Madspeak

General Musharraf our present dictator – (in the tradition of all preceding dictators), after having ensured that they he has consolidated his hold over the country; with the help of his traitorous cronies – he is now regularly on a world tour with an entire aircraft exclusively meant for his use and is packed with an entourage (read toadies and hangers-on) they are on ‘official trips’. The taxpayers are bearing the cost of these extremely expensive pleasure trips. As long as the general feels his job is secure, he will keep on doing this and much worse. The same money could be very well spent on so many other things, which the country desperately needs. But the money is being spent by the general and his entourage to stay in the best places and go on shopping sprees and do sightseeing. None of these trips benefit the country in any way - although the impression is given that they do. The public relations officer assigned to the entourage sends the news that the general had ‘import...

Dictators have ruled Pakistan since 1958 - it is not that democracy cannot work here, it is simply not allowed to. Those who held tremendous influence and power prior to the creation of Pakistan in 1947 were the feudal lords, the tribal chieftains and later on the militant mullahs. In India the first thing which was done was to get rid of feudalism, because feudal lords because of the control over acres of land would always be in a position to get the support of those on their lands - the people would not have a choice but to vote for the person on the lands they live on. In the absence of feudalism the people had greater freedom to choose whom they wanted vote for. In Pakistan the feudal lords had insidious influence on the country's politics. Democracy was and could never be in their interest. What they did not factor in was the subsequent industrialisation of the country - this meant movement of labour off the lands into the cities. As factory workers they discovered that at th...

It was assumed that humanity would eventually become much more peaceful and kinder - but the opposite is more than apparent. There are civil wars, secret wars (covert operations) there all out invasions and attempts of occupation (the reasons for them are irrelevant, those have been discussed to deathby almost everyone). There is no doubt that human beings are so violent and dangerous that not only does every country in the world have soldiers but also a police force. Although the pace of development in science and technology of humanity is formidable, but human nature has not changed in any way. The 20th Century was full of wars, the killing, the maiming and torture went on and continues to this day. Some wars are reported intensely others are not given equal attention. The idea behind international sports events was to take people off the battlefield and bring them on the sports ground. International sports has done nothing at all – there are no easy solutions and perhaps there n...

It was heartbreaking to see so many infants crying because their parents had them circumcised. It is generally assumed that the pain will go away and the child would eventually forget, this is an absolutely wrong assumption the memory of such an extremely painful experience does not go away that easily– it is only suppressed, No one bothers or cares to ask the child if he wanted to have an intricate part of his body removed. This is done when the child has not even started speaking leave alone, there is really he can do anything to prevent something like this to happen. By all medical and ethical standards, it is the person who is fully aware of the implications of any kind operation, should be the one to decide if he would like it to be done or not. When an intricate part body is sliced off – at such time it is surprising parents do not feel never realise the tremendous physical pain they inflicted and the possible psychologicall harm they have caused. The child may stop crying b...

They left and years later they returned - these are ex-Pakistanis. A weird bunch they are. No matter what, nothing will ever make them happy. They were miserable when they had gone, found fault in virtually everything - made no attempt to put in their share to fix those things - they just went away. The country called Pakistan was like the child they had once left - those memories were etched in their minds. Years later when they returned - they imagined they would be coming to the same country they had left behind. They had abandoned everything when they went away so they had nothing left to stay back. They are angry because everything has changed - everything is bigger - perhaps not necessarily better. Its like the story of the villager Raju who left his village Katchi to start living in the town called Neker. Raju struggled for years, lived in the slum of Neker after years of struggling and having made some money to show off how successful he his to the people in Katchi. But much t...

Life as it is, is extremely dull and boring so it is only natural that people should do things to amuse themselves, this is the case here as muchs as it is in the rest of the world. But here, because of the existing 'religious fanaticism' policy of the junta, nearly everything which is fun or which makes people happy – is for all intents and purposes cursed. There is a spring festival in which people fly kites, it is called Basant and lots of people participate in it. There are other things which are perfectly normal form of entertainment in other parts of the world such as music concerts, plays and stage shows - the junta and its lackeys have made it point to give these things a bad name. Discos and night clubs were shut down when General Zia-ul-Haq was heading the martial law - those options simply do not exist. Theatres and auditoriums are regularly raided while these shows are going on. Some performers are banned. A few days back the military controlled Supreme Court up...

The system of lies, damn lies and propaganda started when General Ayub Khan was the first military dictator of the country. He could not tolerate any kind of comment or criticism of his handling of things. He did not want any of his decisions challenged. He thought he literally was a god and could do no wrong (just like all the military dictators who have come after him). General Yahya Khan who took over from him was no different. ZA Bhutto a civilian prime minister, was foreign minister when General Ayub Khan’s reign of terror. Although he claimed to be a politician and ‘a man of the people’ he did whatever General Ayub Khan did – because he was a completely unprincipled man (he would never have been in General Ayub Khan’s regime). Just like General Ayub Khan he too could not tolerate any kind of criticism leave alone a free press. Only those newspapers were allowed to survive which toed the party line. All that filled newspapers were press notifications and advices about anything...

Once Pakistan American Cultural Centre (PACC) and the the American Center people loved to visit. The PACC was a place where everyone would go to see plays and other cultural activities..The American Centre had a very popular library it even had a small cinema hall. In that small cinema hall a movie 'Citizen Kane' was shown amongst others. Occasionally American Advertising Awards films were shown. The American Centre in Karachi use to issue visas - now everyone has to go to Islamabad. - for me it makes no difference to me one way or another because I never planned to and do not intend to visit the United States of America. After all there are so many other countries in the world which I much rather visit, the only reason I mentioned this is because there use long lines for people in front of the visa section - it must be a 'tremendous inconvenience' for them - now not one person leave a line of people can stand in front of the American Centre. The road on which PACC i...