With Ziarat Residency Burnt, A Piece of Pakistan Died Too

June 15, 2013 would now be remembered forever now. Today the legendary building that adorns our hundred rupee notes was burnt and destroyed in a targeted terrorist attack. All the historical photographs and furniture were destroyed and as always the militants escaped unhurt. Today, not just a wood and brick building was destroyed, but also a piece of Pakistan died with it too. 

Quick history check: Ziarat residency was constructed in 1892 with the idea of it becoming a sanatorium due to the presence of a Juniper forest in the area in which it was constructed. Later on it was converted into a summer residence of the Agent to the Governor General. But it being the building where Quaid e Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah spent his last days is what it makes it truly historical. Nations all around the world, preserve such places, securing them, guarding them from any calamity, manmade or natural. But we failed to protect our revered founder’s second last earthly residence.  Jinnah, loved the peace and quiet of Ziarat, as Fatima Jinnah in her book My Brother informs us, but he also said that it was easier to breathe in Quetta rather than Ziarat.

It was a majestic building, with so much history in it. Its walls were privy to the musings of the ailing leader who was concerned about the genocide that was happening along the border, worried about the future of the fledgling new created state, worried about who would replace him in the future and would he be able to keep the ship of Pakistan afloat. Its walls saw many leaders arrive, begging for Jinnah’s guidance. Its walls saw Jinnah fighting bravely against tuberculosis, unwilling to give up. The walls heard everything, the walls saw everything, but we never will.

 

The very fact that the founder of the nation’s residence has now been burnt down to the ground- destroyed in a militant attack- speaks volumes about where we as a nation have come down to since 1948. It is not just about the priceless archives, photos and Quaid’s furniture, it is not about the loss of a tourist hotspot in Ziarat. It’s about preserving the memories of a man who gave his all for our freedom. It is about the preserving the idea of Pakistan, where every ethnicity and religious group is free to live and practice its customs because this has nothing to do with the business of the state. But when intolerance and tyranny seeps in, it destroys the ideals on which this state was founded. When people are alienated with daily abductions, killings, then you force them down the path of separatism that further leads down towards terrorism. Burning down Ziarat Residency was a symbolic act of terrorism. An act to show the world that they don’t want to be part of Pakistan any more. By burning down Ziarat residency the terrorists have shown that the idea of being part of Pakistan is abhorrent to them. The impact of this event are enormous. How many people would go missing? How many pipelines would be blown up? How many Punjabis professionals would be shot in the aftermath? Would we approach this matter softly or come down harsh?

In a way, the burnt down hulk of Ziarat Residency is a perfect metaphor for the state of Pakistan’s affairs. Pakistan lies burnt to the ground with militancy, corruption, nepotism rife. May be in the future, Ziarat residency might be restored, replicas of furniture installed. But would we and our country be able to rise out of the ashes? That remains to be seen. I hope that our authorities would take appropriate steps to ensure the security of all places associated with Quaid e Azam.

For now, Dear Quaid, I am sorry, we couldn’t protect your property.

Not every revolutionary situation leads to a Revolution

Elections 2013 are coming closer, most probably in April, as the current Assembly will be dissolved after completing its five-year term in March 2013 (hopefully).  If it does, we might as well have the first democratically elected government to have survived its full five-year term. Strangely, it is a proud and yet an embarrassing feeling to have finally achieved the holy grail of surviving a full term without any army intervention (so to speak) in our 65 years of existence on the world map.

Politics is in the air and not a single day passes when my Twitter and Facebook timelines are not swamped by political debates. Though I do not purport to be an elections expert as there are already enough out there without me stepping into the fray, I will make an effort to present my thoughts about the elections from a layman voter’s perspective.

Lenin once said that a revolution is impossible without a revolutionary situation. So is there such a situation in Pakistan. These elections are being heralded as harbingers of change-positive change i.e. But are they really?

PTI, PMLN, PPP, MQM, ANP are all, promising to usher Pakistan into a new era of prosperity. To me, after the nightmare 2008-2013 period nothing that comes from PPP should be taken at face value, well at least I will not take it. But despite all its failings – and those are some pretty gigantic failings- PPP still has support in Southern Punjab and  Sind, even though its popularity in interior Sind is waning, courtesy bad governance. While PMLN, ANP and MQM are squabbling over their respective regions, what Pakistan truly wants right now is a national party. Supporters of PTI will disagree with me as they will cite successful rallies in the four provincial capitals of Pakistan as proof of support, but rallies do not automatically translate into votes and despite claims, PTI is focusing to get seats in Punjab as it does not have enough “electables” to be a serious contender in three other provinces.  We can call PPP, the ghost of a national party it once was but now it cannot form a government without coalition support in Baluchistan, KPK, Karachi and Southern Punjab.

Since no party right now can claim to be a truly national party, what they are doing is squabbling over and exploiting, biradri, sectarian and ethnic votes. Policies and plans have been left over to be argued on social media and Talk shows, none of which, in all sincerity, will affect the opinion of the general voter populace much. The main body of voters resides in rural areas and is too hard pressed in their daily struggle of lives to really give a thought to the various economic and educational plans put forth by the political parties.

Hence, hunting for electables in constituencies is the main strategy of parties right now, policies and issues be damned.  This is the sad reality of Pakistani politics. Every election in this country has been called as a change but has the change ever come? Every single government in this country’s 65-year existence is a case study in bad governance and indecisive character. And, expect this trend to continue unless one thing happens. Spread of Education.

In my opinion, it all comes down to education when we are choosing which political party will be leading our country for the next five years. Like I said before, we are still quagmired in ethnic, biradri, sectarian and favor asking politics and all this is because our general ‘awam’ is not educated enough to really question the manifestos and economic recovery plans of political parties nor are they really empowered to vote freely.

Talking about published plans by political parties, they really haven’t evolved from being simple idealistic statements to implementable objective plans with checks and balances because quite honestly they don’t need to.

When 70% of our prodigal parliamentarians don’t even pay taxes and at least 60% of whom we will be seeing in the next assembly, how can you expect major changes? The general Pakistani population is too busy in making their ends meet to really go out into the streets to protest or to go in courts to sue their respective MNAs and MPAs and thus this issue will soon fizzle out into nothingness and will not affect the outcome of elections in possible sense, which really tells us something about how the voters will be marking their ballot in the upcoming elections.

So if you ask me if the next elections would bring anything new to Pakistan, will any positive change be coming, all I can do is to re quote Lenin, “…..not every revolutionary situation leads to revolution”.