All Tarred With The Same Brush

Since the emergence of Panama Leaks, a country wide debate is initiated regarding corruption in politics and other state institutions. Do countries like ours really need evidence of the involvement of the politicians in such scams? Each and every aspect of our political and economic system is being influenced by our political elite and phenomenal increase in their capital wealth within a small period is sufficient to prove their involvement in corrupt practices and abuse of their authority. Extreme poverty among the masses and poor performance in every aspect of government affairs speaks volumes about the lack of competency and transparency of our political and bureaucratic class. In a country where political institutions are rapidly collapsing and fighting for their existence due to under performance while the wealth of the religious & political leaders running these institutes increases immensely, there is no need of external evidence to confirm the malpractices of its leaders. Our leadership claims that it has earned such astonishing sums of money from their fair business and not from corruption. Nothing can be more absurd and baseless than such justifications. It is hard to comprehend how come it is possible that individual businesses of these politicians flourish but the government run by these politicians cannot meet its expenses through the earnings and country is becoming more and more dependent on foreign loans. How is it possible that the leaders capability results into profit of their individual business but the same leader fails to bring prosperity for the nation, rather it  brings more poverty ,Energy shortage, loans and law & order crisis for the society and masses. This is exactly what the term "corruption" stands for.

The political leaders of third world countries cannot make any decision against imperialist countries like USA, Britain, etc. which represent global Capitalism. Reason being the fact that almost all leaders of political and religious parties, no matter whether they are in government or opposition, have direct relationship with the power centers of imperialist countries. Purpose of this cooperation is to formulate and implement policies which protect interests of Global Capitalism. No wonder that in countries like Pakistan, political change is more dependent on the influence of international powers than on the will of its own people. As soon as a political crisis emerges in the country, whole lot of our main stream political leadership goes abroad for secretive meetings. Not a single party in Pakistan has the intrinsic capacity to bring about a real and sustainable change in society through local resources & participation of masses. This discrepancy automatically creates a dependency of these parties on external powers. Consequently, our political leadership is a facilitator of major economic powers of the world and work for their geostrategic political and interests. Even the re-election of any political leader and party is not possible without the support of these global powers. NRO and Charter of Democracy are events of our recent past which depict the same phenomenon.

Majority of people who were so called proponents of “democracy” and have imposed these leaders on our nation are front line beneficiaries and supporters of capitalist system in the country and work for its interests.  Relations of present rulers with the top billionaire families of US, UK, India, Saudi Arabia and China speak volumes of the strength of the capitalist system.Our political leadership is mediocre rather below par in terms of vision and capabilities, still it is being supported by the global think tanks which not only save their personnel interests but also rescue them in case of political crisis in the country. The slogans of democracy and religion propagating from such think tanks are always manipulative and deceptive. We need to remain careful and try to understand whether or not the new slogan is another means of meeting their capitalist goals.

Most of the political movements in our country are part of this bigger scheme and we as a nation have failed time and again to identify the real intent & goal behind such movements. Even today, our country is faced by numerous such movements such as the sudden gathering of all the political parties on a foreign land in order to discuss the political scenario, the so called consensus among the opposition parties against the government and the gathering of all the religious parties under the umbrella of “Tahaffuz e Pakistan Council”etc. promising collaboration among themselves are some of the examples of this scheme.

It is imperative upon us to understand the motive behind this mayhem. It is in the interest of the capitalist system to keep small differences among their elected political groups in the form of opposition, religious parties and civil bureaucracy. These groups then enclave the masses with the false hope that this time around, the political change will sweep off all their political, economic and social problems.  Resultantly, common people tie the hope of prosperity from people who are actually against "their well-being" and are actually responsible for inflicting and exacerbating poverty in the society. A prominent example of such gestures is the celebration of recent Labor Day with much vigor and enthusiasm by the imperialist nations and ruling elite of all countries who oppress the labor segments the most. Nothing can be more ironic than watching them arranging processions and raising slogans about the rights of working classes. If a government can constitute a commission to inquire about corruption allegations against its own office bearers, thereby, playing the role of accused and judge simultaneously, why a conference can’t be arranged for the rights of working classes by those who exploit them the most?

In short, we can say that all political and religious parties irrespective of their belonging to ruling benches or opposition benches are equivalent in terms of their efforts and goals as they are part of the same exploitative system that is running all institutions of our beloved country.All political and religious parties irrespective of their belonging to ruling benches or opposition benches are equal in terms of their efforts and goals as they are part of the same exploitative system that is running all institutions of our Country. It is a curse which we as a nation have to get rid of in order to move forward along with leading nations of the world.

Translation: Mr.Faisal Islam, Karachi