Civics 101: How government works and what to do when it doesn’t

All it took to end a protest near Matiari was a little help.

KARACHI: On our way to Rashidabad on Sunday, some friends and I got off the Super Highway after Hyderabad, crossed Tando Jam and were almost at Matiari when we encountered a protest that was holding up traffic on both sides.

This protest was not much unlike any other: the protesters had created a makeshift barrier across the road, were burning tyres and were chanting slogans about where they were from and their cause.

They had held up traffic for over an hour already and from the look of things, they planned to hold traffic up forever, or at least, as long as they could. The protesters were men and boys of every age, from the very young to the very old. The traffic they were holding up consisted heavily of trucks ferrying relief goods to Mirpurkhas, Badin and the outlying areas and volunteers to help distribute the goods.

A few of the drivers and passengers tried to reason and plead with the protesters to let them pass, but to no avail. The general attitude among those held up was the usual mix of consternation, frustration and nonchalance.

On initial inquiry, some passengers told us that this was a political protest and probably a ruse to get an opportunity to pick off the trucks. Nothing unusual about the situation so far. Protesters, assumed to be political, burning tyres and holding up traffic, seemingly inconsiderate to the needs of those held up.

It took the intervention of a retired air force pilot, Squadron Leader Shabbir A. Khan, and a retired judge, Justice Fakhruddin G. Ebrahim, before anyone found out that these men were villagers of Matiari, at the end of their tether.

Their village had been under three feet of water for five days. They didn’t know what to do. Nobody, not even a government official, had come in to so much as ask how they were faring. This protest was their cry for help — all they could think of. These two gentlemen spent half an hour calming the villagers down and then directed them towards the local DCO and MPA’s offices, to pressure them to get off their comfy seats and take the necessary action. Only then was traffic able to move again.

All it took was someone to listen to their problems and help them figure out what to do and who to contact for a solution. That simple. We’ve heard plenty of calls for the army or the courts to solve many of our other problems. Do we now need to call in the retired armymen and judges to do this? Or, as individual citizens of Pakistan, can we not educate ourselves and each other how to get our elected representatives to do what we elected them to do?

The writer is a district Rotaract representative for 2012-13

Published in The Express Tribune, September 20^th,  2011.