Why Has the System Collapsed in Pakistan?

The poor nation has been treated like a naïve fool—or like a buffalo standing idly in Anarkali Bazaar, merely watching the spectacle—while the only person truly entitled to everything has been the one holding the stick. In such circumstances, lamenting that “our system has collapsed” amounts to nothing more than crocodile tears.

May one dare ask these distinguished representatives of power: who is the greatest beneficiary of this collapsed system today?

Surely, it is not that poor, powerless figure who constitutionally occupies the office of Prime Minister but is widely perceived as nothing more than a flatterer, a “Cherry Blossom,” or a bootlicker. Even the authority to reprimand one of his own unruly cabinet ministers has been taken away from him. Before the real power brokers, the poor man has no option except to bow or prostrate himself in deference. Yet even this symbolic arrangement seems intolerable to those who wield the stick. They ask: Why should this weak individual even occupy this ceremonial chair? If we are the real source of power, why are these sheep and goats sitting here at all?

And who does the Eighteenth Constitutional Amendment think it is, making us dependent upon these provincial “sheep and goats”? If we require funds for “protecting the people,” why should we have to seek the approval of these so-called political parties? Why not simply dismantle the provinces, divide them into thirty pieces, and grind them down, just as our revered elder, the “true believer” of the Zia era, once envisioned—that politicians would come crawling to lick our feet with their tails tucked between their legs?

But these are not our real issues, despite the crocodile tears now being shed over them.

The system has produced poverty, unemployment, despair among the youth, and unbearable inflation. Our country is being humiliated across the world. The begging bowl has become our national symbol. Even our Prime Minister has admitted that whenever leaders of friendly countries see us, they think, “Here comes the beggar.”

Our young people, exhausted by poverty and hunger, want nothing more than to leave this country. Many die while attempting the dangerous Dunki route to Europe, drowning in overcrowded boats. Is there any system here that offers them hope?

You criticize the distribution of laptops. Although laptops are a useful technology, today the world has advanced from artificial intelligence to cutting-edge digital technologies. Compare our condition with that of India. Where are the modern industries that can provide educated and capable young people with respectable jobs and salaries that match their abilities? When will our society become not only modern in agriculture but also genuinely industrial?

All this has resulted in the destruction of democracy, lawlessness, the systematic killing of merit, inequality, oppression, and the transformation of the country into a breeding ground for crime.

Bribery, favoritism, and nepotism are everywhere. Why has our country repeatedly experienced martial law? Why is there neither respect for nor supremacy of the law? Why has our Parliament become nothing more than a rubber stamp for the powerful? Why does our judiciary continue to place boots above the Constitution? To what extent has our society been destroyed because of this, and who is truly responsible?

The absence and destruction of these values have killed the spirit of tolerance and coexistence in our society. They have nurtured the snakes of religious hatred and made it impossible for ordinary people to live with dignity.

This oppressive approach has created and nurtured countless forms of extremism. It has robbed our younger generations of their emotions and independent thinking.

What is taught in our religious seminaries in the name of sanctity, and the hatred propagated there, as well as the fanaticism promoted in modern educational institutions under the labels of Pakistan Studies, theology, and religious education, leaves little room for disagreement. Anyone expressing an alternative viewpoint faces severe restrictions. It is not only conservative society that reacts harshly; the country’s blasphemy laws also loom threateningly over dissent.

In such an environment, how can freedom of expression and intellectual liberty flourish? In such suffocating conditions, where is the space for fresh and critical thinking? In a society eaten away like wood infested with termites, how can any humane system possibly develop?

Much of our society’s religious intolerance is a direct consequence of this repression. Both our media and our educational curriculum have been damaged by this suffocating approach. Without freedom of expression, how can an effective system of accountability based on critical inquiry ever emerge? How can social, political, and religious bullying, superstition, and corruption within society ever be eliminated?

It has turned not only the powerful into tyrants but even an ordinary clerk into a little Pharaoh. The more authority someone possesses, the more they begin to think of themselves as a god. This culture of oppression has hollowed out our society from within.

Our Chief Minister seems to believe she is all-powerful. Not only Maryam Nawaz, but every member of her cabinet—men and women alike—behaves like a dragon, intimidating not only the public but even members of their own provincial assembly. As for the members of the assembly themselves, they appear to consider hardly anyone other than themselves to be worthy human beings.

(To Be Continued)