Monday, August 30, 2010

Using separate lens for analysis

The analysis of some recent events has amazed me. Same people have used different core concepts to define the lens through which they see things.

We have been hit by the worst form of natural disaster in our history. The devastation has been said to pass that of tsunami & the 2005 earthquake combined.

The international response to our devastation has been pretty slow, as they say too little too late. One of the major reasons for this has been attributed to the low trust deficit that our present government has. However, though there are no two opinions that this factor holds true to its core still there have been divided opinion as to how people should react. While one group is of the opinion that any aid given to the government institutions will be equal to dumping it in a deep dark pit hence the aid should be directed towards the international & national organizations which are working independent of the government & which we can be rest assured that will deliver to the needy. Therefore, people from this group have been quite vocal about this issue & have been termed as anti-government. And some have went so far as to term this lot as anti-Pakistan. American Naturalist once wrote “Patriots must always be ready to fend his country against its government”.

On the other hand we have the group which is of the opinion that though the government is not reliable but keeping in view the devastation we need to keep our difference aside & help them get aid from the international forum. And one way of aiding can be that we stop demonizing the government & work with it.
My Personal opinion about the difference is that the former group has real sharp memory while group the latter has very short memories. 2005 earthquake anyone??? At that point even though the trust deficit was not that low, but the results were equally hopeless. There was aid that never reached the victims, aid that was sold in the open market, aid that went in for the personal use of a select few who were not in need of it. Something similar has started to happen. People have sported eatable goods being sold in the open market which have the UN aid for flood relief’s seal on them.

Coming to another incident, that has shocked us. The Sialkot lynching incident of two teenage brothers by the mob in the presence of the police officials & the Rescue 1122 personnel. Some people took no moment in declaring the whole Pakistani nation as savages ready to kill with just the slightest provocation. Yes, we all are & should be ashamed of what happened to those two boys; to be more specific to a family who will be living with this for the rest of their lives. However, just because the group assembled there became part of the infamous mob culture & didn’t stop the madness how does this put the blame on the whole of the nation? I have never came across countries being labeled as outright barbaric societies who have destroyed other countries just to secure their personal benefits. If this is how nations are to be defined then I think the whole human race should be declared as worse than animals as we all have been watching the massacres taking place in all the occupied countries around the globe.

Are we not looking in the wrong direction then?

As the new reports are pouring in can no one see that those involved in this brutality were acting out of desperation as well, though I in no sense mean to say that their sickness is justified; But just blaming the people & reacting by saying that all those involved should be treated in a similar fashion to serve justice is not going to help in the remotest sense. It will only aid the cycle & keep it running. Those labeling the nation as savages forgot that these very savages when go to a different country temporarily or permanently fully abide by their laws & show no signs of being the raw ready to kill types. Ever wonder why? Because they know that the machinery of law is not completely dead & people are not helpless for justice as we have become.
Justice delayed is Justice denied.

The people involved in the brutality justified their action based on the concept of serving justice as they have been at the receiving end of robbery & murder all this time & they had lost patience at this point. Had this been the result if the law enforcement machinery working for what it has been designed for; making sure that justice is neither delayed nor denied to the people. Instead the realty check is that they are part of the core problem themselves & aid this chaos which has surrounded us.

In all this analysis did anyone realize that the small children present on the scene should never be accepted to act in a calm manner when confronted with a similar situation in their own lives because what got imprinted on their raw minds would be near to impossible to change. And when the cycle will repeat itself analyst will take the easy way out & sum it all up in a single line, the nation has always been full of savages.

The focus has been on two things, one saying that we are mad people & second that were the boys innocent or involved in the crimes alleged by the people at the other end. Whichever case be true the focus should be to bring the relevant authorities too task so that people don’t continue to take the law in their own hands because if we look at the long term consequences of such a trend, we are inviting a self made disaster. Now even the all are politicians have gone silent too, who were ready to bring justice at the door steps of that family when the other side of the story surfaced. This only shows that they endorse the fact that if they were criminals treating them that way is acceptable to them.

Not much attention is being given to the protests that were held on the 24th of Aug in Lahore & on the 26th of Aug. in both Lahore & Karachi. Those people are part of this very nation trying to be part of the change that they want to see around them. Why have their efforts not been given the due share? Why only concentrate on the negative which only results in attracting more negativity? 

Sunday, August 29, 2010

Telco Wars

Since long the telco industry has been indulged in some kind of a war amongst its players. The pointless price war has been on since ages. Though from the customer’s view point this is great as most of them carry multiple sims & so does the loyalty shifts with the packages. Or can this even be called loyalty??

Then hitting on each other has been a common sight as well. As can be seen in the following examples.







However, my irritation has sparked with the latest Mobilink Jazz advertisements & more so because I am a user. One of them can be viewed here. It’s not that the fun part of such ads is not appreciated but these latest additions are not even remotely funny. The only message they get across is that hey we can attack back too by making fun of the competition, the fact that it is of cheap material is another story.





 

Monday, August 9, 2010

Acting on Instincts




Every specie stands for their own kind except for the Homo-sapiens if we see the trend. We have mastered the opposite art; to hurt our own kind in the deadliest of the manner.

Youtube link of the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HJTG6RRN4E

Sunday, August 8, 2010

New breed of Beggars


Yesterday I went through the Mall area & it was a sight. I wish I could get the sort of pictures I wanted but unfortunately that did not happen. As they say a picture is better than a thousand words. However, I’ll try to create a picture with the help of words.

The recruitment process of the Taliban is now common knowledge; they feed on the vacuum that is created by the government’s lack of presence. By providing the basic essentials to the desperate people they have been able to root their ground. One of the quite repeated stories which revolved around the ever famous Osama-bin-Laden was that his picture was a constant sight in the camps which were providing food & other goods to the people of Afghanistan.

A similar sight was in view but in reversed order as far as the purpose is concerned. We get to see the dog fight on our televisions among all these champions of democracy however their camps were all set up in a line with no space in-between. Each camp including PPPP, PML-N were over-flowing with their respective flags, you even had multiple Tahir-ul-Qadris staring at you & one of these camps had arranged a sound system & one of their members was making the most useless statements to attract people to donate.

My Problem?

Why are THEY collecting from the common man.

The other day on Duniya channel a representative of the government was complaining that the out-pouring of the people is peanuts as compared to what was witnessed during the October 2005’s earthquake in the northern areas of Pakistan. Do they even have the right to make this complain? 

  • A)    People learned their lesson as donating via the government bodies is never used for the intended purposes. Reason that now even banks call their customers before the Zakat collection is due asking them to draw their money. During the earthquake had the then government only coordinated the funds of the people with honesty that would have been enough as people working in those areas said “logon ko log paal gaye hain”. And here only the faces change not the system or ideas.
  • B)    They lied about each & everything. To cover up their failures they kept the slogan of “All is well & under control” when the reality was the complete opposite as they were never bothered to listen to the concerned people who were predicting this all the time. They are incapable of handling a situation had it been of a lesser scale even if they are born twice.
The level of frustration can be judged by yesterday’s event. In any normal (though now lines between normal & abnormal are blurring quite rapidly) circumstances it would have been embarrassing that in a foreign land the head of the state was thrown a shoe at even if the person who did is was a desi. However, this was not the case we were overjoyed & if this didn’t relayed the message to the people claiming that we have the full support of the people lets not accept that they have any plans to get over their slumber.


Here is the link (http://decentsms.com/zardari.html) of the game that was up in such a short time. My personal favorite is the level 3 & you get to play all the three levels no matter what score you have at the previous level; sounds familiar huh? Whoever designed it, did put in some solid thinking.

Coming back to the issue of the collecting spots & my problem with them. Yesterday the amount that Zardari announced to contribute to the Prime Minister’s fund & the funds that two of his children have opened is peanuts as compared to what his financial status is & same goes for the Nawaz  Shariff. As mentioned earlier we know where this one is going. People who are genuinely working for the victims did not put up collection camps with their banners & pictures putting up a show of civilized beggary, whose main purpose is to get as much media coverage as possible. They contacted people they knew & the amount & things they were able to collect was amazing, showing just the only string of hope we are left with; the people always rise up & unite at the hour of the need no matter where they are living over the globe. The government has not been able to provide the required security to such bodies whose people have left their jobs & business to a halt & do what the tax-payer’s money pay the people they have sent to the offices for; so now they have to take along a couple of people who act as the security personal.

So while our democratic parties did find the recruiting system of the extremist copy worthy they missed the essential part; the reason of success behind the camps of the extremist is that they give to the people not the vice versa.



Sunday, August 1, 2010

Mother Nature's multi-pronged assault

Floods, land sliding & Islamabad plane crash; It’s like Mother Nature decided to wage a multi-pronged assault on us. I guess you can’t blame it after all we haven’t been acting in the best of manners either. However, the point under discussion is not to decide whether all this is a punishment or not but how we acted & reacted.

Yet again it has been proven that we are not either equipped or trained to handle a disaster situation, be it natural or man-made. The thing that is bothering me the most is how much time it will take us to actually understand our situation & construct our institutions accordingly. For one monsoons are no surprises, they come every season so why were we not prepared? Then didn’t earthquake of 2005 teach us anything? And what about the more than 90 thousand IDPs situation we faced & still are facing thank to the continuous drone attacks. Not to forget the fact that we have passed the limit where a suicide attack get’s a title for remembrance like 9/11, 7/7 & 26/11 etcetera because for us it has become a regular feast & if we marking these dates our calendars will be overflowing.

Coming back to our recent troubles.

While watching the coverage of all that is going on & as usual when the statement was announced that the army has been called in to manage the situation, one of the voices in the room announced that it seems we recruit supermen in our army. A senior voice replied that there was a time we were trying to train everyone to be a superman. When explanation was demanded the discussion was dragged to the good old days before Zia-ul-Haq decided to ruin the basic fabric of this nation & turn it into something that resembles a herd.  So as always the details started off by a solemn ceremony praying that he burns in hell for eternity.

Then the explanation drifted to the system of civil defense which now only exists in name like most of other departments. There was a time when civilians were part of such groups which enabled them to fully equipped to handle such calamities which we are currently facing & no one seems to find an effective solution as there is no organized platform which can supervise the relief efforts. There is no doubt that individual efforts are always prompt & filled with complete sincerity in our country, unfortunately until & unless they are canalized.
Students from high schools, colleges & universities were part of different organizations like girls guide; boys scout which were active participants in the relief activities during the floods in East-Pakistan which is now Bangladesh & elsewhere.

Some serious though should be given to the revival of such organizations, as they are the need of the hour. Till this point the official figures of the people who have lost their lives in these floods is 800, & we  know that the real figures are definitely high & by the time this will end there will be a lot of people about whom we won’t even know what happened to them. Local people are managing the relief work on their own as we can see that there is no sign of the presence of the government. Something that is not new, whenever the country has faced some kind of catastrophe the government runs away from any practical work, all they do is get their photo sessions & release statements. In the present moment both the so called biggest political parties have grabbed it as an opportunity for point scoring, without realizing that nobody cares a flying rats ass at the moment when all that people can see is misery of their fellow countrymen.

To those who think that as far as this problem is not their personal one, they can relax they too better wake up. They might be sitting safely in their homes but that does not by any way is a grantee that they will not be affected. The areas that have been heavily affected will result in the sky rocketed prices of food items. Our memories are too short, that’s why we have forgotten that when we bombarded our northern areas we suffered the shortage of meat products because those areas are out supply lines for them. Same will happen for other food items now.

Everything is connected now so we should get rid of the theory that as far a situation that does not effects us directly, we need to stay out of it as now each & everything effects everyone.