Politicizing the society
On July 5th, 1977 General Zia Ul Haq, Chief of the Army Staff, overthrew an elected Prime Minister, declared himself the president and imposed martial law in Pakistan.
For a very long time after his take over civil liberties were banned. The right of the people to rule themselves was buried deep in the mud. The word politics was branded highly as an insult to the nation, given sort a dirty feel to it.
As a primary school student during this time i believed that politics must be separated from all the state and civil institutions.
However, times have changed so has my thinking.
The only way for a depressed society to progress is to politicze itself.
Now i would like to bring you to the present 2008.
Few days back i had written an article Karachi City Police Corruption Continues. The police brutality in the particular continued to increase and then just few days back a local hotel owner was threatened by the Police for not offering free tea. This particular area had choosen Jamat-e-Islami to represent it in Karachi City District Government.
After this particular incident happened Pasban which is a wing of Jamat-i-Islami started protesting and has put up banners and posters in the area. They also brought in the GEO TV team to bring on tape this particular issue( i am not sure if this aired yet). All this pressures has forced the authorities to remove the entire police partol that used to stay in this area.
Then just yesterday i went to this nice new Mini Zoo in Gulshan Karachi. It was amazing. In between the appartment jungle a nice neat clean zoo has been built where children of street vendors, have an equal oppertunity to explore wildlife and simple pleasures of life. The park is built by the Karachi City District Governement. This particular area where park is elected member of MQM to represent it. Prior to this park there was cheap and easy enteratinment to the folks who lived around this neighbourhood.
But what got my attention was that just inside the zoo there is big wall plaque dedicated to Altaf Hussain, leader of MQM. Which is a good way to remind people of their politicial sense.
Both these situation shows that if we organize our self politically then population at large could benefit. However in case of zoo i must ask why do they have to do the advertising of the ruling members of the government on public expense.
Then again today i saw this ad in Dawn. Not sure if i have seen ever anything like this before.
All of this i feel shows that democracy in this country must evolve and politicizing the society is the only way for it to move forward in Pakistan
