The Pakistani Problem
Hazrat Muhammad (P.B.U.H):
Whoever among you sees an evil action, then let him change it with his hand [by taking action]; if he cannot, then with his tongue [by speaking out]; and if he cannot, then with his heart – and that is the weakest of faith.
Narrated by Muslim in his Saheeh.
Elie Wiesel:
There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.
Wikiquote (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Elie_Wiesel)
Edmund Burke:
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Burke#Good_men_do_nothing)
These are quotes from three different personalities, each born in different times, yet each saying the same thing; we must never fail to protest against evil. And lately, I’ve been thinking more and more about this.
It actually started a while back. It was Ramzan, and I was taking Sheri with a couple of friends. The discussion somehow turned to Pakistans current situation. Those were the days when a lot had gone wrong very quickly. Corruption scandals were being dug out, calls were being made for martial law and revolution, and then Pakistan was hit by the floods, and all the political scandals that it brought along with it. There were talks of zamindars (land lords) using their political clout to save their lands by flooding the areas where the kissan (farmers) that worked for the land lords lived. There were even talks about politicians taking money from the flood relief fund. Amidst all this were a couple of university students talking about the problems of Pakistan and what it would take to solve them.
Somehow, the discussion turned to the up coming Eid and how chilars (Police Men) standing at chowks (a traffic signal) would be gearing up to stop unsuspecting people going about their business and ask for “Eidi”. Now, Eidi is something that elders give to children on Eid as a present for the joyous occasion. But Eidi is entirely voluntary, and if you don’t give any, you’re not supposed to face any wrath. But not so with the common police man. NO! Say no to a police man and you’ll be charged with everything from not wearing a helmet to DUI (drunk driving). So the Eidi the police man is asking for isn’t voluntary at all. It’s just an epitome for a bribe. A nice way for the police to ask, nay demand, your hard earned (or otherwise) money from you.
So anyways, I was trying to make the point that you should not give in to the demands of the police man. And I was shut up quite nicely when asked what I would do if a police man stopped me on the road and demanded money from me to let me go. Either give him the money or go to jail. The perfect example of being between a rock and a hard place! And then my friend said something that I think describes the Pakistani mentality perfectly.
Bribery isn’t haram (not allowed according to Islamic rules) in Pakistan. None of the things that you have to do to survive in this country is haram. You do them because you have to, not because you want to.
All this made me think of the quotes that I put at the start of this post, that we should do whatever is in our power to stop evil. I of course understand that it is unrealistic to assume that an average guy will put his life and limb at risk just to fight a corrupt system when a police man is asking for a bribe, but that should not stop us from protesting against it, even if the protest is a simple thought that what happened is wrong and given the same power as the police man, I shall not do what he has just done. That should be enough to serve as a starting point to improve this system.
But the problem isn’t in the system itself. It’s in the people. We aren’t exactly taught from the start to protest. We are told to keep our heads down and live our lives quietly without getting into any problems. We are taught this from class 1. We are taught that money and power can save you from a lot of trouble. Got bad marks in a paper? No problem, just get your parents to talk to the teacher, give him a box of sweets, and presto, problem solved! See someone being beaten up in the streets by the police? Don’t stop to interfere, just look down and pass them by. Why should you interfere and get beaten up as well?
And this is the kind of thinking that results in the beating to death of two children in bright day light and in full view of 6 or so police men in Sialkot.
Then our discussion turned to smuggling and how it should be avoided. My friend said something that again portrays the Pakistani mentality quite nicely.
The government takes taxes and it goes into the pockets of the politicians. They fill their pockets left and right. They do whatever the hell they can to get their hands on more and more money, and most of it comes at the detriment of Pakistan and it’s people. So, if you have a chance to not give money to the government, you should take it.
And this made me think about a saying that I hear often:
Jaisi Qom Waise Hukamran
Loosely translated, it means:
The rulers are of the same nature as the people they rule
Even logic validates this statement. Our rulers are chosen from amongst us, and if we try to take money from the government every chance we get, how can we expect our rulers to do any different. This point of view is expressed quite nicely by Hassan Nisar, a political analyst/scholar from Pakistan in this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrloEQ2LyDc&feature=player_embedded
This gives even more importance to protesting against the evils of the system. The form of protest doesn’t matter, as long as you continue to protest.
And finally, there’s a lot of talk going around revolution. In my humble opinion, we need evolution much more than a revolution. A revolution doesn’t really accomplish anything. The system doesn’t change magically. It never changes unless the people change. And the only way to do so it to instill the qualities we want to see in our rulers into our children, from the start. The only right way to change the system is to change ourselves. Only then can we create a better system, a better country, and perhaps even a better world.
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