What’s your qualification, Mr. Prime Minister?

How vacuous the speeches and statements of state dignitaries look!

But it is for them to inaugurate this or that thing, to make speeches! It seems that’s the only thing they can do, at least in Pakistan!  Maybe since they have nothing else to do, they like to be the chief guests at many an occasion so diverse in nature that they would never be able to go to were they not in that position.

The difficult part of this exercise requires them to deliver speeches. However, they are privileged – they have speech-writers. That makes their speeches all Greek to understand as the speeches delivered by their very persons. Almost as a rule they are all, again at least in Pakistan, not as qualified and cultivated, or in short so learned that they would naturally be delivering speeches as the occasions require.

So, as far as their speech-writers are concerned, no doubt they are there to prove their intellectual mettle, and prepare such speeches which may be ranked as the best speeches in any contests, however, the speeches such written do not match their speakers’ intellectual credentials. The moment these speeches are delivered by the dignitaries for whom they are written they lose their substance, their content, and their tenor also. At best, they turn out to be fake. The moment state dignitaries deliver them, these speeches stand stripped of their context, and thus any relevance, but in a negative sense.

Here is the latest example:

The Prime Minister, Raja Pervaiz Ashraf was chief guest at the 12^th Convocation of the Fatima Jinnah Women University, Rawalpindi, held at the Convention Centre, Islamabad on November 30. While addressing the ceremony, the Prime Minister uttered the following words:

“Higher education opens unlimited vistas and possibilities of success and growth. The foremost responsibility of the university is to produce well-informed, motivated and cultured citizens of the nation. However, the universities in our country have to play a positive role in tapping the intellect and creating awareness among the students and scholars to help translate our potential for growth and development into reality. We have to work together to take our state forward along the path of inclusive growth and development through intellectual and scientific knowhow.”

[The News International, Lahore Print Edition, December 1^st, 2012]

Link to the news: http://www.thenews.com.pk/Todays-News-6-145929-Higher-education-opens-unlimited-vistas-of-success-growth-says-PM

What do these words mean?

Mr. Prime Minister, does higher education open any vistas of possibilities of success and growth in Pakistan? You must be knowing how your government is attacking the HEC (Higher Education Commission) these days, to deprive it of its autonomous status, and make it subservient to the personal interests of politicians!

Mr. Prime Minister, you must be knowing how your party’s boss and the incumbent President, and the former prime minister, ministers and advisers, and party leaders had been / are appointing their favorites to such positions for which they were / are not qualified, and a number of cases of such appointments made in violation of merit and all the relevant rules and regulations are in the courts!

Mr. Prime Minister, you must be knowing in various government departments jobs are being given to the workers and associates loyal to the party and its leaders, and no merit is being observed anywhere!

What has become of PIA and Pakistan Steel, you must be knowing well! Newspapers of December 5, report that according to its own management, the PIA hired only 3 % (600) of employees on merit out of a total of 20, 000. So, who are the remaining 97 % (19, 400), you must be knowing, Mr. Prime Minister!

What is there your party’s government did through these 5 years to promote these things about which you delivered this speech? Or it was a meaningless speech delivered there because you were there to honor the occasion as the chief guest!

Mr. Prime Minister, in your speech you talk about ‘inclusive growth and development through intellectual and scientific knowhow,’ do you know meaning of these words! What is intellectual knowhow; what is scientific knowhow, Mr. Prime Minister, and how these help inclusive growth and development?

Mr. Prime Minister, would you mind telling us the citizens of this state what qualifications Mr. Pervaiz Elhai possessed to be appointed as the Deputy Prime Minister of Pakistan? And what about your own qualifications!

Mr. Prime Minister, of course, you would relax in the “theory of people’s mandate,” but you know well that it’s all a manipulated mandate? Wasn’t it the sweet-will of your party’s boss which picked you out as the Prime Minister of this hapless country?

Mr. Prime Minister, while nepotism, favoritism, cronyism, and corruption are rampant, what does your speech stand for? What did you talk about in your speech? Was there anything in your speech which may qualify to be translated into reality?

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