Are you in Pakistan? Look around… what do you see? If you are in a city like Lahore and if you are in a posh area of Lahore you will probably see designer outlets,restaurants that offer every cuisine you can imagine,super expensive cars on the roads,people wearing the exorbitantly expensive brands whether its clothes,sunglasses,wrist watches or jewelry… and we must not forget mobile phones! Everyone wants to have a big screen flashy cell phone,iPhone or Samsung Galaxy S is a must unless you can’t afford it.

Late,late,late night dinners and parties that continue well after the dawn where hundreds of thousands of bucks are blown away on imported alcohol and other “stuff”. Half asleep businessmen start work after half the day has already rotted away.

Sirens and vehicles with flashing lights… no not ambulances or fire trucks to help save lives of common people but long convoys of luxury bullet proof vehicles speeding away on the roads carrying civil and military VVIPS and other such creatures across the city to attend “meetings” to “help save the country” from who knows what!

Roads,underpasses,over heads,bridges,buses moving in “caged” tracks and “electronic escalators” leading to bus stations. Not to forget that most of this development work can only be seen on roads mostly used by the ruling elites of the Punjab or more specifically Lahore.

To most rich Lahoris who belong to the posh areas,this is Lahore… at least Lahore that matters… to them. Yes they do go to “other” parts of Lahore once or twice a year to attend a festival like basant or maybe when their taste buds have an urge for a traditional delicacy. To honor the desires of these ever-hungry city elites,the city administration has been very kind to facilitate these once in a while visitors to the  “other” parts of the city by lighting up these areas and making these specific areas a bit more pleasant to enjoy an evening or at least few hours.

But look around again… this times with your eyes open. Try to see what most of us block out and refuse to see or acknowledge. Look at the people walking on the roadsides… see the level of stress on the faces and fear in their eyes. Most of them probably haven’t had a decent meal. Many of them delay going home to avoid some of the most basic demands from their families… so many of them can’t afford to feed their children properly or pay their school fees. They work two to three jobs just to make the ends meet. Shifting from one rented house to another,asking for loans to pay off previous loans… stuck in a vicious circle of poverty and inflation.

These people pay taxes on everything they buy,yet these taxes are never seen being used to help them educate their children or provide them and their families with a decent medical care or help them in old age. These people are truly on their own unless they are lucky to have employers who might help them out in times of need. The government on the other hand has abandoned them. In fact the government has become their worst enemy and the reason for their current state.

Right now Pakistan is going through a very confusing phase of its evolution. There is chaos and confusion in everything. Nobody knows who is running the country… is it the “democratically elected” civilian government or is it the “all powerful” military? Who is going to give justice to people… the judiciary that is itself tangled in scandals of corruption and not even taken seriously neither by the parliament nor by other state institutions? With successive corrupt,inept and incapable civil and military “leaders” who have left the country hollow like termite infested tree,we are surviving on loans from international institutions who dictate their terms and conditions on how to run “our” country. The common man and educated professionals take all the beating by paying endless taxes while getting crushed under the burden of ever increasing prices and rising cost of living.

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto started the curse of religious discrimination in this country and Gen Zia ul Haq took it to the next level by creating Shia –Sunni divide using funding from Saudi Arabia and following USA’s agenda to counter USSR. Drugs and weapons flowed into Pakistan from Afghanistan like flood water,drowning our society and its fragile morals. A culture of hate and intolerance started to rapidly spread throughout Pakistan. Madrassas became the spawning pods of militancy. This was also the downfall of our relations with all our neighbors. Iran and Afghanistan started hating us and India looked on as we started our journey on a path of self-annihilation.

Today we like to think of ourselves as an Islamic nation. We claim to be Muslims. We want others to respect us because we are Muslims. We think we are superior because we are Muslims. But being a Muslim in Pakistan is not enough… you have to belong to a specific sect of Islam to be the “right” Muslim. If you don’t belong to the right sect than you are “Wajib-ul-qutal” (Deserving of death) and your murder will not be challenged in any court of law! But as long as you belong to the “right sect” of Islam you can count on your religious brothers to look after your interests while you go around judging others… and if you are from the right sect and you start praying in the mosque… then you attain an even higher level amongst your peers. It doesn’t matter how you conduct your life or how your earn your wealth… just keep a beard without mustaches and top it off with a round white cap and you automatically become the “Alim” (authority on religion) for your locality and make and bend religious laws as you like.

Providing protection to false accusers of blasphemy,mandatory four witnesses to prove a rape,no DNA test allowed to convict a rapist,justice for sale… kill and buy your acquittal,murder for honor and settle disputes by trading underaged girls (sometimes by will and sometimes by force). Bribe the police to file a report,bribe to police to stay away from you and bribe the police to make life hell for your opponent (unless he or she can beat your bribe amount). Want to get electricity connection… pay bribe,want to get your electricity connection repaired… bribe,want to get a bill to be less heavy… bribe! Want to pay your actual bill so that your connection does not get terminated… you still need to bribe! Don’t want the health inspector to visit your restaurant or food manufacturing plant… go ahead poison the kids without fear or conscience… sell them milk made from detergents,bleach creams and pesticides… just bribe!!

No food… no shelter… no education… no health care… no security… no justice… what is the state giving to its people? How long will people go on suffering like this? Inflation and food shortages unchecked,no price control,no quality control… there is no control. Common man is getting desperate;he is running out of options,he is getting cornered! It’s just a matter of time… very little time before a violent eruption destroys what’s left of this country. If we continue to rely on our tried and failed leaders,chances of survival are very slim. A new sincere and highly capable leadership must take control NOW! Where will this leadership come from and who will bring them in is what we now need to seriously consider and think about. This new leadership will have to be backed by a powerful force,we will have to go against the “constitution” and we will have to redefine the structure of democracy according to our own requirements.

If we fail to react as quickly as possible… there are other forces ready to move in… in fact they have already started moving in. It will not take much for them to gather support from dejected and angry masses of this country. Many innocent hard working moderate individuals will be killed and a new more violent and totally failed society ruled by cruel,uneducated and trigger happy and throat slashing army of barbarians will emerge. Someone or some force has to react and act now to save Pakistan before all hell breaks loose.

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