Of graduates, fake degrees and national pride

Society Pakistan & World Affairs
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Re: Of graduates, fake degrees and national pride

could the mods please keep the MQM/non-MQM backchat out of this thread, it has very little relevance here.

I dont see anything wrong with a kiryana farosh getting into politics. We should infact give respect to merchants and traders and farmers.

What you dont see is that the government restricting elected representatives along educational lines is implicitly state enforced class warfare. While living in NWFP I used to teach students of a government school in the area for their coming matric exam. I am yet to see more eager students at that age, they used to walk/cycle miles to get to that class, and afforded us respect as teachers I have never seen. They had not however had a maths teacher since the eight grade. There was one student in that class of twenty who had the slightest idea what was going on. Guess who that was, the rich kid, who could afford to pay for a private tutor. The rest sat there blankly, barely conversant in urdu/english (another form of class warfare). If you remember the matric curriculum, there was a section on Surds. After teaching for half an hour I came to realise that many students did not even know what a square root meant. It is clear to me that the only person who would've passed the matric exams was the one who's parents could afford tuition. That is no measure of intelligence or capacity to be a local leader.

This is not some rural backwood, I am speaking of a relatively developed small town (thanks to the Tarbela dam and university). It is easy to blame the people or some feudal class for not educating people. We are a poor country, and we will remain a poor country for the foreseeable future. Even if we invest massively in education, what laws like these mean is that you are disenfranchising people based on their social class, even in places where issues like feudalism dont exist (there is relatively little feudalism in NWFP). Disenfranchising the people who most need representation.

If the issue is that these people dont perform, that is because parliament doesnt perform. What issue has this parliament EVER solved? And is that really because of the education of its constituents?

The parliament HAS no power. If and when it does, and when that is percieved to be true, people will elect those who perform for their localities, whether they be educated or not has no relevance.

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Re: Of graduates, fake degrees and national pride

Ravage: It does not matter now as the law is already repealed and for me, Pakistan went a step backward.

Anyhow, I do not know what you think is right or wrong as I know in Pakistan for some it does not matter if a person can do a job as for them what they like is everything. For them, they could support a local mosque imam as judge as well as medical doctor, a teacher who can teach everything from science and maths to administrator of their area. Nevertheless, if a society or a country expect to develop than in this competitive world we need people who can do job properly and not just a face one like.

You are saying that some people do not have opportunity to get education but if they do not have that opportunity than it does not mean they should be made judge or should be allowed to prescribe medicine or do heart surgery and other operations, design bridges and buildings, etc. If they have to do get employed in a job than no one should think what they went through but criteria has to be that they are capable and could do the job properly and effectively. Unfortunately, same is true regarding parliamentarians.

Being parliamentarian does not mean to get to parliament, become drummer with desk as drum, shout and abuse others, get privileges, collect wages, do all sort of corruption to recover their election expenses with 1000 percent profit (more the better), boast a bit in their local areas, get criminals out of prison, and that is it.

Parliamentarian means a person who can think, who can read and understand complicated documents and comment on it, can write and speak such that other can understand, have knowledge of what is happening around the world and try to bring that to the country for the benefit of the people, should be able to discuss required laws in the country and legislate so that country laws do not have ambiguities, should be able to understand economy and talk intelligently (not like Daar and Ahsan who lie all the time and make fool of people regarding economy), should know how to deal with problems country faces and most important is that they should have developed and trained mind that can solve problems most effectively taking regards of geo-political situation and situation around them.

Their idiocy, stupidity, and lack of understanding problems in depth do not only harm them but harm the country and all living in the country. I could not see any way an uneducated person could tackle problems that a country faces, and thus if country is left to uneducated Jahil parliamentarians than they can only take the country down the drain.

The unfortunate result in past when there use to be many uneducated parliamentarians in Pakistan, their only purpose was to do corruption, nepotism, misuse of power, misconduct, abuse innocent people, and nothing. Their main purpose in parliament was to rely on bureaucracy and some educated parliamentarians plus educated others close to them blindly. Result was that even though there were around 300 parliamentarians, only few use to play any role in running the country whereas rest use to be useless parliament-donkeys playing a dormant role most of the time and filling parliament seats so that people in their area may believe that they are represented. Further, they were used as ‘donkeys voters’ for some shrewd and educated in parliament, obviously after paying them some money for their Jahil votes.

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Re: Of graduates, fake degrees and national pride

an extension of your logic Sa1eem is to exclude the parliament to lawyers and judges. After all, who better to debate and understand complicated legal matters than those who do it professionally?

you say this is needed in the developed world, however the developed world has not needed similar laws, NOR have developing countries joining the developed world, such as India.

parliament is supposed to be a representative body by definition. if it is not that for any reason then any specialist purpose it serves is moot.

once again, all those arguing for the graduation degree, you are advocating a system where the people who gave the model governments and practices cited in the objectives resolution, the Prophet and those following him, would be excluded.

it is not your business to dictate what kind of people should represent another area's population. It is their business alone.

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Re: Of graduates, fake degrees and national pride

by the way, for specialist matters, such as trade, health, fiscal issues, legal matters etc, it is standard practice to have committees comprising of elected representatives specialized/knowledgable in that area. you dont need to restrict parliament to traders, doctors, economists and lawyers to do that.

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Re: Of graduates, fake degrees and national pride

I think having a graduate requirement is a topi drama ..

What I really want the Pakistan Election Commission to do is to scrutinize and make public the tax returns of all candidates. I went through the whole Pak election commission website and couldn't find a single candidate's tax returns.

I read in one report that Zardari declared his annual income 13,100 in 1996 .. you can google that and get the links.

Once that is done I want all candidates who are earning more than Rs: 500,000 a month to forgo their salary as an MNA or MPA.

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Re: Of graduates, fake degrees and national pride

EVEN if it is topi drama, I want this. EVEN it is just for show, I want this. I want something there, some requirement. I want to put some hurdle between them and the National assembly. Some obstacle, that they have to overcome, some line they have to cross.

Education is not about what you learn in the school or college. More importantly it teaches you how to learn. I always hear that Bachelor degree like BA, is the easiest thing to get. Why then these politicians make a fuss out of this. Why can't they take a small challange like this.

If its clause was not constitutional, why not make it consititional? To do the right thing, is always hard, why is that?

Whats the big deal, just graduate, you may learn a thing or two, that you might otherwise missout.

Why Imran Khan Will Win Election But Fail To Deliver....
47

Re: Of graduates, fake degrees and national pride

Situation in my city is unique. Actually it has been cut off from the mainstream politics for quarter century now. It has most educated population in the country, people are known for their bright political awareness and has led the country in many political movements. The party these educated people supported was not a bad party, actually it was more of a movement as people thought these educated leadership will be a breath of fresh air in a very dull and dark parlimentarian experience of this country. But as they say power corrupts, this educated leadership soon entered into riots, masacars, forced fund raisings, carlifting, robberies and kidnapping etc. The power it gained in a very short time was not only the phenominal support of the average people of the city but was also due to the influence of local goons which were taken under party's blanket. The rest is the history.

Right now the party has a very little support among the educated class of the city as its badly exposed with repeatative crimes and melodramas of its exiled leader. It has lost every reason that first attracted the educated class. It cried about establishement, military and ethnic profiling of the people it represents. In last 25 years it has done each and every step to fullfill the desires of establishment and military. It is the closest allied of the intelligence agencies and military. A lot of these relations were exposed during the 90s operation, where activists, goons, fidaayeen, jaanisaar etc who were not traced by intelligence for months were killed the next day they came in touch with party leadership abroad via sattelite phone etc. The party leadership got rid of the dons and goons which became too powerful for their own good. It is kind of recycling mechanism in the party. They pick up teenagers from college that like Mafia style culture that offered by this party. It’s a sight to be seen in the city where a teenager of waist 28" who can hardly hold his jeans with belt, weighs 130lb, who can be on ground if a girl slaps him, roaming around in the city in such a fashion as he owns the city. He can do whatever he wants, since as soon as someone interfers, he will anounce that all these bharams are real because he belongs to this party. Now the people will have all the reasons to be afraid of this chiri-maar teeli-pehlwaan. I have seen this politics first hand for a decade and I regret of seeing all this, if I could I would have demolished the whole Mafia empire in a month. Now these same teenagers if not killed in the next recycling phase already, will become legendary ex-student leader of the party with a degree (you know how its earned) and may get elected in provincial assembly and then to national level etc.

When I visitved Pakistan 2 years ago, I again saw dozens of teenagers like above, but no supporters in households. Everyone has curse words for the party and leadership. That’s reality. Educated people can make difference, only if this party allows other parties to operate or emerge in the city. I see a tide for change that is just waiting, once this party's fear is gone from the heart of average citizen, it will be history.