Land of naysayers

President Zardari struck yet another death blow by saying “I don’t think Pakistan will ever fully recover.”

Not known for thinking before he speaks, President Asif Ali Zardari struck yet another death blow to the already fragile national psyche by telling us “I don’t think Pakistan will ever fully recover” when speaking about the countries post-flood prospects. Adding “but we will move on” and that the government is working to protect people from future flooding, in no way taking the defeatist sting out of what he had just said.

When the country is teetering on the edge of an abyss with 20 million flood affected people screaming for help and the fear of a huge medical emergency looming on the horizon, negativity is the last thing needed from a man who is supposed be at the helm of correlating relief and recovery plans plus, publicly at least, engaged in convincing international donors to cough up desperately required funding.

As every single person in the country struggles with the emotional, physical and long term impact of the deluge it is positive encouragement of an honest, not political, kind that is the need of the moment rather than the exact opposite.

The country, along with everyone in it, is going through hell. And any indication of a light at the end of the tunnel would be most encouraging, serving to boost flagging spirits with an understanding that, if we all pull together then five, even ten years from now, we will find ourselves living in a reasonably civilised country where the dispossessed have a better quality of life than they could ever aspire to before the advent of the flooding which washed their old lives away. It appears, however, that our president is approaching the future from a completely different angle and would have us believe that his vision sees us progressing backwards in weakness not forwards in strength.

Additionally, government compensation to the tune of Rs20,000 per flood affected family for their rehabilitation, if, that is, it ever materialises, is nothing more than a fast track political sop when examined in the clear light of day. This paltry amount is not even enough to construct the most primitive of dwellings when the recipients are also faced with purchasing everything else they need in the way of household food and other essential goods let alone replace essential livestock (a buffalo can cost over Rs60,000). The government, understandably for once, is strapped for cash but where on earth are the feudal lords to whom a large percentage of the displaced sadly belong? Many of them are, of course, in the very same government responsible for doling out the miserly financial compensation and will, no doubt, ultimately get their share of the loot for loss of property and crops ‘visible’ and ‘invisible’ both.

Most feudalists treat ‘their’ peasants like slaves and have done for generations and some of these landless haris will, no doubt, take this opportunity to escape the chains that bind them, that bound their forefathers and will bind their uneducated children if they elect, or are forced, to return to their master’s domains. Surely then it should be their master’s who are responsible for rehabilitating the haris as they are the ones who reap the financial benefits of their labour? This is not to say that the dispossessed should be herded back into the type of hovels which the mighty Indus swept away in one fell swoop, their wealthy owners should be forced to provide them with decent accommodation now that they have been given the unexpected chance. Alternatively, perhaps the peasants will revolt and send feudalism back to the Dark Ages where it belongs.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 26^th, 2010.