The wisdom of thoughts

Dr Zafar Altaf
Email: dr_altaf@hotmail.com

As I sat in Alabama the town of Martin Luther King Jr. I was to remember his famous speech ‘I have a dream’ and yet ironically three police officers were today acquitted of murdering an unarmed civilian who was to get married in a couple of days before his own fiancée. The hero of this town was to say the least a man who fought and waged a struggle for love and against hate so I thought it might be worthwhile to examine how his concepts could be applied to Pakistan. Betrayal by silence has been in my country supplemented by the conveniences and luxury of the few. The country lacks, my country lacks, persons whose foresight is such as to take us to a level of thinking where the personal benefits are to be put on the backburner and the greater good of the greatest number has to be worked out. That is a tall order for then we would be making our way from a country to a nation. Probably the biggest damage done to our society is by the various chancellors of the universities where sissy-pussy footed vice chancellor‘s have been appointed not understanding that a society has to develop where the mind is superior to any other consideration and yet has our education and these mighty vice chancellors provided any such mind boggling leadership. They are gas filled bubbles. They have been guilty of developing subservient thought and in fact have they not only hurt the cause of Pakistan but taken it to pits of the world? Parochial and suffering from inferiority concept they have sought to give this very message to younger generations.

There is this very facile connection between these education systems that creates mummy-daddy boys to the killing fields of Pakistan and this connection is difficult to make. Yes. Pakistan came up with the hope of independent country based on equity and fair-play and that was the reason for breaking away from the subcontinent. Muslims were not to be subjected to the Hindu majority. Have we then behaved in manner that was better than what was to be thought to be the manner of the people and the country we left behind? Searching questions and the disadvantage that one has as a Pakistani is that I have not the persuasive ability to convince my country men that human and humane actions are the best way to hare and care. No one belongs to the lesser god. Have we not in the process killed our own countrymen and country boys and girls? This lust for power, this ability to hang on to it despite the advantages and disadvantages of democracy for me that works no matter how slowly.

The captured electronic media did not go to the sights where the pain of the poor and the marginal people could be carried to the ordinary citizens for them to understand what was going on and how when one man loses his rights all men lose their rights. How was this done? The government controlled electronic media was captured and threats and manner of doing it was to create a leadership hierarchy that was not independent and pay them so well that if they had to leave their job they would not have any place to go to. The private media was regulated through draconian laws and the nephew of a former general was placed in that position. The relationship reinforced the original service cadre of the person for he was a police officer. It was like icing on the cake.

Unlike the war dead the body bags of Pakistan’s dead were not sent home? Even if they did there was precious little that any body could do for them. Trust at home and abroad was betrayed. The dead went six feet under without ever any concern of any one. The racism with us was different for it was not based on color or creed but on the lack of opportunity for the many and absolutely nothing for the people living in marginal and fragile areas where all opportunities have been taken away from the living masses so that they could be made to beg their way out of life. We are ridiculed as a poor nation and we have been paid money for doing the work of other nations. Sir, may I put it to you that the real poverty in Pakistan is directly proportional to the riches that have been acquired by the very few. Worried as they are that the loss of power will lead to many questions being asked as to asset formation by the people merely because they were having a weapon in their hand and the tongue wagged the most and poisoned the masses as only they could. The poison in the social system is difficult to understand but then we are only capable of doing simple things. Complex matters are not our forte.

It should be incandescently clear that our concern for integrity is not based on capitalism it has a very high moral ground. Capitalism I used to say and I still maintain is in USA and then in Quetta. Surprised you are but never mind the town that you have not visited and the people that you have not eaten with seem not only distant but they have been painted as devils. No one sees it. It came to me in former East Pakistan. The crowd was against Ayub and the Punjabi was being abused. I went and took photographs of the protesting people and in the process I laughed at the abuse that they were giving to the Punjabis [which I was]. They could not understand my reason for laughing and one of them came up to me and asked me why I was enjoying their movement. I asked them whether they had seen any Punjabi before and said that I was the first one. I had peace thereafter for I could have used other methods that bordered on arrest and brutalizing that society and those people. There was such serious manipulation of the people of East Pakistan. There is such serious manipulation of the people of the current Pakistan. Poodle de and poodle dumb.

When one is commissioned in any walk of life the privilege and burden becomes higher and heavier and not the other way and as we set out in life we have to learn to give and not take all the time. Have we lived by our oaths or do you think an oath is a paper document that could be flouted at will? Have we increased brotherhood and have we left hate behind? Have we made our children compete on level grounds with the children of the poor? We are bound by loyalties and allegiances and we seem to use these two murderous weapons to place a few unwanted and unwarranted men in to positions of power and in to positions where their will is bent and their humane qualities suspect. The government that is not of the people can and does create massive destruction. Pakistanis coming from abroad are so petrified about their country that they seek to purchase houses that are ‘gated’. The insecurity of the secure leads to further expenditure on the security of the insecure and one has only to see the budgeted figures. That is a self defeating concept. Macaulay had considerable strength when he made two assertions. First, that any one that has a right to hanging has a right to education meaning thereby that you have to develop the concept of reason and secondly that out of a hovel only a pig comes out? Now put all this together and catch hold of all the former ministers of education and having caught them forgive them. That is the message of Martin Luther king Jr. and should suffice at the moment. At some later date I will revisit him for the power of his decency and for the power of his transcendent thought. Some how all this perfidy must come to an end for we all are ultimately answerable to God, not half gods.

Is Martin Luther King Jr. relevant to Pakistan? You bet? Any odds.