Silent Castles in the Air

What purpose other than maligning politicians is served by this senseless barrage of accusations and counter-accusations by the leaders of two political parties, namely the PML-N and the PTI. This country needs a government of laws, not of men who consider themselves bigger than institutions and unwilling to submit to the supremacy of the constitution and accountability. The only sane voice I have heard is that of Afzal Sindhu, who publicly stated that such politics is in bad taste. If only saner elements had prevailed in PML-N and PTI, and personal egos or biases had not assumed priority over more pressing problems that Pakistan today faces, politics in this country would be healthier and beneficial for the greater collective welfare of the people, who are supposed to be basic beneficiaries of a democratic political process. For a nation living in darkness — without electricity, jobs, security of life and feeling of an insecure future — such pointless waste of time by politicians does not bode well for the future of democracy.

Instead of discussing the economic quagmire that this country has been pushed into by a thoroughly corrupt and incompetent coalition government and its predecessor military junta, the opposition parties are too busy abusing each other. What this country needs is an honest upright individual, a man like Quaid-e-Azam, who may not necessarily be religious, but has credibility and vision to form a team of honest men. These should be people with commitment to excel, qualified in sciences, technology and economics to guide this country out of the myriad of problems that it faces, because of years of poor governance and rule by mediocrity with an addictive greed for abusing power and gobbling state assets and public money. Had it not been for the constitutional bar of electing a Muslim as head of state, the priority should have been on political morality and ethics, instead of men whose personal assets are located outside this country, or such heads of political parties who possess dual nationality, or are in the process of acquiring it for self or family.

I congratulate the government and Interior Minister Rehman Malik on successfully ensuring a peaceful and incident – free Eid for Pakistanis by shutting down mobile telephone services in four major cities. I totally fail to understand the logic around shutting down mobile services on the eve of Eid- ul-Fitar. I do not know if the Interior Ministry was following any intelligence or have been issuing orders on whims and was trying to make some numbers for targeting criminals that it has so far failed to accomplish in four and a half year. Instead of putting people in trouble, as already there is enough for us to put up with, government should upgrade its law enforcement, intelligence and policing system, then performing an act that cost Pakistan’s telecom sector to have lost PKRS 2.5 billion to PKRS 3 billion. The government was willing to forego the tax revenue for the safety of the people. Telecom companies, however, are still silent on the merits of the decision to block their services in the major cities for 15 hours on the eve of Eid-ul-Fitr, which is a high traffic occasion for telecom operators.

One hopes like the SMS scrutiny mania that once held the interior ministry, blocking prepaid mobile SIM would turn out to be a hallucination as well and instead I think they should take this experiment a step further and consider the following humble suggestions for the future.

1) Ban all clothing. No clothes, no hidden suicide vests, no blasts. This will promote equality amongst the masses as the rich will no longer be able to flaunt their fancy threads and the poor will be saved the public display of their tatters.

2) Ban all watches and clocks so they cannot be used in making time bombs. In any case, it isn’t as if our nation will miss much in way of punctuality.

3) Ban all vehicles. This will create a logistical nightmare for the terrorists and even if they succeed in their nefarious designs, getaway will be impossible.

4) Ban television, movies, computer games and the internet. After all, aren’t these where the terrorists get their ideas and plans from?

5) Increase loadshedding of electricity, water and gas by at least four to five times. Chances are that terrorists will get so frustrated, the will make mistakes that will either get them caught or blown to kingdom come. Moreover, due to lack of electricity, the terrorists will not be able to charge their mobile telephones so there won’t be any need to shut down mobile services in the future.

I hope that the government will consider these suggestions and will publicly appreciate me like they appreciated the water-kit car engineer. Coming to it I want to ask you all now is that where did he disappear off to, by the way?