Pakistan’s Judgement Week
Pakistan’s future will be decided in the coming days, the stakes could not be higher for our actions or inactions by design or default will make or break Pakistan. This is why I have termed this week as Pakistan’s judgement week, our destiny rests in our own hands yet this is an opportunity like no other and thus it must be grabbed with both hands by Pakistan’s luckless people.
The Supreme Court’s verdict will be pivotal but I believe it’s the court of the people who will eventually decide the fate of our next President. GHQ and others who peddle the view that General Musharraf’s re-election from the present assemblies beware for this court is 160 million strong. It doesn’t need to be argued that General Musharraf cannot be re-elect himself from the present assemblies, for him to do so would be tantamount to a blatant disregard of our constitution and the rule of law. The most pressing question is on what grounds moral or any other can an elected assembly with a life of five years elect someone for ten years? Does Pakistan deserve a zombie president from a zombie parliament resulting only in a dead man walking of a president or can we do better?
A dangerous precedent will be set if General Musharraf succeeds in his endeavour for it’s the same as me paying only five rupees for a good costing ten rupees, imagine the impact of such an event if it was accepted as the norm in the bazaars of Pakistan thanks to the lead given to us by our revered General Musharraf. Pakistan deserves better so I urge my hamwatan folk to make a stand today or remain silent forever. Our slogans must be ‘Pakistan First’ and ‘Go Musharraf Go’ and we must resist his re-election and confine army rule to the dustbin of history forever. However we must do so peacefully by going to the streets in our millions and register our protest against this war crime against the Pakistani people. Just take a look at the collective will of the people of Burma and how they are standing against a vile military dictatorship, we don’t need a better example of how we can do the same albeit Pakistan-style.
The verdict of the Supreme Court may have come but the verdict of the people is yet to make its judgement. This land of the pure has a historic opportunity to wash itself of its recent dirty history, we can purify ourselves in holy water or remain aloof and in deep sleep and hence as a collective sleepwalk the nation onto a path of destruction and ignominy.
The Quaid’s vision must guide us in creating that ‘other’ Pakistan; a Pakistan governed in the interests of the many not the few, a Pakistan that solves the issue of bread for the poor as envisaged by our Poet of the East Allama Iqbal. So I make a heartfelt plea to you all that a stand has to be made for principle and that time has come for Pakistan. We will succeed inshallah if we come out in our millions peacefully to save Pakistan, if we choose not to then we are all complicit in the evil committed in our name. Pakistan as a nation will then deserve the worst and we can and will deserve to rot in hell. An ‘other’ Pakistan is in the making, this moment will not come again, let’s reclaim Pakistan for Pakistan’s sake.
- Originally posted on 4 October 2007, 10.17 PK Time