What I Saw In Okara

Urstruly,
No, it wasn`t the last bit of your #15 that caught my attention at all. Between the religious parties and the feudals, I`ll take the former anyday I think. Surprised? Well, Least to least number prinicple :)
PM

Military Farms in Okara were setup by the British in the 20`s and are part of Army`s corporate empire now.

All agricultural land must belong to the tillers. Fuedalism in all its forms and manifistations is evil and must be abolished...... who will bell the cat remains the million $$$ question.

link to this on all dawn pages as an `ad`
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Chairman Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, Imran Khan appeals to all Pakistanis at home and abroad
Fellow Pakistanis,

Assalam Alaikum

This is the first time in my life that I am approaching you through a letter. When I embarked on my mission to eradicate Cancer, and went to every nook and corner of Pakistan, I realized that various injustices had shackled my countrymen.

During my campaign against cancer, I had come to fully realize that more than individual cancer, what needed to be addressed was the cancer of an unjust system that was eating away at the vitals of our nation. This collective cancer was destroying our country, and needed as drastic a treatment as does an individual suffering from this dread disease.

This can only be possible if the factors responsible for the spread of this cancer can be removed…they being none other than the professional politicians and the corrupt administration. Only their removal can breathe life into the system.

This is the basic conviction of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, and this is why we have shunned professional politicians, because the need of the hour is a clean, unstained leadership that can rein in the arrogance of the bureaucracy in an attempt to save this country.

This is my aim and objective. I am fully aware of the fact that this is an onerous task, and there will be many hurdles along the way in the shape of professional politicians and corrupt officials but I give you my word that I shall not be thwarted by them and will do everything in my power to root out this cancer from the body politic of Pakistan.

This is something, however, that I will not be able to achieve without your cooperation. Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf needs financial assistance to be an effective force in Elections 2002. Its members and office bearers do not have access to funds like the professional politicians, as they belong to the cadre which earns its living in an honest manner.

Rid your country of the cancer of corruption and injustice. Extend a helping hand to Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf.

Pakistan Zindabad

Allah Hafiz

Imran Khan


You can contribute to our political party by any of the following methods

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Urstruly is absolutley right in his earlier post describing the undercurrents that are stirring the pot here. It is an attempt to document the agriculture economy with owners, without any question, benefiting from it. The owner-tiller relationship is turned into an employer-employee relationship without consideringt the obligations of the owners in terms of retirement package, holidays, work hours, housing, insurance and medical etc. The old crop sharing system accommodated all these in lump sum crop share for tiller. In the new system, tiller is treated more like a temporary worker with no power to negotiate contract.
It will decrease the motivation for production as well as opening gates to competition from migrant and cheap workers from arid lands and even Afghanistan. It may be even beneficial for owner to not cultivate at all if the benefits of drought are better than poor harvest, in the form of tax breaks or subsidies.

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Umer,

Excellent point. But the philosophy of IMF and WB, behind this concept of ``aid through debt`` is to create sustainable development in the third world countries. In other words it is an ``aid`` to develop an infrastructure or a base on which the development will take place. At conceptual level this idea is correct - most of the IMF advertisements in third world countries deliver the message that it is better to give someone seeds rather than beans, or a fishnet is better than the fish etc.

Most of the thrid world countries however, do not have a system of check and balance in place to check the corruption that followes with such aid - this includes the countries that even have democracy.

Another form of ``aid`` is that which is given to the local NGOs but through the local governments. This opens up another avenue of corruption, where bhanjas and bhateejas of powers that be open up NGOs and skim money. In concept, this kind of aid is used to develop human resources, but in practice it developes only certain kinds of humans :). The foreign NGOs are another menace, which I call trojan horses, which are unleashed on us to prolestyze among us the Western system of values and they are committed to change the social order according to the Western system of values. Please read my article on Globalization to understand this phenomenon.

In theory and in practice I am utterly against the concept of getting ``aid`` (in fact debt). It simply means that we are living beyond our means. This gives western colonial powers a strong foothold right on our chest. They can suffocate us anytime they want.

What we need at this time from the perspective of our nation is to stop our rulers from getting further aid. Period. Internal system of generation of revenue like a just tax system must be developed. Unfortunately, under pressure from colonial powers we are building a tax system to pay the return on investment that colonial powers have made in our land. How can such system be just when all that people pay does not come back to them as in any civilized society, instead it goes to soodkhors who invested. That is exactly the reason riba was prohibited in Islam because creates new avenues to exploit human beings. In this case it has turned into an all encompassing global evil.

PM# 20

Thank you. Probably, the last few lines of my post caught your attention. In fact, this assertion is not made on mere assumptions, the engine of change is already in motion. I know, at least Maulana Fazl-ur-Rehman has explicitly asked people to not to pay taxes (that includes income taxes, aabyana, and other direct tax on agriculture) to the government, because this government has become a revenue collector for someone else.

I agree with Maulana. The acceptance of any tax structure that does not guarantee the return of revenue back to the community is unjust and thus un-Islamic.

Dear people, a question...

Since everyone`s talking about IMF and the World Bank etc. etc., is there a pathway or system by which the politicians can be conmpletely by- passed and the loans handed directly to those who actually need them?

Thank you.
Umer M.

...where is that omar_r_quraishi kid?...so much for his ranting about pak media...


{The false propaganda of Pakistan TV stood exposed yet again when the channel claimed that voters were dragged out of their houses in Lolab assembly constituency in Kupwara district without realising that elections were countermanded there after the assassination of Jammu and Kashmir minister Mushtaq Ahmed Lone.

Elections to Lolab will be held on October 8. }

IT IS IMF AGAIN,

It is nice to know that the army is evicting the poor because of IMF. Jihadists are crossing to india because of indians, al quida men are in pakistan because US bombed afghanistan. Can any pakistani assume responsibility for anything.

a report based on what pervez hoodbhoy has said in this interview and in fact more has already appeared in dawn last week --

Urstruly:
Intresting post, your #15!

P.S. Hobbes, still awaiting your comments on reply on April Fool Referendum Board.
Thanks,

re. Hobbes:
``If the peasants at Okara were to be appeased, which property would be safe?``
Ajeet has already inquired as to how the army came ot acquire large areas of STATE-owned real estate. We might also ask how the present feudals came to acquire the lands they live off. (Posed another way, exactly how wide did they spread their legs before the colonists?)
Some other relevant questions: how equitable has the reimbursement of slave-.. I mean peasant- labour been in Pakistan? How much in keeping with Islamic ethos of social justice has this been? What should be considered equitable retro-imbursement for services?
Methink you are indeed disconnected from ground realities in any meaningful, experiential sense that might create empathy.
rgds,
PM

hobbes #6.

` If the peasants at Okara were to be appeased, which property would be safe? `

It is amazing the you should call tillers` call for a right to the property they have tilled for generation as appeasement. Specially when the owner of the land is military. How did the military come to own the land. Did it pay for it? If not what right does it have to it.

Also there is something called social justice. When Musharraf goes to the IMF and the western countries to ask for abatement or out right forgiveness of the loans, under what law is he asking for it.

I would say if the tiller have tilled the land for say 25-30 years it should belong to them.