On a crisp November morning today, our great leader in his sagacious ways passed a wooden stick on to his next of command, the next great leader. Obviously this was a ceremony of true military pomp and honor with the prime minister in PCO attending along with various high level dignitaries and bureaucracy.
It was a pretty ironic moment, the passing of this ceremonial baton. Yet I found it quite humorous that our Army passes on its command by relinquishing a stick to the next chief of staff. It is often said in various drawing rooms of some repute, that this nation can only be run with a danda(stick) as the populace is either too illiterate or too poor to give a damn about who and what is important for them. Thus such things of importance must be decided by those with waxed mustaches and starched uniforms.
We must not forget that our great leader was a man who soldiered on for his country for the last 46 years. What a career he must have had, as he rose through the rank and file of the khaki politics. It must also be remembered that our last few army chiefs were not wise enough to hand over command when it was due. A memorable one was off course blown out of the sky by they say “a few crates of mango’s”
So did our General make the right decision at the right time? He spent 9 years at the helm of what can perhaps be called the greatest anarchy in existence today, our countries politics. He came into power on the impetuous of a coup engineered from the skies and ushering in what we ordinary idiots of the land thought would be a new era. To be fair to him lets give him credit where its due. He did turn a heck of a lot of things around in the first 5 years, true he was greatly aided by the war to find the turbaned ones and what not. However he did the single best thing none of our past leaders have been able to do. He gave us hope and he kicked the most corrupt out. He was always straightforward and in your face. Few can forget his bold move to shake an enemy president’s hand in front of the whole world at the U.N. A gesture which must have taken a lot of bravado as nobody in our history had the decency to do so.
He did set us on the right path as far as textbook economics is concerned as well. With a growth rate of 7% per annum and infrastructure development in many previously neglected parts of the country. Did he do enough however? As in his presence at Supreme command he often talked of a foolproof strategy to ensure continuation of his policies. One would only hope that this does not happen as his policies of late have been quite bizarre. He kicked out the only normal and functioning (to the peoples pride) part of our government, that of the independent judiciary. He also shut down our daily dose of sensationalism and a bit of news here and there. In short our great leader did a hell of a lot of things in his 9 year tenure and he often did them with all the gallantry of a battering ram at full throttle.
So let’s examine our current choices after his handing off the stick. To the right ladies and gents we have the Daughter of the West. Totally corrupt & half crazy as she believes she is gods answer to every problem and perfectly engineered by those that engineer best. To the left and this is a recently returned corner, we have the lion of Punjab, the great (not so bald hope) that the masses are hoping to cling onto. In the far outreaches of the ring stand various turbaned gentlemen, some run radio stations some TV stations and then some run the biggest religious party to have been founded in this land. Obviously we have tried all of these so called leaders, some even twice and found the same result. A morally and financially bankrupt government after say 3 or 4 years at the most of their rule.
Wait…. Have the powers to be thought all this through before they pressured our great leader to doff his hat so that these looters can return to the plunder? Do they even need to think this through as all they care about is achieving their own goals and objectives, Pakistan be damned! Have we the people so eagerly celebrating and looking to the skies in hope of a new dawn thought of the consequences of this move?
We are quick to blame the army for their misdeeds and financial empires in so called books written from merry old England. Has anyone bothered to write a book on what those that we now wish to crown have done? I think in about oh a couple o years we will want the khaki ones to take over once more as the argument then will be, but what else are we to do?
Well here are a few ideas. How about we as a nation for once elect someone that gives a damn? How about we instead of voting for who pressurizes us or cajoles us most, vote on their past deeds in government? How about we give new blood a chance? How about we vote on merit this time instead of Party? The reason my friends for all this “How abouting” I am doing is that if we do not do something intelligent in these polls, the next time looting commences and we go running to the GHQ, they might not come to our rescue. They might just throw us the ceremonial stick!!
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It is said that humans descended from apes, or so the Darwinian Theory goes. Well the humans in this corner of South East Asia seem to have retained some of their ancestor’s traits quite well. That is we love to ape, the west specifically.
