The present regime has absolute power as its disposal. Nationally, it will be expected to deliver results commensurate with that kind of power. Nothing short of that. The nation is ready and waiting to be redeemed. Is General Pervez Musharraf around and listening?
What the present administration had better do is frame the rules of the game. Then, get the game started. This administration should be the umpire, not the contestant. If Ayub Khan only knew this much, he could have pulled the country out of the mire. Instead, he sank into it, dragging the country with him.
If General Musharraf is toying with the idea of tactical compromises or strategic barganing, let him watch this parade: Field Marshal Ayub Khan, General Agha Mohammad Yahya, General Ziaul Haq. Quite a few 'clean' politicians were turned out by these wonderful Generals on their own wheel. Where are the potters and where the pots, pray?
UNLESS political activity is insulated from the ravages of profane funds, there is little hope of any qualitative improvement. Insistence on introducing and implementing democratic reforms within the political parties is absolutely imperative. It is therefore of the utmost importance that there is effective accountability of party funds.
One hears the lament that in the politicians' era governments were falling at short intervals. So, what? Governments were also rising with equal frequency. Only governments were falling, not heads. That process was quite natural. That is exactly how nascent domocracies progress towards maturity, self-confidence and stability.
There is no sign of social disapproval of plunder. The robber barons have no shame. What leaves one speechless is that the victims of this incredible loot and humiliation have no urge to express their explicit disapproval. On one side, we have shamelessness, on the other spinelessness.
Introduction by
Ahmad Ali Khan
A B S Jafri
As the name of the book suggess, A B S Jafri set out here to see what's wrong with Pakistan. Then, in a number of pre-scriptions he claims he has a set of sovereign remedies. What is needed, as the author demonstrates, is no more than some common sense. And a measure of honesty of purpose. If these two nostrums can be procured and administered, tomorrow would be another and a brighter day.
Alas, as Jafri finds, both of these primary virtues are in very short supply. That is the problem. It is as serious as it can be. Also as simple as it can be.
Why Jafri deserves to be heard?
Because he is a senior journalist. He has been the editor of several national newspapers. He has also worked for the Reuters news agency and the BBC.
As an assistant editor on the staff of The Pakistan Times, which he joined in 1958, that Jafri found scope for his versatile gifts. For PT he worked as properter, correspondent, reviewer, critic and editorial writer. Before long, he was to be appointed editor of PT's edition in the capital.
The advent of the Zia dictatorship forced him out of the country. After some wandering in foreign lands, he felt persuaded to accept and offer to be Editor of The Kuwait Times, the oldest Eglish language newspaper in the rich Arab world. For nearly a decade he edited The Kuwait Times, waiting all the time to return home. A DC-130 crash outside the southern city of Bahawalpur cleared Jafri's way home.
For around two years Jafri was the editor of The Muslim newspaperin Islamabad This association came to an end because of serious differences with the politics of the proprietor of the newspaper. After a brief stint at The Pakistan Observer, Islamabad, he shifted to Karachi. He is associated with The Finance daily and frequently contributes to Dawn, The Nationa, The Frontier Post, The Herald and some foreign journals.
Jafri's close friends, and those who have come to be acquainted with him through his writings, know that he is a straightforward journalist, who respects professional ethics, honours responsibilities and insists upon exercising his right. He believes that freedom of expression is too gragile to servive the faintest suggestion of compromise. Fear is alien to his chemistry. He ha an open mind for the other point of view.
Jafri has many friends. He has his share of those who passinately disagree with him. But his severest critic would readily grant that it would be very hard to fault him for lack of confidence to stand his ground, or lack of courage to yield it when reason should so demand. He knows how to give way gracefully.
Jafri's lifelong battle has been against closed minds and small hearts. He is at his most relentles when in combat with fanaticism, big-otry, blind faith, injuctice, ugliness. His friends find his tastes for poetry, music and theatre to be lively, refined and unstuck. He has been a university level player of hockey, cricket, tennis and snooker. He has written competently about all these for The Pakistan Times. The Times of India and some other newspapers...
His love for the outdoor has been prodigious. One of the founder members of the alpine Club of Pakistan, he has to his name a memorable trek from Gilgit into Sinkiang, across the Himalaya, the Karakorums and the Hindukush. He has been a footloose sort of journalist, having travelled widely in South Asia, Middle East, Europe and in some parts of Africa.
He was a television compere, cricket commentator, and voicecast correspondent for the BBC. These careers came to an abrupt close when he suffered a voice impediment as a result of throat cancer. He still writes for the radio. Gardening has been a passion.
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