Imran Khan's party is good. Vote them.
Samata Ullah
Why nations die!
By Imran Khan
"Nations die when they can no longer distinguish between right and wrong," said
Maulana Rumi. Being the great mystic, poet and philosopher that he was, Rumi
drew inspiration from the Holy Qur'aan, God's Book of guidance in which He
advises mankind to condemn that which is wrong and uphold that which is right.
The Qur'aan makes numerous references to nations that were destroyed when they
lost the ability to tell between right and wrong. This ability is so very
important that one of the Surahs in the Qur'aan is called "Al Furqan" -- The
Criterion.
Inspired by the Messenger's (PBUH) example the foundations of Muslim
civilisation were based on an extraordinarily high value system.
The four rightly-guided caliphs, who came immediately after the Messenger
(PBUH), maintained these high moral and ethical standards and elevated the
value system of the entire Muslim nation. It is for this reason that the
Khulafa-e-Rashida period is regarded as the Golden Age of Islam. Future Islamic
leadership rarely measured up to this ideal yet for several centuries Muslim
societies had a higher value system than in today's world. Whenever the ruling
elite's value system collapses, decay inevitably sets in.
Sadly, Pakistan is staring at an uncertain future because it has lost its moral
compass despite the high moral standards set by the Father of the Nation. With
each passing decade the country has meekly accepted a lower, indeed baser, set
of values. 1985 was a watershed year for that is when our political leadership
went on a looting spree. Societal values plummeted the depths. Ordinary
corruption descended to plunder and became accepted as the norm. The ruling
elite --- politicians, judges, generals and bureaucrats, even journalists ---
began selling its soul, some for a song. "Fish rots from the head," say our
great friends the Chinese from whom we have learned little. With each passing
year corruption permeated every strata of the society, destroying its moral
fabric. When criminality pays and people lose the ability to realise that they
are being corrupt, crime multiplies. Thus the greatest damage done to Pakistan
was that crooks became accepted in society because they were not really seen to
have done anything wrong. Drug smugglers are feted on release, looters received
repeatedly as rulers. Here, money talks. Money has come to mean acceptability
(not respectability). Hence few question where or how people have got their
wealth, as long as they have got it. The corrupt can consequently buy
acceptability, elections and high office.
The nadir came with the Mehran Bank scandal, which cost the country's
beleaguered taxpayer Rs 5 billion. (Why then should people pay taxes for the
inefficiency and corruption of government?). That our political Who's Who was
involved in this great bank robbery epitomises how low our values have fallen.
Yet they are still able not only to contest elections but also be regarded as
pillars of society, as do those who doled out the money of depositors to them.
No one asks whether it is part of the job description of the army chief to dish
out money to our politicians of easy virtue to influence, meaning subvert, the
political process. Imagine if this had happened in a Western country, what an
uproar it would have caused. All those involved would have been finished, long
since consigned to history's trash heap.
Four governments were dismissed on corruption charges yet every time the same
corrupt pack was allowed to contest elections and return to the assemblies to
resume their plunder and misgovernance. Politics, not business, became the best
of all businesses. Ill-gotten money was invested in elections. After getting
elected the "investment" was first "recovered" then huge "profits" made through
more plunder.
Transparency International had Pakistan as the world's second most corrupt
country in the late nineties. Since international investors took this view
seriously, foreign investment began to dry up. It is logical that when a
country's debt increases, its poverty should decrease provided the loans are
applied judiciously. Pakistan scored yet another first in the Hall of Ignominy
when abject poverty and debt both increased during the Decade of Plunder.
Nothing manifests the extent to which our moral and ethical standards had
fallen than the elections of our two ex-PMs as heads of their respective
parties. This despite knowing that one is a convict and the other an absconder
and both face a plethora of corruption charges. Even more depressing are those
of our intellectuals, columnists, and senior journalists --- even liberals ---
who are demanding that these two icons of corruption should be allowed to
contest elections on grounds that the masses will conduct their accountability
through their vote.
They know full well that the poor masses are in no position to hold anyone
accountable, being trapped in the feudal system which is armed with weapons
like the Thana, Kuchehry and Patwari that keep the weak and the voiceless in
line through fear of victimisation. And so the depressing, degrading syndrome
continues with the same crooks getting elected repeatedly.
People welcomed General Musharraf hoping that he was the messiah who would
clean the system up, put all political crooks behind bars without selectivity
and allow genuine democracy (with the required institutional checks) to
flourish. Depressingly his government has taken the well-trodden path and in
the name of "realism" has enlisted some of the mega corrupt electable
politicians on its side. Like others of their ilk before them, this lot too has
selected crooks because crooks aren't restricted by principles or morality and
are therefore pliable and will do their bidding. Resultantly the future of the
nation has constantly been jeopardised for short-term gains. Besides, the
government has ended up doing Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto a huge favour by
making corruption a non-issue. How can any reform programme work if these role
models of dishonesty again dominate the assemblies!
The government would have us believe that what it is doing is "realistic" that
talk of clean-up is idealistic because "unfortunately" only the corrupt are
electable. Devoid of ethics this brand of "realism" is nothing more then simple
expediency. Such fake realism will destroy the value system of our nation
further and take us closer towards Rumi's verdict. With the same corrupt
politicians doing "business as usual" the system of governance will deteriorate
even more, negating whatever good work has been done in the last three years,
which in turn will wipe out any chances of investment in the future.
Without investment the army of unemployed will grow to the point where a social
upheaval becomes inevitable. Without investment the economy will shrink
further, government's revenues won't rise leading to more indirect taxation,
greater inflation, more poverty and even more corruption by the salaried
classes. This fake realism holds a depressing and bleak future.
Reality cries out for idealism -- the sort of idealism that existed in 1947
that makes a nation believe in itself and feel that it can overcome all odds to
make the impossible achievable. It happens in one glorious moment when a nation
comes together in a common vision, with faith in higher ideals. In order to do
so we need a leadership that sets high moral and ethical standards, and no
matter what the circumstances, it never, but never, compromises with criminals
and crooks. We will never have work ethics unless we ensure with total
determination that crime doesn't pay. Our institutional checks should be such
that never again are crooks able to get close to any leadership role. Only then
can we fight the cancer of corruption.
Now that we know how nations die the imperative is to address the questions:
"How do nations rise?" The starting point, indeed the fulcrum of an ascendant
nation, particularly a Muslim nation, is the establishment of an independent,
powerful and credible judiciary. Without this it is impossible to establish an
egalitarian state in which the law applies equally to all. Only if leadership
becomes subservient to the law will the law be respected. Lee Kwan Yew's
economic miracle in Singapore rested on a credible judiciary and a high value
system, which enabled the island to have the cleanest government in Asia. Lee
saw no danger in an independent judiciary because he had complete confidence in
his own financial and intellectual integrity. He could thus afford a credible
justice system, unlike our corrupt rulers. After 35 years of Lee's leadership
Singapore's per capita income rose from $450 to $22,000. In a decade of corrupt
leadership Pakistan's poverty and debt have trebled. This stark contrast
confirms Maulana Rumi's thought that bereft of morality nations fall.
2.190 Fight in the cause of Allah those who fight you, but do not transgress
limits; for Allah loveth not transgressors.
http://www.ummah.com/waragainstislam/
http://hindudharma.t35.com
http://galileo.spaceports.com/~samy/
Baloney
> Bangladesh is just like how this man describes as well.
>
> http://www.insaf.org.pk/
>
> Why nations die!
>
> By Imran Khan
>
> "Nations die when they can no longer distinguish between right and wrong,"
Segregation is wrong.
z.iqbal80
underlying Paksitan, or the rest of the world for that matter.
The problem is not a moral issue - the problem is an ideological issue - ie
secualrism/capitalism is implemente over pakistan rather than the islamic
ideology, whose form of government is known as Khialfah.
As a simple example, over $45bn of debt has been run up by the corrupt
regimes over the decades - this is crippling the country as the regimes and
their corrupt cohorts (ie contractors) skim the money off and lien their
pockets with it - the coutnry sees nothing but the debt and cripplign
interest. This is forbidden in Islam - Islam has its unique taxation system
which generates revenue (zakat, kharaj, ushr, jizya, ghanima, natural
resources etc) sufficient to solve the economic problems of the society
without such loans.
"Samata Ullah" <samat...@aol.comazmatali> wrote in message
news:20020819114525...@mb-fl.aol.com...
The Holy Kafir
"z.iqbal80" <z.iq...@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:l7f89.30329$IU4.9...@newsfep2-win.server.ntli.net...
> Unfortunately Imran may be sincere, but he does not understand the
problems
> underlying Paksitan, or the rest of the world for that matter.
>
> The problem is not a moral issue - the problem is an ideological issue -
ie
> secualrism/capitalism is implemente over pakistan rather than the islamic
> ideology, whose form of government is known as Khialfah.
>
> As a simple example, over $45bn of debt has been run up by the corrupt
> regimes over the decades - this is crippling the country as the regimes
and
> their corrupt cohorts (ie contractors) skim the money off and lien their
> pockets with it - the coutnry sees nothing but the debt and cripplign
> interest. This is forbidden in Islam - Islam has its unique taxation
system
> which generates revenue (zakat, kharaj, ushr, jizya, ghanima, natural
> resources etc) sufficient to solve the economic problems of the society
> without such loans.
Do you understand how money works?
George
approval. It seems to me that the last thing a "Moslem" government would
tolerate, much less "need" would be an independent judiciary.
snip
> By Imran Khan
>
> "Nations die when they can no longer distinguish between right and wrong,"
said
> Maulana Rumi. Being the great mystic, poet and philosopher that he was,
Rumi
> drew inspiration from the Holy Qur'aan, God's Book of guidance in which He
> advises mankind to condemn that which is wrong and uphold that which is
right.
> The Qur'aan makes numerous references to nations that were destroyed when
they
> lost the ability to tell between right and wrong. This ability is so very
> important that one of the Surahs in the Qur'aan is called "Al Furqan" --
The
> Criterion.
snip