PROTESTING NATIONS
THE SENSELESS DISREGARD OF EVERY COMMON SENSE

The story of Pakistan is in a strange gear. A gear which shifts upward and backward all the time. Our attempts to move forward bring us to back to square one. Obviously the federal government as well as the provincial governments are harassing the public. So does people of influence. Feudal lords and imbecile urban businessmen. More and more harassment comes in form of spiral of prices in every field. What to do?
The favorite recipe of the opposition is to take our processions ending up in FURTHER HARASSMENT OF THE PUBLIC. Does taking out processions does any good to anybody? The traffic hurdles stop people from doing their even day to day chores. That for peaceful things. What about violent processions? When public and private property is destroyed. Who benefits? No one really. And hardly any change ever comes! And if things turn really violent (rarely in Pakistan), then people do die. In Egypt so many deaths brought no results. In Burma Muslims seek recluse and none is forthcoming to them. In India thousands of people can be massacred and the killers become political heroes.

I think it is time that serious minds think of ways of PROTESTING WITH THIS IN MIND THAT IT SHOULD BRING RESULTS. Even the controversial Tahir-ul Qadri did not know what to do when he reached the climax of his long march.
Ideas can do so much. Their role in social change is a long process. Natural happenings do a little so much no more.
A wise man of ancient Rome once said ‘Unless you stop the men in power from doing their things, you cannot be effective in any way’.
Do not destroy the peace of the public by taking out useless processions. If you want to be effective, stop the government in its stride. Not by violent protests, or hijacking traffic, but to quote here Mahatma Gandhi himself, by activating ‘passive restraint’. Stop the government in its stride not the public.