Pakistan betrayed by its own
Seven of the 16 Pakistani cricket team players visiting England for test and one day matches are under investigation for match fixing. Among them are players as young as 18 and as old as 34. They include junior and senior players including the captain and the vice captain. Those who were caught fixing the match were Pakistani too and they revealed that during the last 30 months they had amassed huge wealth by buying Pakistani cricketers to serve the interests of bookies. Everyone who is a fan of any sports and love the youthful spirit of competitiveness must hand his head in utter shame as words cannot explain the trauma of betrayal. It is ironic that this disgrace comes at a time when the nation is faced with the worst flood of its existence. How can the world trust a people with its resources to help the flood victims, when even its sportsmen are not free from corruption?
This is utter disgrace from a sports perspective, abject disgust from a national perspective and absolute shame from a faith perspective. But what is there to be shocked? When the country is led by a President who is known in international financial circles as Mr. 10 per cent for bribes that he collects for awarding lucrative contracts on behalf of the government of Pakistan, the cricketers lust for money is not unjustified. Why should anyone be surprised when the national cabinet consists of people who are known for destroying the national wealth by piling up their personal wealth abroad.
Corruption is rampant in Pakistan. Pakistanis have to pay huge amounts of money to their government officials to get their genuine and legitimate work done. They have to spend large amounts to ensure that they are not framed in any illegal act by those who have been given the responsibility to protect them. There are not many in the Pakistan bureaucracy and Pakistani elected government who can claim integrity and honesty as their traits.
This is the land where people kill each other in the name of establishing an Islamic state, where sectarian and ethnic violence is common and where the dignity of an ordinary citizen is not safe. This is the state where some 25 per cent people live in conditions not suitable even for animals and this is the land that has abandoned once its own citizens who are stranded in Bangladesh. This is the land where honor killing is often justified by religious scholars and this is the land where boys are given preference over girls because girls are considered social stigma.
Some 63 years ago, when the world witnessed the emergence of a state created in the name of a faith, hopes were high. More than a million people lost their lives from amongst Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs for what is known the partition of the country. Huge population shift took place within a short period of time destroying the culture and stability for millions. All that was accepted in the hope that a state would emerge where men and women would be treated respectfully and equally, where ethnic and sectarian strife would be of no value, where the division between rich and poor would not determine the status, where education would be common, where exploitation of labor would come to an end and where minorities would never complain of injustices. Idealism for an altruist society was common among those struggling for the creation of the new country.
Those who witnessed the early era for the struggle of Pakistan were not looking for just a homeland for Muslims because there were numerous places in an undivided India where Muslims constituted overwhelming majority, rather, they were optimistic of a future where the rule of law not favoring any ethnic, religious or ideological group would prevail and where the resources would not be monopolized by a few people. Many died for this dream and many still live for this dream.
Pakistan has betrayed its own ideals and destroyed the very foundation it was built on. Rather than using the divine guidance to unite and progress, its religious leaders have created divisions around divine guidance to an extent where violence against opponents has been justified in the name of God. Rather than using the resources divinely gifted, the rich and resourceful have continued to practice feudalism, brutal ownership of land and brutalization of a work force that has been compelled to live as bonded labors. Rather than building an educated and literate community, the educators and planners have continued to neglect the poor and the needy to the extent that today Pakistan's literacy rate is one of the lowest in the world. National interests are sold cheaply to foreign buyers. People can easily be bought even to give their honor and life for a few dollars.
Unemployment is rampant, moral degradation is visible, tolerance of opposing ideas is absent, violence is common and above all corruption has become a national hallmark. Every sector of Pakistan's life is affected by corruption and graft including the religious sector whose dealers known as clerics take pride in charging the believers huge amount of money for reciting a few words of the scripture and making a few duas in Arabic.
Scattered individuals concerned with the deteriorating conditions do stand up against this culture of degradation, yet their voices are shut down. Sincerity is often ridiculed and simplicity is laughed at. Pakistan as a nation has lost the moral compass to turn to.
If Pakistan has to emerge as a respectable and dignified nation, it has to find those visionaries who are selfless and willing to give their country a leadership based on rational thoughts and progressive ideas securing the dignity of each and every one of the people. Pakistan does not need a movement centered around this or that politician to overtake the parliament in the next election, it needs a national leadership drawn from all ethnic, cultural, gender, linguistic and religious groups who can identify with the needs of common people and work to secure the dignity of each and everyone based on sound ideas and progressive thinking.
In the next 30 years, the majority of Pakistan would consist of people under the age of 30. This generation deserve to live a full life in a culture of peace and dignity. If they do not find it in the Pakistan's dominant faith, Islam, they will experiment with other ideologies and isms. It is imperative that the Islamic vision of equality, justice and liberty is revived with progressive thoughts by those who are willing to understand the divine purpose of the divine guidance and who are willing to challenge the status quo. Otherwise, the heaps of disgrace would keep piling on and on.
Dr Aslam Abdullah is director of the Islamic Society of Nevada, Vice president of the Muslim Council of America (MCA) and the President elect of the Nevada Interfaith Council. He has authored several books and published more than 400 papers on issues related with Islam and contemporary issues. He has taught at colleges in India as well as in the US.
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Since when repeating what every respectable Pakistani has said that corruption is rampant in Pakistan is an Indian propaganda?
Since when sugesting that Pakistan goes back to its Islamic roots to clean up its act is an expression of aggressiveness?
Truth is always bitter. those from Pakistan would acknowlege that Pakistan is not what it was dreamt of.
The dream can come true only when people are sincere to fellow Pakistanis and do whatever needs to be done to ensure that their dignity is preserved.
Is speaking against corruption, violence, illiteracy and other ills that plague the Pakistan society an act of hatred or an act of conern?
You be the judge?
Aslam Abdullah
Until that happens, the conditions in the country and its people will reflect the actions and character of its current leader.
We all Knew Indo-US-Israel-Afghan collaborative game against Pakistan this article is an addition where muslims have also joined to give credibility to propaganda against Pakistan.Please sir do not see role of Pakistan and Pakistanis in last 63 from western eyes but see it from Muslim eyes.Alhamdulillah despite the opposing currents it has led in every sphere of Global Muslim contribution in last 63 years of its Independence.
Wassalaam
IN TAZA KHUDAON MAI BARA SAB SE WATAN HAI
JO PERHAN IS KA HAI WO MADHAB KA KAFAN HAI
Since Dr. Abdullah has started this distasteful debate, let me state that we Muslims in Pakistan at least do not have to hide our Muslim identities and change our Muslim names to Hindu names to survive, unlike our dear Muslim brothers and sisters from India. There are many other things that could be said about the pitiful conditions of Muslims in India but it would only prove unproductive and create further fragmentation in the already much fragmented Muslim Ummah.
I wish Dr. Abdullah had not written the piece in the tone he did. To each his own.
Baazu tira tawheed ki quwwat se qawi hai
Islam tira dais he, tu Mustafawi hai!
Viewing herself as the successor to the British Raj, in terms of its international stature and its overbearing approach to its neighbors, India aspired to be, like the British were, the regional hegemon. She failed initially for a number of reasons including her own economic weakness and Pakistan's stubborn opposition. This left India's new rulers, who had no prior experience of governing, (perhaps the reason why India has more ongoing insurgencies than any other country in the world) understandably frustrated but not before it had whetted their appetite to pursue latent imperial ambitions. Kashmir, Hyderabad, Sikkim, Goa and East Pakistan are examples of recourse to might, rather than negotiations, as the preferred means of settling differences. It was the imperial way."
"Today, however, circumstances and the acquisition of nuclear weapons by Pakistan have transformed the situation. It is no longer force but negotiations through which India must pursue her old agenda. Although India has reconciled herself to the new situation but not fully."
Is there anything wrong with that? In the past 1450 years how many mini-Islamic paradises have achieved utopias?
population dwarfs such issues in Pakistan. Are you saying that the indian team or any other team is not involved in match fixing. And what happend about innocent until proven guilty? What's the proof the video wasn't made after the match? If you were so happy with the conditions of your country you would be living there. Shame on you as a muslim.
But there is hope, if they invest on the education. This generation won't stay and if Pakistanis build an educated, healthy, faithful generation they will kick these corrupt people out of the system and lead the country in the right direction.
And at the end he writes "set a date and time to organize a campaign to protect and defend Muslim interests in the state of Nevada.". What? Priorities again? Were both the author and Editor sleeping?