Wednesday, June 11, 2008

A Requiem for Dictatorship

The lawyers have hit the road yet again. With the hope that this would be a decisive battle for the independence of judiciary the multitude makes headway, growing bigger every day, to hit the last nail in the coffin as the politicians also flex up their muscles for the impeachment of godfather of the miseries that befell this nation.
As the vanguards march toward the twin cities, the roads around the parliament have already been blocked and then reopened. I do not want to indulge in idle ripping open of the graves but this blocking of the roads tended to break the half stitched wound of May 12 mayhem, a dark day in the history of this nation when some ‘unknown’ carried out bloodbath in the streets of Karachi as the harvesters of the human heads celebrated a show of power in Islamabad.
Someone should learn from history. Once a poor was advised to eat cake if he didn’t find any bread, to which the reply was the French Revolution. A similar advice has recently been forwarded by the Saviour of the Nation who has suggested that people should eat chicken if ‘daal’ is costly. Just when he is trying to show his confidence despite the grave situation he is in, it reminds me of an old story of a confident captain of a ship who said that he could sail the ship in the storm with his eyes closed. The crew threw him into the sea to see if he was brave enough to swim in storm with others if the ship wrecked.
The Long March can be seen as a prologue to a new era of the untiring efforts of lawyers as their struggle enters the second year since deposition of the Chief Justice. Never has a movement achieved its goals formulated on white paper and discussed by word of mouth unless translated into action. Constant dripping wears away the stone, the vanguards have called it a day for the independence of judiciary, reinstating of judges and bringing an end to dictatorship no matter how long it should take to achieve the goals. Unless some ‘unknown’ should try to create a melodramatic turn I see a happy ending to this story.

2 comments:

Chutzpah said...

It is 'penguine revolution' as the foreign media puts it. see a penguine's black feathers like your coats and white chest like your shirt and,most importantly, the peaceful demonstration unlike Pakistani tradition of launching protests. Hats off to the lawyers' movement!!!

Anonymous said...

It should be decisive battle not because that Lawyers are out for some holy cause but because this move has created a lot of distress and uncertainity. Both public and middle class lawyers they are suffering a lot. I am surprise to see the lawyers following Justice Iftikhat Muhammad Chaudhary and Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif. First is the one who himself is the product of PCO and now he says that he does not accept these PCO Judges and the second is the one in which tenure Supreme Court was attacked by his workers and leaders and Chief Justice was slapped. Even the Chief Justice of that time was sent home during his tenure and now he is raising the slogan of independent judiciary. The beauty of Pakistani Nation is that that they forget.

I am extremely in favour of Independent Judiciary but it does not mean the restoration of Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhary. No dount that long march was a good move but it went useless. It seems to be and it should be the end of democracy from the country which will be a blessing for the nation. But as I early said that we forget.

Lets see and hope for the happy end of the story.

Tahir Raza.