken for sustainance and not to acquire luxury goods) and not Business and Government Loans. The principal is simple. It a price is not levied to allocate the capital then everyone would demand the resource and unfortunately in this world resources are scarce. That is not only true for a country like Pakistan but for any developed or wealthy country.

When fees go up 25 or 40 percent, we see letters to the editor in major newspapers. But nobody thinks why the fees is going up. The uncertainty created in the economy has prevented potential entrepreneurs to putting capital in high risk ventures. This creates opportunity for the current entrepreneurs from earning a super normal profit in the short term. Once the market sees current providers earning a super normal profit, they will enter the market and drive the profit level down. In the meanwhile, the consumers (that is the parents) could short circuit this disequilibrium by forming a cooperative and generating sufficient demand so that it may service their own needs through economies of scale.

The reason the government in Pakistan is so heavily indebted is that it is trying to subsidise food, health and education for the last 50 years while at the same time has not tried to balance its needs through raising funds from taxation (in fact agricultural income remains taxfree). Needless to say, the demands for food, health and education has grown but revenues have not. The funds that were borrowed to pay for these expenditures are now coming back to haunt us. If we are to take responsibility for our future, we need to get the graduates of Colleges and Universities and other Professional Institutions to start paying back the amounts spent on them for education. Everybody (including agriculturist) have to start filing tax returns (even though their income may be less than taxable income). We need to cut down on defence spending (maybe employing them for educating the agriculturist and providing them with primary health care). We need to stop subsidizing all food, education and health (for this provides subsidized goods and services to even those who can afford it). In fact the minimum taxable income should be set on the basis of minimum sustainance level. This will in turn will be dependent on the family size - unlike the current system whereby the exemption level is Rs.40,000 whether it support 2 or 6 person family and irrespective of special needs for children.

Anybody having difficulty understanding these economic principle may take a course in Micro and Macro Economics.