This country is considered a breeding ground for terrorism because massive inflation is leading to galloping prices.
LAHORE: Pakistan is facing a population explosion, along with a rapid decline in agricultural produce, an economic crisis going from bad to worse because of self-created crippling energy shortages, a massive flight of capital/human resources and an impending water shortage staring us in the face. As a nation, we failed to heed the advice of the Father of Nation, Quaid-e-Azam, who while addressing the first Constituent Assembly, warned us to come down with an iron hand to eradicate the curse of bribery and corruption, which could destroy the foundations of the state like cancer. What we did was patronise corruption and give legal cover to the plunder of the state’s assets and lands.
It is shocking that under the garb of building welfare housing societies and concrete farmhouses, the green belts and trees that have existed for centuries around the periphery of our cities and towns are vanishing overnight, not because of drought, but because of the insatiable greed of our bureaucratic elite, powerful land mafia and a few politicians who stand to benefit from this.
This country is considered a breeding ground for terrorism because massive inflation is leading to galloping prices of basic agricultural produce and consumer items. This has created a perfect environment for recruiting the desperately poor, who cannot afford even one meal a day, to the cadres of militants. The choice before this country is to either continue with this institutionalised corruption, creating conditions for the collapse of the state from within, or immediately ban conversion of green cultivable lands into concrete jungles for the so-called welfare of its paid public servants. In any case, the large majority of beneficiaries of this extravagance, have already abandoned this country, having taken foreign nationalities, and are in the process of transferring all their assets to safe havens, as they are convinced that after what they have done to this country, its chances for survival as a sovereign state have decreased.
Malik Tariq Ali
Published in The Express Tribune, November 14th, 2013.
Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.
