Can We Follow The Precedence of Comparatively A Smaller Nation?
The new Palestinian cabinet has 24 ministers. The people of Pakistan, world’s second largest Muslim country with over 150 million population would excitingly pleased to learn that half of the new Palestinian ministers hold PhDs from the United States, Europe and Moscow in popular disciplines like Nuclear Physics, Mathematics, Political science and Economics; this includes the President Mr. Mahmoud Abbas and the Foreign Minister Mr. Nasser Al-Kidwa. The Prime Minister Mr. Ahmed Qureia (Abu Alaa) is known as the specialist of finance. The remaining members of the cabinet are Law Graduates, hold Masters and are university Graduates in various fields of humanities group.
The new cabinet has 17 newcomers - with virtually all of the new ministers being experts in the field they are to oversee. They are being described as technocrats, or a practical. Upon a question, the president Mr. Abbas said, “we had 100 individuals in the line up of the same caliber but we had to select 24”. Besides being highly educated, most of them have held multiple offices during their career in the IMF, various agencies of the United Nations and other international organizations and have life long affiliation with the Palestine Liberation Movement. The new lineup of doctors, lawyers and economists embrace reform in contrast to the outgoing Arafat cronies.
Just for a comparison and my information, I tried to find the education and profiles of Pakistan’s 33-member Federal cabinet on the Pakistan’s official Website but could only find their names and portfolios with their color photographs as you usually see on a cheap commercial or MATCH sites on the Internet. But I didn’t have to bother myself in exertion as I know for sure that our criteria of choosing the cabinet ministers is totally different what we are talking here about Palestinian cabinet:
What community of Mir, Pir, Malik, Chaoudhry, Sardar or Syed does he belongs.
How much he could contribute towards the fulfilling of government agendas and objectives for consolidating President or the Prime Ministers power.
How many supporters or Lotas he could accompany with him in the hour of crises for the President or the Prime Minister.
Whose son, chacha, mama or brother is the incomer.
How wealthy or stupid is he and could be benefited for the party in the time of need.
We must also not forget that Pakistan has been an independent country on the face of the earth for almost 58 years now. While as Palestinians are still fighting for the same independence for last 58 years!
Histories are written to learn a lesson for the people of a nation. While as we believe, “history is just a subject to pass an exam and keep it sitting in the shelf for decoration”.
Shafiq Khan
Canada