KARACHI: Mr Salman Ahmad in his article “Democracy yes, dynasty no” (January 1) has resorted to the establishment’s failed tactic of slandering democratic forces. He has even gone to the extent of laying the blame of a tragedy on the doors of these forces because, according to him, they “represent the corrupt feudal elite”. He conveniently forgets that the peasants, the workers and the marginalised have voted for the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) repeatedly. It is the PPP’s brave struggle for democracy that has awakened the political consciousness of the people of Pakistan. The video that Mr Ahmad has mentioned did help in paving the path for a long dictatorship. However, old tricks no longer work in a new and changed situation.
The prerequisites for a political party are its ideology and organisation. Making sacrifices for the sake of this ideology creates trust for the political party in the minds and hearts of the people. Just by collecting a few feudals, pirs and corporate kids — who have left their parent parties because of personal reasons and by heaping scorn on those who have laid down their lives for the rights and freedoms of the oppressed — one does not make a political party. It is high time that the basics of politics were understood. Problems have to be objectively analysed, solutions found and stakeholders mobilised to implement them. A sadistic mindset and negative approach shall never suffice.
Tragedies and sufferings have not deterred the PPP from its path. Children in the remotest corners of the country are raising slogans of ‘Jiye Bhutto’. Those who are using foul language against us in the media cannot even locate these places on the country’s map.
Taj Haider
General Secretary
PPP, Sindh
Published in The Express Tribune, January 5th, 2013.
