The Rich Man in his castle, and the Poor Man at his castle’s gate are now both engaged in creating history. POWER is no longer the Rich Man’s hereditary right to wield, even though he continues to wield it, ironically on behalf of the Poor Man who even under democracy simply doesn’t have the means to vote himself into rulership.
Meaning thereby that the Rich Man is the principal beneficiary even of the system that is designed to give power to the majority -i.e the Poor Masses.
Yet this system is the closest, the Poor Man has come, for acquiring for himself the right to shape his own life, fortune and destiny.
The Poor Man of this proposition represents the PEOPLE, the entire Mass of Mankind that happens to be comprised of the Have-Nots, born in dismal insecurity, and destined from the moment of their birth to grow up in the thorny embrace of an unending struggle for survival.
The Rich Man of this proposition represents the Elite, the powerful micro-minority, born either in hereditary wealth or in manipulated affluence, and with roots either in feudal aristocracy or in the urban money-making merchant class.
Even though the Masses continue to vote the Elite into power, their hopes of a future of real political clout and socio-economic security for themselves lie only in the preservation, purification, consolidation and fortification of the system that has given them the right of vote.
There is no denying the fact that the system has not yet succeeded in fulfilling its promise. But it will be an exercise in self-deception to argue that, as no turnaround in the Nation’s fortunes under the present system is in sight, let there be a change.
Change, there has to be. No denying that fact. But change in our individual and collective behaviours. Not to any other system. There simply is no alternative to the right of vote.
The faults that are being attributed to Democracy lie in the rampant Culture of Corruption, and with its powerful practitioners and beneficiaries.
This Culture of Corruption is not the offspring of Democracy. Its seeds have been sown during the years and decades when Pakistan and her people have been in the clutches of self-appointed rulers whose power – base has been either intrigue or gun.
Because of the behaviour of our political parties, as well as of those who are voted into the assemblies, the stock of Democracy in the eyes of many has sunk so low that almost any change is going to be regarded as a journey in the upward direction. The political parties and most of those who constitute them have no core value except POWER. It is ironical that the disillusioned populace too now have started considering politics a high form of interactive spectator sport.
We can’t afford to let the populist/democratic system go into progressive and permanent decline.
We have to rediscover its inherent goodness and strength. And we have to make the elected as well as the non-elected elite, practicing politics in one or the other form, redefine their priorities so that democracy’s sacred goals are not defeated by democratic misrule.
The present culture of corruption is built on an obsessive craze for more and more and more material worth. When we compete for power, our instruments of competition are not ideology and values, but hypocrisy and greed.
All that has to change if we are to survive as a nation, and bring about a turnaround in our beloved country’s fortunes.
20-11-2013
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