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aderfp633 · Inscrit le: 27 Sep 2011 Messages: 7915 Localisation: England

Are earnest, well-meaning people no shortage of this breed here – still missing the trick? When this government wants to do something it goes ahead and does it. Nearly five billion dollars to those patriots called ‘independent power producers’…in a jiffy and no questions asked. Deal with the IMF, with all its onerous conditions, concluded in a flash…by the very folks who had pledged to break the begging bowl.But come terrorism and the Taliban and, lo and behold, the buck is passed to that gathering of the good and great, the ‘all-parties conference’ (APC). All done with great fanfare: military chiefs looking solemn and stating the obvious, political heads delivering the usual speeches, and a resolution passed with the usual homilies about sovereignty and peace.And people are fooled into thinking that something momentous has happened. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, other decisions are taken surreptitiously.The Capital Development Authority is in the process of acquiring 25,000 acres of land in and around Islamabad to set up some kind of an economic zone, its contours not shared with the great Pakistani public. Such massive acquisition in a densely-populated district like Rawalpindi would spell agricultural ruination for entire communities. But who’s bothered about that?From the driblets of news trickling out we can get some idea of the grandiosity of what is being planned, or at least being talked about: new airport in Rewat,[url=http://www.moncler-sale.org]moncler outlet[/url], a new Islamabad across the Margalla Hills, a tunnel connecting the two cities through the same hills, an 8-10 lane highway from Blue Area to Rewat along the lines of the Sheikh Zayed Road in Dubai, two ring roads around Islamabad and Rawalpindi.I was under the impression that in the name of urban planning nothing more could be done to destroy Islamabad and its surroundings. I was wrong, for the craziness being visualised now would put current notions of an urban nightmare in the shade.But that’s not the point,[url=http://www.moncler-sale.org]moncler down jackets[/url], at least not for now. All this is taking place in a hush-hush manner, no statement from the government, no wider consultation, and certainly no APC.The pattern is familiar. The country’s real problems may be something else but, leaving everything aside, build the Islamabad-Lahore Motorway. In Punjab during the last five years real problems may have lain elsewhere but energies of the provincial government were concentrated on flashy schemes like laptop distribution and the Lahore Metrobus Service. And this approach paid dividends, the election outcome a telling reminder of this.The pattern is now being repeated at a higher level. The terrorism issue may demand tough decisions but they are pushed under the carpet and the issue is obfuscated by the charade of the APC. However, there is no indecisiveness, no obfuscation,[url=http://www.moncler-sale.org]moncler outlet[/url], when it comes to issues closer to the heart.Perhaps there is a point to all this. Punjab was spared the worst of Taliban terrorism during the last five years. The Taliban really took on the ANP in the Frontier but largely spared Punjab. You go to Lahore, as I do frequently, and terrorism and Karachi and Hazara killings in Quetta seem so far away, almost as if occurring on a different planet. Lahore is now two cities, rich Lahore and not-so-rich Lahore. All the same, terrorism of the kind familiar elsewhere is not a Lahore phenomenon, not even, touch wood, a Punjab problem.A leadership born out of this milieu now happens to be the national leadership and it can be forgiven for bringing a Lahori outlook, an insular Punjabi brand of thinking, to Islamabad. Hence the skewed priorities. Pakistan may be burning at the edges – Fata, Karachi, Quetta – but the leadership is most obsessed not with that but forcible land acquisition in Rawalpindi and constructing a Dubai-like highway from the Blue Area (God in heaven, how come this name for the capital’s principal avenue?) to Rewat. The second airport at Fatehjang is already behind schedule but we now want a third one at Rewat.What is the map of Pakistan before the eyes of the new leadership? The whole of Pakistan or only the precious stretch from Islamabad to Lahore?The Taliban and 9/11 and our terrorism wars have taken care of one thing: most of our tanks and guns may still be turned in the direction of India, but India no longer looms as large in our imagination, or our defence thinking, as it used to before our present troubles. Even the most Indo-centric of military warriors now realise that the nature of the threat Pakistan faces has changed, that it is now more internal than external, the army command acknowledging this in so many words.But the new leadership is still caught in a time warp and at every opportunity talks of improving relations with India, without realising that relations with India, despite periodic hiccups, are bound to improve with the passage of time. Things in this direction are moving of their own accord, without the need of any grand initiative on the lines of Atal Behari Vajpayee’s bus trip to Lahore (Feb ’99).Demanding clear thinking and a modicum of strong action is something else: the sway of religious radicalism (or call it primitivism) on our north-western marches and the violence flowing from it. On this issue, the approach seems to be, pass the buck.Not that this government doesn’t have its strong points. It does. It is running a more compact ship. There are no stories of individual ministerial corruption,[url=http://www.moncler-sale.org]discount moncler jackets[/url], as was the case during the last five years. The PM looks serious and committed. But there is a problem of priorities, a problem of vision, a failure to read the whole of the Pakistani map.To put things in some perspective, Punjab health services are in a shambles,[url=http://www.moncler-sale.org]moncler on sale[/url], hospitals under-staffed, medicines not available, doctors in large numbers leaving for the greener pastures of Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries. There could be nothing further from the truth than Shahbaz Sharif’s loud statements that Punjab had broken the begging bowl. So much of the health budget is supported by foreign donors but much of the money over the last five years (as excellently documented by Adnan Adil in this paper a few days back) was diverted to other heads (roads, flyovers, etc).Administration in Punjab – police, revenue, line departments – is as corrupt today as five years ago. Yes, roads and flyovers have been built. But then even Gilani built roads and flyovers in Multan and Pervaiz Ashraf supplied gas to countless villages in his constituency. And there was no shortage of roads and other high end projects under Musharraf and Pervaiz Ellahi. But the quality of administration – perhaps Pakistan’s foremost problem – has remained the same.So what are we looking for? We have to make up our minds. Pakistan already has a deep and wide-enough social divide. The shopping mall vision of development,[url=http://www.moncler-sale.org]discount moncler jackets[/url],[url=http://www.moncler-sale.org]moncler sale[/url], which is really the Dubai model of development, doesn’t improve the condition of the less-privileged. It only widens this divide. Look at India next door,[url=http://www.moncler-sale.org]moncler sale[/url], huge disparities and the poor worse off than ever.Tailpiece: And there is no snake venom in district hospitals,[url=http://www.moncler-sale.org]moncler down jackets[/url], no snake venom in the bazaar for love and money. Get bitten by a poisonous snake anywhere in Pakistan and that’s it,[url=http://www.moncler-sale.org]moncler on sale[/url], the end. And hospitals generally are pictures of suffering. In a land that has someone like Professor Adeeb Rizvi and his SIUT, LRBT eyes hospitals which do everything for free, why should this be so? You tell me. But we’ll have more shopping malls, and Islamabad, this sad story of an unwanted city, trying so hard to look like Dubai (without the open booze and the girls)…so I suppose it all adds up in the end.Email: winlust@yahoo.com
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