Another Long March?
Pakistani summers though never very pleasant, have never been unbearable until now. Why? Simply because of the constant, never-ending, irritating and incessant load shedding. My parents say that during their childhood load shedding was never so extensive. My response is always to whine: ‘WHY NOW? WHAT DID WE EVER DO TO DESERVE THIS?!’
But come to think of it, maybe this whining is not such a smart idea. After all, my parents certainly can’t do anything about it so complaining to them is probably a waste of precious moisture. As clichéd as it may sound, we all know that our lovely government is to blame. At the same time, I do feel that we are not playing our part well– if we think this government is not treating us right, and then it is our duty that we all protest for our rights.
Why is it that every time it is the uneducated people who come out on roads to protest? Why is it that their voices ALWAYS go unheard? On the other hand, why is it that we, the educated ones, sit in front of the television sets; under the generator powered air conditioners to watch their agony? What we fail to understand is that it is our agony as well, which will affect us one way or the other be it just the amount of petrol needed to get our generators going. We need to get out there to fight for our rights. Remember the long march? One of the most effective protests in Pakistan’s history needs to be implemented once again. We need to unite like our lawyers did to get our message across effectively.
What we must do is blatantly in front of us yet we refuse to take action. If we think that somebody else will swoop in and save our situation (hint-hint: Imran Khan) then we are a sorry lot indeed. Thinking this is just a huge mistake! We need to get out of our houses and bear the scorching heat and try to make a difference. There are people who work under hitched up tents to earn a living while we work under air conditioners in front of laptops and computers to do the same. There are women who walk stagnantly with bare feet on crude roads carrying things on their head and there are women who drive in air-conditioned cars not caring for their situation. We are savages who worship the opulence of life instead of striving for betterment.
If we keep the issue of load shedding aside and look at other things the government had done we will come across nothing but a cluster of failures. Ayub Khan’s era was known as the “decade of development”; Zulfikar Ali Bhutto gave the idea of Nuclear Power… what is it that our government has done? There is a deep rooted hatred for the people who sit on their thrones and ignore their duties to Pakistan. The time for acceptance of mistakes is long past—now they must leave the posts that they are not worthy of.
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