Recent elections in developing countries, especially in India and Ukraine, have demonstrated how ordinary citizens have changed the destiny of their nations and their own, by raising their collective voices to demand that we, the citizens matter and deserve better.
Through peaceful demonstrations and protests, the citizens of Ukraine have stood their ground in sub--zero temperatures for over two weeks and rejected the rigged election results and forced them to be declared null and void.
And the underprivileged citizens of India had rejected the past government's catchy slogan of "India Shining" and that India was not shining for them and that they deserved better and had voted against the Vajpayee government in recent elections.
What is important to most citizens is, not who governs them, but as to how they are governed. Their demands are quite simple - good governance and no to corruption and mismanagement of their country.
Unfortunately, in Pakistan, it seems that we, the citizens, do not matter nor care, as those who have the most to loose, seem to be the least concerned.
The "silence of the lambs" virus has infected civil society and we watch in silent despair as puppet masters, who control our destinies, manipulate our strings and make us dance to their tunes.
Most of us are quite content to be arm-chair critics and restrict ourselves to huff and puff and shake our heads in sorrow at the comedy of errors that we have been watching in the corridors of power in Islamabad, the streets of Karachi and the shores of far away lands for the last 3 decades. Heroes and villains have suddenly merged into a kaleidoscope of leaders and it has become difficult to judge as to who is who?
And all these "adjustments, manipulations, etc, have always been done in our best interest, under the doctrine of necessity and in the name of freedom and sweet old democracy. What more can we ask for?
I wonder how many of us truly subscribe to what Rabindranath Tagore had written:
"Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high - Where knowledge is free and the world has not been broken - up into fragments by narrow domestic walls - Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way - Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit - Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake."
Anyone for a game of bridge or tennis?
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