Is Pakistan like 16th Century England. I endeavoured to answer this question in my latest article in Daily Times. I think there is hope still for Pakistan because our social and material conditions are very similar to Europe during reformation, especially England. There have been monumental changes made that will take their effect in good time.
The coming elections will be decisive in the sense that they would determine whether Pakistanis are willing to allow democracy to work or not. In the opinion of this writer, it is very important for democracy, Pakistan and Pakistan People’s Party itself that the PPP loses the next election — which it seems poised to do — so that people get to vote out an unpopular government and the PPP goes back to the drawing board to reinvent itself as a true people’s party. Such a defeat will be a reminder to whoever is in the saddle next that there is no mightier sword than the sword of public opinion that the people have forged in this country primarily through their own effort and their faith in democracy.
So here we are: bankrupt and corrupt intellectually, morally and financially, isolated and victims of religious extremism, just as King Henry left England when he died of obesity. The question is whether our fledgling democrats have achieved what Henry did, albeit for personal aggrandizement, in laying the foundation for a prosperous future? In my opinion, this inept government of PPP and company will be remembered best for the 18th Amendment, the inadvertent ascension of the judiciary and the fact that it gave us an independent and empowered election commission. Those are meaningful and long lasting changes. So yes, despite everything, one continues to be optimistic.
The reason we speak English in America is because Henry the VII's hair apparent, Arthur died unexpectedly, leaving the fate of Ferdinand&Isabella's daughter to the younger son who was otherwise being groomed as a clergy and had received praise from the Pope for writing against Luther's ideas.
ReplyDeleteFrom there followed a series of hubris and miscalculations; disappointments and rejections until the Spanish Armada sought to humiliate the daughter of Ann Boleyn, the Virgin Queen and to wipe out the heretic island.
While Elizabeth hid in despair, the Spanish managed to drown themselves in debt and water, leaving England to race ahead in chartering the waters of North America, Australia and India.
-kaka