A sadder 14th August never was

It is a big day or it should have been a big day for Pakistan. Instead, it is a sad one, sadder than any other day of the year. Today, we should have been counting the achievements of the past year; instead, we are counting our dead in the war against terror. Today, we should have been counting the new schools, colleges and hospitals we were supposed to have built in the past twelve months; instead, we are counting our bombed schools, colleges, hospitals, mosques, churches, mosques and tombs. Even our graveyards and funeral precessions are not safe from the terrorists. Today, we should have been counting our foreign trade surplus, our GDP growth, rise in our per capita income; instead, we are counting the trillions of rupees lost by the nation due to the corruption of our military or elected civilian rulers. While our national affairs went from bad to worse, we, the people of Pakistan, watched with indifference corruption, ineptness and nepotism eating at the vitals of our nation. True, the army ousted civilian governments and took over the reigns; however, instead of getting outraged and coming out on the roads against the murder of democracy, we distributed sweat meats. But even before that we never kept vigil on our elected governments; yet even before that we, the people of Pakistan, elected time and again corrupt members of parliament and knowingly too. Today on the14th of August a new year has started as our history as an independent nation goes, we are not making plans for the future prosperity of our children or their better health, for we are involved in a deadly struggle against terrorists and not just the usual terrorists who come with bombs and guns and kill us on the spot. We have elected MNAs who have terrorised us for decades even before the Taliban came into existence and we continue to elect men and women who terrorize and manipulate us with election day tricks. We were terrorized to vote for the corrupt in the name of biridari, language, cast, colour and creed. We, nevertheless, never did stand up to these corrupt, sly and slimy terrorists terrorising us in the name of democracy and getting our votes that way. These political terrorists had no right even to run in elections, let alone be elected, but we, the people of Pakistan, elected them and took out processions and chanted their names as if we had luckily found our Messiahs. Those whom we elected were mostly thugs and they looted us to their hearts' content. But why blame them; it is their job to rob. It was for us to save our country from them; It was we who did not do their job. We let these corrupt politicians create a system in which corruption flourished. We let our corrupt politicians appoint dishonest, inept civil servants who ran these government departments set up to cater to the corrupt. Most rulers are potential looters and they most often than not rob the nation if they find the it asleep or distracted by less important or things of no importance at all. If today nobody gets the services which a government of welfare state gets; if we are run over by floods or rundown by earthquakes and the medicines, tents, blankets, food and clothes arriving for us from foreign lands is diverted by corrupt officials to be sold in markets, we have no right to curse the rulers or the officials, for we let them or elected them to rule us. If you are poor and a police officials locks you up in spite of your innocence; don't curse the cops or your bad luck, curse yourself for electing a government which hired such bad cops. It is for the people: You could have changed the conditions you live in, had you strongly objected and made it impossible for generals to come into power and stay in power or if you had kept a vigilant on the rulers elected by your vote. You and tens of millions of among you did not stand guard on your own national interests and now the complaining of the national losses will be misplaced. It is you to blame and only you. And while the hopes that were raised when the Supreme Judiciary disbanded by Musharraf was restored, have not materialised; the fact is that a judiciary cannot stand on its own. It has to have the apparatus of the state willing to implement its decision. Also, if the people show their will only to accept justice from the judiciary, it will deliver only justice. But not when we are divided and want the kind of decisions that either favours us personally or our favourite political party. We have not been demanding enough in this regard. Nevertheless, it is you and only you who can change the fate of the nation for better and because you are part of it, the betterment will also include you. You and the rest of Pakistanis still have a chance to atone for your past sins and negligence. We still have rulers elected by us and if we are vigilant, we can keep our elected rulers from straying towarfs the path of corruption. In a nutshell, we, the people of Pakistan, have to take charge of our nation.