Strangely, in such circumstances, an ordinary citizen doesn’t want a false ray of hope from any politician. He looks for kindness, or some good, sincere and trust-worthy advice, by someone for survival with dignity. That’s the problem of hundreds of heads of gentle families one has come across. One gathered elements of wisdom from a discussion among the passengers of economy class of coach number two of non-stop train 107-Up Islamabad Express the other day. The points of debate were: “How to earn a good salary to manage monthly domestic budget, how to tide over financial difficulties honourably, how to learn a good thing, wherefrom and when?”
The hot exchange of arguments cooled as many times as there were crosses of Up and Down trains between Lahore and Rawalpindi-Islamabad. How true it is that there’s hardly any good thing to learn from bad governance! One has to spend a good amount of time and energy, and miss one meal with children daily, except Sunday, to earn a fair livelihood for a family of six members. There are however good chances of hefty monthly income for cronies and lackeys of parties in power.
Time has changed so badly that one has to seek God’s help to find a person about whom one can say he’s a friend in need. Good people, if discovered, can be counted on fingers nowadays. How fortunate are persons who happen to meet good people from different walks of life at gatherings on occasions of celebrations of national days and birth anniversaries of great leaders! Exchange of valuable ideas and experiences and sharing of each other’s joy and sorrow in the aroma of human love and bouquets of flowers mark the significance of such events in the capital.
Luckily, the same evening (April 10), one such opportunity was provided to old and young citizens of Islamabad and Rawalpindi by the Ambassador of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and Mrs Ri Yong Hwan in connection with the 98th birth anniversary of the Korean people’s great leader Kim Il Sung who liberated his people from the clutches of foreign powers of the 20th century and unified them into a revolutionary democratic socialist nation. Eventually, the present DPRK is the outcome of long arduous struggle for establishment of an independent sovereign state with an undefeatable will to make progress in social, economic, agricultural and industrial fields as well as science and technology in an atmosphere of peace and tranquillity.
As a matter of fact, the success of Kim Il Sung and his comrades lay in following the same motto of “unity, faith and discipline” by means of which Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah achieved Pakistan and wanted to develop it into a social welfare state. One can say the cause of both the leaders and the masses behind them was one and the same: peace, progress and prosperity of all the peoples of the world and constant united struggle against unbridled exploitation, capitalism and feudalism. Achievements and people’s friendly ideas of Pakistan and DPRK came under discussions at such a significant gathering of diplomats, intelligentsia, media persons, retired generals, professors and lawyers. Many recalled the meaningful gestures of co-operation between the two countries.
Brief dialogues with people like Senator (r) Ihsanul Haq Piracha, who served the country as federal minister for finance, and Lieutenant General (r) Asad Durrani were pleasant. The former said there was never such a chaos in society as it is today, people are without a sound leadership and there’s no direction. The latter emphasized, “We should forget the past mistakes and look forward, we’re reaping today what we sowed yesterday, anyhow there’s need to work for social revolution at local level, gradually moving up to high level, one shouldn’t waste time and energy in discussing what’s now useless...”
Everybody talked about the price surge and the national unity most needed to meet the internal and external challenges to the countries who want to be independent of any imperialist obstruction in their journey to economic revolution. One noticed at the gathering emergence of like-mindedness in regard to marching together towards the cause of peace and economic progress so necessary for provision of free health-care and education to the poor masses.
Story by: Zafar Alam Sarwar
Published in The News
April, 20 2010
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