By: Sarmad Shahbaz
When you are privileged, try to build a longer table instead of a taller fence. However, our political, military, judicial, and bureaucratic leaderships are wearing a veil of dissension towards the socioeconomic, governmental, and security issues of the country.
Recently, there has been a lot going on in the country’s political arena, economic treasure, and socio-cultural showground. From the sacking of a professor at a university based in the federal capital due to a questionable semester quiz to the attacks at the most secured zones in the cities of Peshawar and Karachi, Pakistan has been turned into a battleground of good and evil. However, only the general public – consisting of the middle and lower class – is liable to bear the battle scars.
This nation is trapped in the vicious elite capture where only those people reign the ranks of social stratification who are either already at the top, born with a golden spoon, or the ones who lay in front of the existing elite. In this kingdom of absolutism, as depicted in the base and superstructure of Marxism, the values, norms, and moral codes and conducts are formulated by the top tier. But, even knowing this, the lower classes have always been committed to the top ones. Then why, there has been the least attention from the people who control the system, for the people who run the system?
This is because our elite has become numb. From feeding their pets in the alleged societies from where their domesticated ones escape and harm the people, to vacating the foreign countries without batting an eye on the existing situation of the country, the detachment has been engraved in our faulty gathering at the top. All this is the product of the continuous systematic and social flaws, created by recurring generations.
Instead of a dire need to focus on the issues of political polarization, a debt-based-rentier-defaulted economy, and threadbare irrationally-financed security, our elite is fixated on resuming the criminal cases and pressuring the administration for confrontational agendas. This can be seen with the latest tiresome resignation of the National Accountability Bureau’s Chairman and the summoning of the former PM to the provincial judiciary and his frustrated resistance to it. For the latter, the narrative of continuous confrontation, considering PDM its arch-enemy, has been divisive which will have a long-lasting effect. On the other hand, PDM & Co. has been living in a fool’s paradise of delaying the electoral process while keeping a cabinet of over eighty people.
When you are privileged, try to build a longer table
instead of a taller fence
Putting here for a piece of greater knowledge, Pakistan is ranked the worst in nearly all human development indexes. Along with this, there is little rise but an immense decline in the major ranking of the country. Of this, the country is falling behind what it considers its competitors including India and Bangladesh. Regarding this, our elite is least concerned as this competition is merely for a sense of agitation among the general populous.
Today, our country has been divided like never before. Whether it is in the federal capital or in the far-flung provinces where the provincial minister is keeping a private jail (nonetheless, one can only wish it is only a single minister and not the whole cradle). The elite has become a burden on the middle class and the poor of the country. Now, it is time for the majority, which has been outlived by the minority, to take substantial measures in and out of their daily lives.
The hyped elections are just around the corner. Pakistan’s political turmoil would not end, that is for sure, but still, the country would have a stable in charge of the house (as if we keep the establishment on the side). For the economic woes, the country has to take the crutches from IFIs for a couple of years (only if it does track on the right path). Regarding the security issues, there is an urgent need to empower NACTA with amendments in its role, engagement of security agencies, and implementing of the National Security Policy (NSP) alongside leveling up the game of security apparatus of the country. But, considering all of the above being implemented, what would still be a discordant issue? The nation itself urgently needs to fix its approach according to the world’s standards. This responsibility lies on the people who are, at least, a little educated and have some saneness.
You and I can easily find an escape abroad, doing a demanding job, and joining the ultimate system. But, the people suffering in this panopticon-style grinder can only feel more and more alienated. For them, come together to build a society having integral ethical values and an open mindset of acceptance and coexistence because becoming completely rebellious is as harmful as the allegiance of servitude. To end this whole hustle, the process, of getting rid of the faulty gathering at the top, has to be started from the bottom of the social classes.
The writer is a Pakistan-based journalist, politico-economic commentator, and social critic. He can be reached at @SarmadShahbaz01