All the cartoons on the same page!

See this cartoon by Sabir Nazar carried by The Express Tribune on September 11, 2013.

Any guess: what’s the book all the parties are on the same page of!

Is it the Constitution of Pakistan! Or what else!

Plato’s dark forecast about Democracy without Rule of Law

Plato knew well democracy without rule of law in Pakistan will be dominated by demagogues, chaos will ensue, to reestablish order, the people will welcome tyrant, and tyranny will give to other evils!

See this article which appeared in The New York Times on September 11, 2013:

Democracy as chimera

The news from Egypt confirms Plato’s dark forecast about democracy. Early this month the ruling junta in Cairo arrested a labor lawyer and a journalist, raising concerns that the regime’s repression now targets not just Islamists but also secular critics.

As Plato warned, extreme freedom risks extreme slavery. He predicted that democracy — “people rule” — will quickly be dominated by demagogues. Chaos will ensue. To reestablish order, the people will welcome a tyrant. Tyranny will give birth to other evils.

One of America’s leading specialists on the Arab world, the late Ambassador Hermann F. Eilts, agreed with Plato. Having helped mediate the Camp David accord between Egypt and Israel in 1978, Eilts became a professor at Boston University. Before his death in 2006, Eilts often shared with me his misgivings about official U.S. support for “democracy.” Serving in many posts throughout the Islamic world — in Iran and Bangladesh as well as in Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Libya (Muammar el-Qaddafi wanted to kill him) and Egypt, Eilts saw up close the pitfalls of authoritarian rule.

[From The New York Times]

He disliked Washington’s penchant for bribing dictators and for compelling recipients of “aid” programs to buy food, tools and planes made in the United States. Still, Eilts foresaw that “democracy” without the rule of law and respect for minority rights could lead to troubles like those forecast by Plato.

Representative government demands far more than formalities. Hermann Eilts’s father left the German diplomatic corps and moved to Pennsylvania just a few years before 1933, when Germany’s president, elected in a multiparty contest, appointed Adolf Hitler chancellor of Germany, expecting him to lead a short-term coalition government.

Hitler quickly changed everything. To gain power, he used and abused the country’s Weimar Constitution, established in 1919 — “the most liberal and democratic document of its kind the twentieth century had seen,” according to William Shirer’s “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.”

Why then did democracy collapse in Germany and prove short-lived in Egypt? Political malaise is often the product of the prevailing political culture, especially when a country is buffeted by cruel events. Weimar Germany, like Egypt today, was polarized. Left-wing parties fought both liberal and rightist forces. Their struggles, sharpened by worldwide Depression, produced a stalemate at the polls that helped Hitler to neuter democracy.

Egypt too is deeply split. For decades the Muslim Brotherhood was the only organized force resisting authoritarian rule. Banned from formal political life, it nevertheless enlisted millions of supporters. When Tahrir Square protesters managed to oust Hosni Mubarak from the presidency in 2011, many Egyptians wanted a secular democracy. But the secular groups had no political machine ready for action like the Muslim Brotherhood, whose candidate, Mohamed Morsi, emerged as the new president.

Like Hitler in 1933-1934, Morsi then acted to create a totalitarian dictatorship. Following weeks of protests, Morsi was unseated on July 3 by a council led by the defense minister, Gen. Abdul-Fattah el-Sisi, the liberal leader Mohamed ElBaradei, the grand imam of Al-Azhar, Ahmed El-Tayeb, and the Coptic pope, Tawadros II. Soon, General Sisi directed a crackdown against all opponents.

As Plato might well have expected, politics in Egypt has gone from bad to worse — from a moderate dictatorship to an elected but ideologically driven dictatorship to a much more violent and intolerant dictatorship. U.S. officials have been torn between concerns for stability and for self-rule. Washington usually offered its official friendship (plus more than $1 billion in aid each year since 1979) to whoever ruled Egypt. But it has also applauded each move — real or apparent — toward democracy, with very little to show for it.

See the full story which published first in the New York Times, and a version of this op-ed appeared in print on September 11, 2013, in The International Herald Tribune:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/11/opinion/global/democracy-as-chimera.html?_r=0

Murders, Pakistani State writes

Re Shahzeb murder case

Today’s tweet:

Pakistan is fast turning into a state of the murderers, for the murderers, by the murderers! Where and how the 66 years were wasted!

https://twitter.com/khalilkf

Now see this news item:

Sindh govt sought pardon for Shahrukh Jatoi from Zardari

KARACHI: Important revelations have come to light regarding the Shahzeb murder case. It was revealed that the Sindh government had sent a summary to the Aiwan-e-Sadr to quash the death sentence of Shahrukh Jatoi. 

According to the information received by Geo News, the home minister Sindh had sent the summary to the president by bypassing the Interior Ministry. The Aiwan-e-Sadr sent this summary back to the Interior Ministry. Federal Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali had rejected the summary. 

The Sindh government had sent this summary to governor Sindh on July 19 and sent the same to the Aiwan-e-Sadr on August 6. The Sindh government exerted pressure on the Interior Ministry for its approval. 

Sources said the Sindh government had wanted that the death sentence of Shahrukh Jatoi should be pardoned during the tenure of Asif Zardari. The sources said that Chaudhry Nisar halted the summary till the ending of President Zardari’s period.Affidavits of the family of murdered Shahzeb were also attached along with the summary.

[The News, September, 11, 2013]

Link to the news: http://www.thenews.com.pk/Todays-News-13-25371-Sindh-govt-sought-pardon-for-Shahrukh-Jatoi-from-Zardari

Here is The Express Tribune Editorial:

[The Express Tribune, September 11, 2013]

Everything that glitters in Media is not gold!

Today's tweet:

Re Pakistani media's praise for Asif Ali Zardari: Everything that glitters in Media is not gold!

https://twitter.com/khalilkf

Pakistani media’s alchemy – making a seer out of a crook

What’s happening at this time in Pakistani media has no precedent! It’s desperately trying to transform Dust into Gold using its science of alchemy and its alchemists.

As Asif Ali Zardari leaves the Presidency, Pakistani media slides into a frenzy to be all praise for him, forgetting all the names it has been calling him with. Probably all the television (may be radio also, do not listen to any) channels and almost all the English and Urdu newspapers are making a seer out of him. As is said in Urdu and Punjabi:

’’چوروں قطب بننا‘‘

It may be translated into English as: a thief’s turning into a (sufi) saint

So the Pakistani media’s alchemy is transforming Asif Ali Zardari into a Great Democrat!

This act of Pakistani media reminds of a classic idiom:

Everything that glitters is not gold!

And, I would like to amend this idiom as:

Everything that glitters in Media is not gold!

Here is one newspaper’s today’s headline:

Watershed moment – Asif Zardari basks in afterglow of democracy

This is The Express Tribune, an English newspaper which is thoroughly Pro-Riyasati-Ashrafiya, and Pro-AAZ (Asif Ali Zardari) also.

See the detail:

ISLAMABAD / LAHORE: In epoch-making style, Asif Ali Zardari stepped down as president on Sunday, securing his place in history as the country’s first democratically elected head of state to complete his term in office.

The watershed moment is made more significant by the fact that Zardari’s last three predecessors – Ghulam Ishaq Khan, Muhammad Rafiq Tarrar and General Pervez Musharraf —were all in one way or the other forced out of office.

A guard of honour by a contingent of armed forces formally marked the end of the tenure of Zardari, who will be carrying his trademark smile right from the Aiwan-e-Sadr to Bilawal House in Lahore.

A huge fireworks display was organised by the Sindh cabinet members at midnight at Karachi’s Sea View to honour the outgoing president. Several parliamentarians and leading politicians were invited at the display.

Zardari was elected president on September 6, 2008 after winning a majority in the electoral college with 481 votes of 702. He will remain the co-chairman of the Peoples Party – the post he acquired after the assassination of his wife, the former prime minister Benazir Bhutto.

In his remarks, Barrister Aitzaz Ahsan, who organised the meeting, welcomed Zardari and said that he was the only President who gave away his powers to the Parliament through the 18th Amendment. He lauded the outgoing president to have pursued the policy of reconciliation and demonstrated immense patience during his five-year tenure despite incessant criticism.

Here is the link: http://tribune.com.pk/story/601833/watershed-moment-asif-zardari-basks-in-afterglow-of-democracy/

Political parasitism in Sindh

Today is the day when the five-year term of President Asif Ali Zardari has come to an end (writing this blog in the evening).

See the today’s newspapers. I guess almost in every paper there is a full-page ad. I saw 4 newspapers: Jang, Express, The News, The Express Tribune. The ad has been given by the Sindh Government, where Peoples Party is the ruling party.

In the ad with a photo of Asif Ali Zardari is printed:

I translate: “The trustee / preserver of democratic traditions”

Then the “achievements and the accomplishments” of this “trustee / preserver” has been counted.

In the end is printed: 

Sharjeel Inaam Memon

Minister for Information and Archives, Commerce and Industries

Government of Sindh

Obviously, Sharjeel Memon did not pay for these ads eulogizing his mentor. Nor the Peoples Party! This was done at the cost of taxpayers of the Sindh province.

I think there is no moral justification for such acts.

This is Political Parasitism, and is like grabbing free lunches. Indeed, Pakistani politicians are but Political Parasites, living and thriving at the cost of their voters and citizens!

[The News, September 8, 2013]

[Jang, September 8, 2013]

Good Riddance Day - President Asif Ali Zardari leaves presidency today

Today's Tweet:

Good Riddance Day - the devastation caused by Asif Zardari to exert its impact on the Pakistani state, society and ideas for years to come!

https://twitter.com/khalilkf