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We need to follow Nelson Mandela’s example. At 92 years of age, the man is a legend, respected worldwide both for his diligent struggle for democracy and all the hardships he suffered during his 27 years of imprisonment. But what Mandela is most respected for is his power to forgive. He forgave all those who were unjust to him and his people for over 350 years when he came into a position of power as president of South Africa. The second step that won him approval was his retirement from politics in 1994. Mandela, had he so chosen, could have stayed in power till his death but he wanted a democracy, not the rule of one individual.
In 2007, he celebrated his 89th birthday and surprised everyone by laying the foundation for ‘The Elders’ organisation, whose members were famous elderly personalities from across the globe. These included former US president Jimmy Carter, former secretary-general of the UN Kofi Annan and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
Mandela had hoped the meeting of these greatly experienced, observant and wise people would help in analysing issues and finding solutions to carve paths to progress and peace. He strongly believed that if the elders did not play their role, the world would plunge into a major crisis.
Mandela’s success is evident from the recent Fifa World Cup hosted by South Africa this summer. The event now shows that the country, which barely a decade ago was beset by a potential racial war, is worthy of hosting, and successfully at that, a world-class event.
We are in dire need of a similar organisation in Pakistan. The country’s elders, including retired army generals, former officers of the Foreign Office, retired politicians, members of the business community, sportsmen, teachers and scientists, need to unite and form similar organisations.
The government would do well to tap this resource and benefit from their experience and knowledge by implementing their suggestions and solutions. If this is done properly, I am certain many of our problems will start getting resolved.
Take Karachi as a prime example. For the first time in history, all of the city’s political stakeholders, the MQM, the PPP and the ANP, are in power but the city continues to face tension. This week alone, dozens were killed and hundreds injured as property was burned and most of the city was brought to a standstill. To top it all, the Rangers, police personnel and intelligence agencies were barely visible. Our nation’s elders need to come forward and answer this question.
The country is suffering its worst floods in over 80 years, millions have been affected and displaced, and infrastructure has been ruined on a massive scale. Why was the government unable to inform the people of the threat in time for them to evacuate to safety?
Millions of people were suffering while the president had lunch at his palace in Normandy, France. The nation is in a state of mourning and he prepares for the ‘political launch’ of his son Bilawal in Britain. The western media is heavily criticising him and raising a vital question: Is this the president of a country that is being drowned by floods?
If we still extend our hand of friendship to people like David Cameron despite their anti-Pakistan rhetoric, we will lose the self-respect which is necessary for survival. Come forward, our elders. The country awaits you.

 

The city of Bhong is 20 minutes away from Rahimyar Khan. We were a few hundred feet above the land and the noise from the helicopter engines was very loud. Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif looked out and with great sorrow and a deep sigh said, “Look at the devastation. It’s simply mindboggling. How many years will you need to rehabilitate these fields, farm houses, villages and houses?”
He was here the very next day after the flood came. “By then the town of Bhong was under water, people had taken refuge on trees, mounds and roofs of houses. Land links, power supply and telephones were suspended; even the famous Bhong Mosque was inundated.” He and his team started the supply of food, clothes, water and tents to people by helicopters and boats. “I haven’t seen destruction on such a large scale in my life… these are the most horrifying days I have ever had. If I had to go to Lahore for an official engagement that could not be avoided, I would but then I would return to southern Punjab for relief work within half an hour.”
Shabaz Sharif said that he personally supplied food to people, crossing the Indus and Chenab rivers dozens of times. “Without this, I would not have grasped the situation properly.”
After an aerial tour of Bhong, we landed in Sadiqabad. The local administration had set up a ‘fake camp’, situated near the helipad to ensure that the chief minister’s visit was ‘successful’. But when he declared that he wanted to go to another camp, there was chaos in the administration.
We proceeded to the second camp. As we arrived there, people encircled the chief minister and started raising slogans in his favour. In the beginning this all looked artificial and it seemed as if a kind of a live play was being staged by the administration. But after a close look and individual meetings with people I realised that people were speaking their hearts and baring their souls to the chief minister. People were being provided food, clothing articles, tents and medicines at the camp. I saw a mechanical tandoor with a capacity to produce a thousand loaves of bread an hour.
The camps are alright and well-managed; however, I saw a lack of cleanliness there. Flies and dust were everywhere. The health secretary is present in the area and is working day and night. But these flies are out of control and could give rise to a serious epidemic. The chief minister and the health secretary should look in to this matter and prevent this from happening.
We returned throwing food packets on our way in Mehmood Kot. I did not see any protocol or any DC or DPO anywhere. “Why?” I asked and the chief minister replied with a smile: “I have told my administration in southern Punjab to work in their respective areas, and that if any officer came to receive me leaving his work, he should consider his service terminated.”

She had been calling for the last two days. She said that she had come from Karachi just to see me and that the meeting was very necessary. I finally agreed.

She was beautiful — like a perfect white marble Greek sculpture. And she was the most intelligent lady I have ever met. She had manners and she had read thousands of books. I was impressed. But as she disclosed her profession, I felt ashamed. However, she seemed not to care. She only wanted me to write my column on her life. A column to help other young girls of this country and their parents.
She belonged to a lower-middle class family of Karachi. Her family had descended from the Pathans, Kashmiris and Awans and she was an attractive and pretty girl. She was educated in good institutions and obtained an MBA from a reputed business college of Karachi, after which she began an internship in a bank.

A young man met her while she was working there. She said he was handsome, had a foreign degree and was rich. He lived alone in a large house in Defence, travelled in a car worth millions and his monthly credit card bill was between Rs200-300,000. She was impressed by his personality, wealth and lifestyle and soon they became close friends.
The man started spending a lot of money on her. This continued for two months. And then one day he gave her a CD that contained ‘horrible’ scenes of the two. She was shocked. The man told her that someone had shot their film and was now blackmailing him.

In a week’s time a third character appeared on the scene. He told her that she had been trapped by a gang — that the young man she had met and liked was part of the gang and that there was now no escape. She was offered ‘work’ in the profession she is currently involved in. She says she tried whatever she could to get out of it but in vain. Her parents have been told that she works in a large firm, from where she gets a salary every month.

She said that the gang was like a mafia with its headquarters in Karachi and young male and female ‘agents’ in many cities. They get beautiful girl agents admitted to colleges who make friends with pretty girls, take them to parties and introduce them to handsome boys who then trap the girls and make movies. Their agents are also active in banks, travel agencies and shopping plazas.

After I heard her story, I told her I would write my column on her. I came out to say bye to her and a seven-series BMW was waiting for her. I recognised the driver — he is the chauffeur of a VVIP.

Shaukat Aziz is no doubt a clever person. He was an ordinary employee in Citibank in Dubai where he made friends in the royal family. He went to America and became a banker to a group of global kingmakers. PML-N Senator (and then-finance minister) Ishaq Dar brought him to Pakistan where he started advising the government on economic issues. Mr Aziz’s aim was to become governor of the State Bank of Pakistan and Ishaq Dar was about to do just that when the PML-N government fell.

However, Mr Aziz immediately contacted a relative of Pervez Musharraf and managed to speak to the army chief. The result was that he soon became finance minister and later prime minster. In fact, Mr Aziz played his cards so well that after Musharraf’s fall from power, he left the country and is now leading a lavish lifestyle abroad. People blame General Musharraf or the Chaudhry brothers for most of the ills of the previous government, conveniently forgetting Shaukat Aziz’s doings. And the irony is that he is still giving advice to poor countries on how to run and improve their economies.

Now, I have to say, I have seen a very different Shaukat Aziz in a meeting right before he left his post as prime minister. He told me he was under pressure about what to do with the Lal Masjid issue and the suspension of the chief justice of Pakistan. But what I want to mention is three predictions he made at the time, all of which I disagreed with, but which came true.

He said that Musharraf will get all his sins white-washed but the Akbar Bugti murder would be his undoing and that certain evidence in that matter, if and when disclosed, could make life difficult for him. “It will be a difficult time for Musharraf and then the army will have to choose one; Musharraf or Balochistan,” he had said.

The second thing he had said was that Nawaz Sharif will be able to return home but America and Saudi Arabia will not let him speak freely and that if the PPP and the PML-Q formed a government in the future, Sharif will be “periodically active, periodically inactive.”

And the third was that a third power is using the bench and the bar for its own interests. Ultimately the judges will get restored but the lawyers will not let them work, creating a crisis where the bench and bar will lock horns with one another. “Both will have an end similar to ours,” he said.

The first two points have already become true. And now the lawyers and the judiciary are pitched against each other, so much so that an honest and principled district and sessions judge, Zawar Ahmed Shaikh, has been sent on forced leave.

Both Husband and wife were passing away their time while watching Television at the comfort of their home out of their busy schedule, they were absorbed watching Television when mobile phone of wife rang up,they both looked at it where the name “Bushra” was blinking on mobile screen for quite sometime; the wife looked at the name but did not respond to the call. When asked by her husband why she was not picking up the call she said she will call her afterward. That made husband suspicious and he grabbed the phone from her and dialed back the number, to his surprise there was no female but a male person on the other side of the line who very warmly attended the call little realizing perhaps that the caller himself was a male and not female.

Now the husband became extremely brutal. The verbal altercation between husband and wife turned violent and the husband resorted to thrashing his wife ferociously paying no heed to her yelling.In a bid to save herself, the woman turned back violently and precisely at that moment a twelve inches long piece of glass pierced through her breasts and as she was being taken to the hospital, she breathed her last and pronounced dead upon reaching the hospital

After husband overcame the shock of his wife’s death, he scrutinized the issue more closely. It was revealed that his wife’s friend Bushra possessed that number sometime back but while she proceeded abroad she switched off the number and lost her SIM abroad. The Telecom operator meanwhile issued the number to some other customer in one year time who upon Bushra’s return from abroad pretended to be her husband when he received the call of that (late) lady. Every time he would pretend that Bushra was in washroom and take liberty with the lady by pretending to be Bushra’s husband.

The more the lady tried to severe her contacts with that impostor the greater resistance she met with every time. However she could not dare to discuss the issue with her husband because of his suspicious nature as he would instantly deprive her of her cell phone which she could not afford to do as her mother was severally ill in her native village and that was the only source of contact with her ailing mother. The lady also could not afford to block that number due to the fact that her own number had been issued on CNIC of her husband and unless her husband makes the request the mobile company was not expected to oblige her.

Now that number was in use of a university student who received the call of that lady and made desperate attempts to trap her in his vicious circle. It is a common practice these days that university students, jobless persons and frustrated youth used to send SMS messages to scores of telephone numbers simultaneously and make utmost effort to befriend ladies who respond to these SMS messages or calls. Such adventure may end up in tragic incident as well as happened in case of this unfortunate lady. Should such incident occurs with you , you are requested to fully listen to feminine point of view and do not give knee jerk reaction lest any tragic incident should hit you.

We here at the Outpost enjoy bringing a global perspective to our analysis of events in Washington. So today, in that spirit, we offer a thought-provoking reflection on U.S.-Pakistani relations from the pen of Javed Chaudhry, a widely read columnist for the Urdu-language newspaper “Daily Express.” (As far as we know this is the first time it’s appearing in English — we hope, Javed, that you won’t mind.)

Now, we are the first to agree that tracking the intricate twists and turns in the relationship between Islamabad and Washington is a matter of vital importance. Issues like drone attacks or the monitoring of aid payments or the controversy over Raymond Davis — the CIA operative just released from arrest in Pakistan after the mysterious payment of blood money to the families of the two men he killed a few weeks ago in Lahore — certainly deserve to be explored.

But the occasional brutal reality check can’t hurt either. Sometimes it’s worth stepping back and asking some bigger questions. And that’s what we offer you today.

“Why should we keep America happy?” This was a simple question, and the man who asked it had an innocent face. He was an ordinary person, a person like the hundreds and thousands of people who are all around us, and we do not even pay any attention to them, nor do we ever think about them.

These people are born without fanfare, and they have to struggle to get an education. Then they spend 10-15 grueling years in search of a job, and when they get disappointed they take up a job as a sales clerk at a store or set up a small street vending business or get work as a servant somewhere. They get married, and then they pass away after bringing up four or five more ordinary children just like themselves into the world.

After this, new ordinary people try to make a life for themselves just like their parents did. These people are like water bubbles. When they are born no one sees them; when they vanish, no one remembers them. They are so ordinary that even their own younger generations do not use terms like “My father used to say this…” One of these ordinary people decided to come and find me, making the trip from Sahiwal to Islamabad. He asked me a harmless question: “Why should we keep America happy?”

I looked at him in astonishment and said, “They are a superpower and we are the beggars of the superpower street, and beggars do not have any other choice but to keep others happy.” He scratched his head in confusion and softly spoke, “If we do not keep them happy, what will happen?” I smiled and said, “Then a lot of things will happen. America will not give us aid. Because of America’s unhappiness towards us, the World Bank, the IMF, the Asian Development Bank and the other donors will stop our aid as well. Our exports will come to a halt and the foreign money that is coming here will also stop.”

He went on scratching his head and said, in an extremely humble way, “Then what will happen?” I replied, “All development plans will stop. Roads, bridges, and underpasses will not be constructed. Construction of new dams will stop. Industries will shut down. New rail tracks will not be laid. New clean water plants will not be built. All plans to eradicate poverty and empower female independence will be stopped.”

He nodded in agreement and said, “Then what will happen?” I answered, “Then the country will become flooded with price hikes and unemployment, and regular every-day goods will be beyond ordinary people’s purchasing power. Flour, lentils, cooking oil, rice, vegetables — everything will become three times more expensive. The country will be flooded with problems like hunger. There will be cuts in electricity, gas, and water supply. The people in the cities will start fighting with each other. We will not be able to import gasoline, so the cars and railways will stop. Medicine will become unaffordable, and our children will not be able to pay for school fees and textbooks.” I stopped.

He kept scratching his head and kept nodding in agreement and I was amazed at his strange questions. He then asked, “Then what will happen?” I said, “Then Pakistan will be in default.” He raised his head in amazement, and asked, “So, what will this do?” I immediately replied, “We will be cut off from the rest of the world. Our airplanes will not be able to land in other countries. No country in this world will ever lend us money. Our foreign assets and bank accounts will be frozen. We will become isolated from the rest of the world and….”

He listened to what I was saying, looked at me and began to laugh. I stopped talking and looked at him with amazement. He chuckled and said, “But how will all this affect ME? My Pakistan is already in default. For three generations my family and I have been bankrupt. I’ve been isolated from my country, my city, my neighborhood, even my own family. Nobody meets with me. Nobody even looks at me. I have no bank accounts in my own country, let alone other countries. I have no assets in my own city. My relatives do not lend me money. And as far as planes are concerned, no one in the past three generations of my family has ever set foot on a plane. So, I don’t care if the entire country goes on default. I would be happy if you too became isolated like me and if you too could not leave the country like me.”

I stared at him in silence and he said, “You say that, because of America’s unhappiness, there will be a flood of unemployment and price hikes in the country. Well, let it come. It does not affect me. I am already living through the devastation of unemployment and price hikes. I have not found a job even after completing my masters degree. I tried to run a business but it failed for lack of capital. As for flour, lentils, rice, cooking oil, vegetables, meat, chicken, and medicine, it has been a long time since I have been able to afford any of them as it is. I sold my motorcycle to pay off a loan. So gasoline is not a problem for me. I cannot afford to pay my electric and gas bill. And there were gas and electricity cuts even when I was able to pay the bills. So that doesn’t seem like much of a threat. What do I care? If cooking oil costs 1000 rupees per kilo or if flour costs 200 rupees per kilo or if meat goes up to 500 rupees? I can’t afford such luxuries as it is. So the price hikes and the unemployment won’t affect me.”

He sighed. I kept looking at him in astonishment as he continued. “And all those things you said about development work, they don’t concern me either. When America was Pakistan’s close friend, my street was still unpaved. The government never constructed a sewage system for my neighborhood. I had to walk two kilometers just to get to school. Now my children walk barefoot two kilometers to get to school, too. I used to sit on a floor mat to get my education. Now my children are also getting their educations on floor mats. In my day there were no heaters, and the school had no laboratories, playgrounds, or libraries. There were no restrooms or ceiling fans. Now, in my children’s time, the school still doesn’t have them. The road in our neighborhood has been a mess since my grandfather’s time. There is no paved road for my daily commute. There was no factory built where I could work. No dams were built. I have no access to health care. I have to go to the market to buy medicine for my headaches. Meanwhile our politicians, our bureaucrats, and our generals can find treatment even for cancer, and it’s paid for by the government. So I don’t care about this development work. I don’t care if they shut it down.” He stopped talking, took a long sigh, and looked at me in silence.

I looked at him angrily and yelled, “So you want this country to go bankrupt? You want this country to be destroyed?” He laughed and said, “Yes, that is what I want.” I asked him in anger, “Why?” He replied, “Because this country is no longer mine. This country is for elite people like you. Elite people like you do not understand what my needs are. People like you are enjoying this country and its blessings. All that this country offers is reserved for people like you. That’s why you want to save this country from default. It’s because you won’t be able to find these luxuries anywhere else in the world at such a low price. You people cannot be generals, judges, secretaries, ministers, prime ministers, or presidents in any other country. You will not be successful and famous journalists, or businessmen, or traders anywhere else. And nowhere else will you find people like us who will bow down to you. So you people want to save this country from default for the satisfaction of your own egos, stubbornness and self-interest. And if this means sucking up to Europe or America, you won’t hesitate for a second. This is in your interest. And for the sake of this interest you’re ready to make any compromise.

“So that leaves us, the 175 million people whose Pakistan already went into default 30 or 40 years ago, under the rule of people like you. We came out of slavery under the British just to become your slaves today. Yesterday they were our masters; today you are our bosses. Yesterday we were the ones who ensured their luxuries and today we are saving your luxuries from default. We have already defaulted. Now it is your turn.”