SOAP BOX: It is not in our stars but in ourselves, that we are underlings! - Zahid Husain

“It is not in our stars but in ourselves that we are underlings” Julius Ceaser by William Shakespeare. This statement so aply applies to us all today in Pakistan! I recall it from my days in college when we read the book during English Literature class that my Professor Mr. Humayun Tajik taught; In those days he would draw similes' between the then prevailing conditions in Pakistan and the book we were reading in class! And you know something they still prevail, only worse!

The Powerful, Influential, moneyed, landed, Industrialists, Businessmen, Feudals and the Establishment, have in fact grown in their greed for money and power! I am neither a sociologist or a psychologist, but somewhere in our gene pool there is this one that continues to contaminate and multiply throughout the Motherland like a cancerous virus that has now virtually infected all strata of our existence!

Our educational institutions are rotten to the core, from the gatemen to the Principals, they are all busy bending the rules and diluting the discipline of their environments that they hold sway over; it si no wonder that the products of our institutuions are what we encounter in our daily struggles, and this is repeaed year after year without abating so now we have a completely corrupt and morally defunct society. By society I include all levels of the citizenry.

The challenge that we all now face is how to rid ourselves of the cancer and stem the spread, and reverse the rot to improve the morality of our present citizenry, as well as to ensure, that no more generations go this route.

Has anyone any thought or ideas on the subject, because I sure don't!

I say dig him up and clone him!!

THIS IS THE WAY IT SHOULD BE..........

Harry Truman was a different kind of President. He probably made as many, or more important decisions regarding our nation's history as any of the other 42 Presidents preceding him. However, a measure of his greatness may rest on what he did after he left the White House.

The only asset he had when he died was the house he lived in, which was in Independence Missouri. His wife had inherited the house from her mother and father and other than their years in the White House, they lived their entire lives there.

When he retired from office in 1952, his income was a U.S. Army pension reported to have been $13,507.72 a year. Congress, noting that he was paying for his stamps and personally licking them, granted him an 'allowance' and, later, a retroactive pension of $25,000 per year..

After President Eisenhower was inaugurated, Harry and Bess drove home to Missouri by themselves. There was no Secret Service following them.

When offered corporate positions at large salaries, he declined, stating, "You don't want me. You want the office of the President, and that doesn't belong to me. It belongs to the American people and it's not for sale."

Even later, on May 6, 1971, when Congress was preparing to award him the Medal of Honor on his 87th birthday, he refused to accept it, writing, "I don't consider that I have done anything which should be the reason for any award, Congressional or otherwise."

As president he paid for all of his own travel expenses and food.

Modern politicians have found a new level of success in cashing in on the Presidency, resulting in untold wealth. Today, many in Congress also have found a way to become quite wealthy while enjoying the fruits of their offices. Political offices are now for sale. (sic. Illinois )

Good old Harry Truman was correct when he observed, "My choices in life were either to be a piano player in a whore house or a politician. And to tell the truth, there's hardly any difference!
I say dig him up and clone him!!

SoapBox: Corruption the cancer that has wrecked Pakistan - Zahid Husain

Having been away in a foreign land for the better part of 5 weeks, I can only say its really good to be back! Yes indeed there is never any place like home, in this cas The Motherland, may it always be secure and peaceful.

So what have I learnt, while abroad you may well want to know, the thing is there are always 2 sides to everything,; and so it was in USA. I told you about the traditions and the respect for the law, the considerate humane approach, the respect for individual’s rights; the list goes on and on.

Amidst, all this there rises the ugly head of corruption, while I was there I learnt of 9 Mayors of various towns/cities being arrested for their misdeeds, a Senator who had to resign because he was a married man and was having a relationship with another woman, then there is the matter of the doctors who are under investigation for the death of Michael Jackson, because there is evidence that some wrong doing has occurred.

The Law enforcement and the justice systems work hand in hand to address all the ills of their society; that is why they are held in high regard and society responds to the system as it works to protect each individual while ensuring due punishment for wrong doings.

So, back home why are we any different, lets admit it we are ! the sooner we accept it the sooner we can start to bring about the change. You and I are the ones that must assume the responsibility of starting by first as individuals we refuse to be part of the cancer, if you see or hear that an elder is not fair in their dealing then you and I must stop them then move outwards into society, if we set a goal to convert one person at a time and each converted person does the same we will become a formidable force to reckon with! It is the power of one.

You all of the younger generations, must vow right now not to facilitate, be a part of or allow anyone to perpetuate the Cancer of Corruption. This is paramount for our survival, look around you point the finger, blow the whistle, or whatever it takes but stop it!

Dont tell me about the powerful people who are corrupt, they only are because we do not raise an objection, if we did and we demanded that both arms of the system take responsibility, then they will be left with no other choice but to do our bidding!

For you and me to make it work we too must come out of our drawing rooms and classrooms to object.

That is all it takes! believe me!

SoapBox: The 3 P-Bombs of Pakistan - Zahid Husain

In the late 80’s I was attending a seminar being held at the Avari Hotel in Lahore, where a lady from an NGO was talking about the money being spent on our nuclear program, and contrasted it against the 3 bombs we already possessed!

This comment really drew everyone’s attention, and we were all ears to learn about these three mysterious weapons we actually had in our arsenal, and till now, had no inkling of!!! A break for tea was announced, and the room was suddenly abuzz with spontaneous discussion to find out if anyone knew of the 3 bombs the lady was alluding to! We couldn’t get the tea down fast enough for the speaker to resume her talk and relieve us all of our intellectual tension and misery!

Slowly she began to draw our attention to the largest section of our Population, the poor, undernourished, uneducated, unemployed and marginalized folks all over Pakistan; those were the days of an authoritarian ruler who had just religion on his mind, so much so that the impact, even today, we are suffering the effects all over our Motherland, and steadily we continue to multiply!

Thanks to that same bigot who began the journey down the road of religious confusion, we note with horror how we have multiplied our numbers when every resource is stretched to the limit as a result! Family planning was made to take a back seat in an agenda that furthered the cause of his time!

In recent years I was party to a nikah ceremony being held at a mosque in a seminary. The sermon before the ceremony lasted by contrast, for 45 minutes! While the nikah, took 10 minutes! The sermon included the subject of procreation, the message was very loud and clear! Go forth and multiply, we need the numbers if we are to win the global conflict!

In recent years I was party to a nikah ceremony being held at a mosque in a seminary, (I refuse to use the M word because it conjures up all sorts of images! And believe me the attitudes and demeanor displayed there was distasteful). The sermon before the ceremony lasted by contrast, for 45 minutes! While the nikah, took 10 minutes!

The sermon included the subject of procreation, the message was very loud and clear! Go forth and multiply, we need the numbers if we are to win the global conflict! OMG! I thought, we are headed for oblivion! Today you see the effects of such preaching on our streets, under bridges, in kutchi abadis, in rural and urban seminaries, everywhere they can possibly seek respite from all the ills that plague their wretched existences.

Having successfully projected a picture of this segment of society, she then, began telling us of how we all were actually choking the Motherland to death, simply by not having set up an effective way to dispose of our waste and garbage! How we all worked to make sure that our homes were clean and spotless, without casting a thought to what happens when the cleaner walks away with the day’s waste and garbage. How it all ends up at the street corner or is just dumped over the wall, or outside the front door for a phantom collector to clear!
Planned waste management was still in its infancy and the afghan kids had yet to take up this lucrative livelihood, of making money from rummaging thru our waste and garbage.

Till recent years, they never addressed the final fate of the heaps that have now become landfills despite which we continue to suffocate and choke the atmosphere, with the smoke of the heaps of burning garbage, the naalees, the nalluhs and the canals of our Motherland!! Only recently private enterprise has got involved in setting up projects to address the challenge, while making a pretty penny for their pocket, challo, I condone that, as they are beginning to scratch the surface of the pollution challenge. She then drew our attention to the smoke belching out of vehicles on our roads, 20 years down the road; we have yet to resolve this challenge of Pollution!

Look around you, everywhere there are the deprived, lesser people of this Motherland, but we all continue to elect those who continue to loot and plunder, heartlessly, our beloved Motherland, including most of them in today’s Management Team.

Finally the lady drew our attention to the crisis of the economically challenged.
In a previous article I had mentioned the US Aid program that directly converted us into a Nation of beggars! Ever since, we have adopted our nick name of Kashkoleistan! And despite all the money that has found it way into the coffers and pockets of the Motherland there is no change in the living standards of the majority of the population! Look around you, everywhere there are the deprived, lesser people of this Motherland, but we all continue to elect those who continue to loot and plunder, heartlessly, our beloved Motherland, including most of them in today’s Management Team.

The poor are still relegated to their permanent existence without any hope of seeing any ray of hope in their lifetimes! Poverty will reign supreme!

To be fair though, the numerous, genuine institutions and NGOs who are bravely attempting to support and provide for them while provincial and federal governments continue their mere lip service of their good intentions and responsibilities.

There you have them! What you ask? The 3 P-Bombs of Pakistan of course! With lit fuses, slowly burning away until they finally explode!

POPULATION, POLLUTION AND POVERTY!

Soap Box: The Power of One - Zahid Husain

Between 1944 and 1985, so much happened in the Motherland, some of it I was not part of, as I reacted to the dictates of the Government in power in 1972; I was stationed in Karachi, then with a young enthusiastic and politically aware spouse, who supported my view, that as Pakistanis we were NOT going to start speaking Sindhi just because we lived there! By the way we were not alone in this belief, Karachi was in turmoil then and curfew was imposed upon a free spirited citizenry. So we sold our belongings and along with a friend of the same ilk, we set out to face the Big Wide World.

We wandered where we fancied in Europe, taking in the Old World and all it offered and stood for, while taking for granted the spirit with which we were welcomed everywhere, we felt like we were at home, thus drawing out in us the best we had to offer our hosts, as proud PAKISTANIS; seldom did we look over our shoulder and regret our decision.

As I look back now, I recall, that all the while I was growing up in my Motherland, never once was there ever any mention or news of racial, sectarian, religious, caste, rich or poor or social tensions; we all grew up then as fellow Pakistanis, proud to be able to sing our national anthem, to stand when the Flag was displayed in a cinema hall, and to stand in silence with respect while the anthem played!

We were afraid of the policemen, when we rode double-sawari on a bicycle, one would jump off or he would take the air out of the two tires, while we stood sheepishly bye feeling very guilty, for having broken the law; and making sure we had lights on our bikes if we were going to be out in the dark!

In school, we had a class period, when our class teacher Mrs. Jamaluddin taught us moral science and character building! That subject is no more part of any curriculum or syllabus in any school I know of, in Pakistan

My point is that with all that in the background, we never once looked at one another as anyone else, as anything other than as being a Pakistani! We were then moving towards Nationhood, one people, one country, one PAKISTAN.

We had great Bengali friends, throughout school and college; never did we discriminate between each other’s backgrounds or beliefs, there was peace and harmony, till we got US-Aid, that’s when our real troubles started. And when our people started going abroad to work in the Gulf where they were brainwashed and discriminated against by the sharper, shrewder, cliquish Indians and Arabs, thus forcing us to adapt and adopt ways that were till then alien to us.

Over the past 25 years we have transformed in to our present selves, forgetting our oneness true Pakistanis, and descending into the pits of this strife ridden society as all sorts of people first and Pakistanis afterwards! We muster under numerous flags that we believe represent our being and our association and forget what our forefathers’ sacrificed their all so that we could inherit a Motherland called PAKISTAN.

You notice I steer clear of the how’s, who and whys of our situation, because we now need to steer ourselves back into the right frame of mind by discarding all those misguiding ways, beliefs and views of each other drop the provincialism to 2^nd level and bond together as One Nation under One Flag on the 1^st level as PAKISTANIS FIRST AND FOREMOST!

NO other flag counts or matters, they ALL must be shed, and we all MUST only look to the Green & White Crescent & Star as the only path to our salvation as a Nation! This is very simple to achieve, and the quickest way is to start with oneself, I mean YOU, yes! YOU; Believe you are a Pakistani first and ONLY a Pakistani, nothing else matters or counts Forever!

Then make or convince your own family to change their thinking process that they are ONLY Pakistanis. Then move to your inner circle of friends and make them understand that they are Pakistani first and ONLY Pakistani

And so on, if each one of us can do this every day, day after day, 365/12, we will just begin to build ourselves into a NATION as the Quaid e Azam envisioned. Our recognition around the world is that we are PAKISTANI and our salvation on earth, lies in building a strong, united, faithful and disciplined country called PAKISTAN, We will then automatically think first of our country, the MOTHERLAND, also then ask yourself what it is that you can and must do for your Motherland not what can the Motherland do for you!

May the Almighty give us all the strength to give up our old hateful thoughts and ways and accept Pakistaniat.

Have a great Day! Pakistanis, where ever you may be!

Remember “PAKISTAN hum sub ke Char-devaaree hai, is kee hefaazat hum sub key zimadaree hai” PAKISTAN PAINDABAD FOREVER!

Soap Box: Cause & Effect - Zahid Husain

The innocent people of this Motherland, inherited from the will of intentions of Mohammad Ali Jinnah Quaid e Azam, have been both intentionally and carelessly led down the proverbial garden path, by the 2nd and 3rd generations of Baboos who run this Motherland, seriously believing that they have be ordained into the ruling elite, conveniently forgetting who pays their wages and all their benefits , fringe and stolen! They are in fact, in the simplest of terms,

civil servants in the employ of the state, to manage it. Just like the Armed Forces are likewise employed to defend it! No the establishment or the Bureaucracy!

How and why you ask, aghast at such a suggestion! Simply put in one word, EDUCATION.

Having grown up going to a range of schools from some that had class rooms without roofs and doors to 'tatties' (toilets) in Gujranwala (late 1949-51)! to the posh upper class ones like Trinity School, Karachi, run by the great old lady Miss Dickens, (early 1950 s), Saint Josephs Convent (Sister Cecelia), Saint Francis Grammar School, Quetta ( Father Cadeireo, later Cardinal), Saint Marys PAF School, Peshawar (Father Grant) where I got the basic grounding in my EDUCATION and went to College at Edwardes College, Peshawar, (Phil Edmonds, aka Baba) my greatest Teacher and Mentor in EDUCATION and life!

While this was unfolding, I noted how my family ensured that the children of the cook of many years, were also getting an EDUCATION, not just at school but at home with exposure to a better life style!

While this was unfolding, I noted how my family ensured that the children of the cook of many years, were also getting an EDUCATION, not just at school but at home with exposure to a better life style! The result was that they all studied to BA level before one son became an executive in an Insurance firm in the 1960 s, one daughter married a Businessman living in East Pakistan, one daughter joined the Nursing Services in the PAF Medical Corps and married an airforce officer! the youngest was still studying when I lost track of them; the father was a young tea picker in the Kangra Valley who got a job as a masaalchee before I was born. He retired as the Head Chef of the PAF Officers Mess, at Mauripur in the 1970 s!

Now coming back to the realities of today, EDUCATION has failed us or we have failed it, and in turn failed the entire Motherland; have you noticed, how I avoid the use of the word Nation, and choose the word Motherland? reason, we are NOT a Nation yet after 60+ years! sadly.

Upon analysis, I concluded that over the last 60 years, our EDUCATION system has steadily deteriorated, despite everything the money pumped into the sector by entrepreneurs, wishing to make a buck did not provide EDUCATION. How, well for starters we did not research or

develop our syllabus to keep pace with modern times, we did not spread it to the lower levels of the population and if we tried it was too little too late!

More importantly, the delivery system for EDUCATION has been 'nakas' as we say in the vernacular. We have nuclear scientists, aviators, miners, medical men, you name them we have them, and we have Baboos but we do not have top level,high grade teachers! not enough of them at all for 16 million population!

There are not enough Top Quality colleges and Universities for the profession of EDUCATION.
Why? its obvious!!! the wages they get don't draw or attract the finest brains in the land! so there isn't a demand for EDUCATION institutions; and that's where we have failed our Motherland and the hapless EDUCATION fraternity.

We are still continuing to give little priority to EDUCATION in the budget and unless more generous allocation is made we will slide further down the tube to oblivion among the lessor developed states in the world, sad but true!

I returned to the Motherland in the mid 80s and very quickly realised the problem, first I went

around requesting people to make me the minister of EDUCATION, and they laughed when I told them why! then I went around wanting then (Baboos) to make teachers the highest paid cadre in the land, they laughed again!! I ask who's laughing now! not me! I ground my teeth with frustration and my dentist got rich! but still I wasn't able to make the difference.

So, here is, what we all must do, put one child/person through school so they can develop in to contributing members of society, at any level, along side that push for more allocation in Federal and Provincial budgets in EDUCATION and only elect those to the Parliament who have a sworn commitment to further the cause of EDUCATION!

Maybe, one day, someone who is a daily wage laborer will sit down at his home and browse the net and say, Amen!

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About Zahid Husain: Formerly, Head of Business Development with various Multi-National Companies, a senior and experienced, conceptually literate management professional, his career has spanned over 39 years encompassing both executive marketing and head office management roles. A result driven “Serial Start-up Professional”, He has developed, guided and implemented successful strategies for the various Multi-Nationals belonging to both Manufacturing and Services Sectors, in which, he was a highly contributing member of the management team. For the Past 10 years he has managed his own HR Services & Solutions firm.