LAHORE: This is with reference to Kamal Siddiqi’s excellent article “More on the feudal mindset” (January 7). There is no rocket science involved in reforming the system of governance and the sick feudal mindsets of individuals, political, sectarian and ethnic outfits, and institutions, which are responsible for perversion of the vision of the Quaid-e-Azam that Pakistan should function as a modern, democratic, welfare state where the rule of law prevails. Former US president Theodore Roosevelt once stated: “No man is above the law and no man is below it, nor do we ask any man’s permission, when we ask him to obey it.”
Nations with a far worse track record of violence and human rights violations have reformed by shedding their bloody legacies and strictly enforcing the rule of law within their geographical boundaries.
Pakistan’s problems have become acute because powerful members of the political elite and members of the civil and khaki bureaucracy consider themselves above the law and assume unto themselves an immunity based upon their self-serving interpretation of the Constitution, or the most abused of all terms ‘the supreme national interest’.
Shahzeb Khan’s murderers want to have an NRO-like way out of the situation they find themselves in. In the past, such a route was illegally provided to those accused of gross financial corruption and other heinous crimes, in violation of the Constitution. It is important that the rule of law prevails in this specific situation, as well as in other spheres of life if we want Pakistan to get out of the mire it finds itself in.
Malik Tariq Ali
Published in The Express Tribune, January 10th, 2013.
