there is huge differences between indians and pakistanis in thier
attitudetowards democracy.
this article describes the reasons.
We don't have political skills. Period!
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*Originally posted by Zabardast: *
We don't have political skills. Period!
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Nope.
We do have political skills, like destroying country by using foreign media, fooling the nation with same tune of flute and the list goes on and on.
PS: No matter how hard you try, these people keep coming back.
Nuts!
"democratic" govts dont represent the ppls wills when they get into poer, they only worry about their power and financial wellbeing. With no options available or with all options being equally bad ppl get disillusioned and support anyone who says he will amke a change and they rally behind this person to get him/her in power. once in power the person and the regime forgets about the ppl they serve rather wat those pplto serve them. Who would be happy as such?
just putting ppl in office by votes is not democracy. the elected ppl representing their constituents hopes, desires and needs is they key. And that does not happen.
^Must be a very foolish nation, keep going to the ballot and electing them again and again...lol
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*Originally posted by Zabardast: *
^Must be a very foolish nation, keep going to the ballot and electing them again and again...lol
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Well I think that the only thing that is lacking is the spirit of tolerance and patience amongst not only the politicians but also the people of Pakistan, we get fed up after a very short period, and that makes me remember the famous saying of khalil Gibran;
" Pity the nation the welcomes new rulers with trumpets only to discard them with hootings only to welcome someone like them again with trumpets......"
It is said that education is the panacea for our ils, but if we see the ratio of educated politicians that have brought this beautiful country to the brink of disaster, we can only be too happy with the ratio of the other not so lucky, the point I want to make is that although w may educate a person, but can we ever change his bent of mind in the current social structure of Pakistan, I think not...though there may be some exceptions..
And by the way, I was surprised to see that Lt. Gen. (R) Majed malik was not a graduate and so was Gohar Ayub, both Federal Ministers..the latter being our Foreign Minister at a point in time.......Allah have mercy on us.
The region now called Pakistan has a History of military rule, and take over going back centuries, ppl there are used to being told what the "way around here" is.
why it fails you ask? if yoy ask me unfortnately i have say and have always said so that its because people. because there no democrazy without people and no people without democrazy. you want morr proof? just look at history of pakistan! molvis and military people dont let people do anything. look at so called 'aleged' refrandum - fully cheating. and also extremism terrrorists that molvi felows misguide as fidayeen (may be phidayeen, not sure of the spelling o fword). because i dont know - some people say there jealous and green monster make India enemy. other school says there just no good thatsall. whatever reason may be there it is peoples that needed for democrazy - thats why it fails there i think. just my opinion. take it or leave it but sometimes you look at facts and i have to say, may be even rough and bitter tuth ..like some was saying you cannot handle truth them you cannot handle lies. thats why musha, molvi and all extremism must go before pakistan can be coming back and accepting in world comunity as decent country and not terrorism
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*Originally posted by Fraudz: *
"democratic" govts dont represent the ppls wills when they get into poer, they only worry about their power and financial wellbeing. With no options available or with all options being equally bad ppl get disillusioned and support anyone who says he will amke a change and they rally behind this person to get him/her in power. once in power the person and the regime forgets about the ppl they serve rather wat those pplto serve them. Who would be happy as such?
just putting ppl in office by votes is not democracy. the elected ppl representing their constituents hopes, desires and needs is they key. And that does not happen.
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I am not sure what you are trying to convey. Are people of Pakistan inherently incapable of governing themselves? A country of 140 million people cannot generate enough honest leaders?
I think the issue with Pakistan is that democracy is not allowed to take root. It takes time and hard work and cannot be simply installed like software. I think the biggest problem with Pakistan in this reghard is the military establishment. It is the strongest and only disciplined entity in the country and has time and time again sabotaged the roots from estabishling to ensure it's own greatness.
No pain...no Gain!
chaltahai
its not just the problem with military. There is no patience among the people to let a government do what it promised it would do. If there are not immediate and signmificant improvements in every sector , to them teh govt is failing. And they just want to oust the govt.
The regimes one the other hand have a pretty poor record of actually accomplishing much, and soem programs that one regime does start is the killed by the rival party as soon as it comes in power.
The challenge is that even in a democractic govt, there is no real representation of people. With lack of accountability and rampant corruption politicians are interested in their own pockets. Now corrupt politicians are everywhere, but they spend some portion of their time actually doing their job. In Pakistan I think its less than 5% of their efforts for the country and the rest for themselves and their families and businesses.
why you are blaming peoples and patients! it is all fault extremism molvis and too much religion. why pwople fooled by kashmir etc? only bacuse no talents available for goverment and economy - because if expert overment people available they will happyliy run economy market and country and solve poverty. once poverty solve, then religion go away, no molvis etc
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*Originally posted by Ibda: *
why you are blaming peoples and patients! it is all fault extremism molvis and too much religion. why pwople fooled by kashmir etc? only bacuse no talents available for goverment and economy - because if expert overment people available they will happyliy run economy market and country and solve poverty. once poverty solve, then religion go away, no molvis etc
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what aree you trying to say. i cant figure out the point here? if religion cloaked fanatical groups are the concern they have not always existed or had such influence until Zia's time but the record of failed democractic and unrepresentative govts goes way back. Poverty will be solved if there is commitment to it, but nither are the "leaders" committed nor do ppl give govt a chance to evolve and do something.
People want immediate results which is impossible at the magnitude theya re lookign for, years and decades worth of problems dont go away after a govt is in office for 6 months. Opposition parties rather than providing a balance of power in the assemblies, act as detriments and roadblocks to the governing party.
How many times have we noticed party backed violence and crime in teh city to increase pressure against the govt.
We really need a clean slate..100% new faces otherewise the same families keep showing up. some dude, his daughter, his son, his brother, his cousin..
anyone ever built a relationship chart of pakistani politicians. I ams ure if that is done interesting information will come out, as a matter of fact I would challenge ..request the people whoa re knowledgeable on this subject to start building something. To the best of my knowledge it has never been done.
Fraudia: it is wrong to assume that democracy alone can lead to better livelihood for the citizens. India is a perfect example. 44 years of bungled economic policies gave the population freedom to choose their governance but didn't improve their lives economically a whole heck of a lot. But combine democracy with Free market economic policies, and the results are phenomenal. Democratic countries have a greater propensity for coninuous economic improvement than non-democratic ones. After so many failed systems, it is in the interet of the elected and the voters to combine the two strategies.
Chalthai agreed 100%. A democratic govt should make sound economic and social policies to improve the livelihood of their constituents. We dont have a structure in place even when we had 'democratic" regimes and the overall results were zilch.
The point is that even with the brief brushes with the pseudo-democracy that we have had, the regimes have not focused on such issues. If they had and implemented economic reforms maybe things would have started to change.
if you recall I had posed a challenge to the various political party zealots about what was the plan that their parties were proposing, and there was silence after that. sadly thats the case, they have no plan, so how can they do anything..and when it looks like that not only there is no improvement (which would take time) but thatthere is minimal attention to these issues, ppl get riled up, the rival politicians make a whole gameplan from that to get into power and the regime is more worried about staying in power than helping people.
The groups like MQM and later even Nawaz, why did they get such support from ppl. because ppl felt that these groups will make a change since they are not a old player in the system. But instead of playing a part in changing anything they actually became major players i.e. in case of nawaz and niche players in case of altaf to again watch out for their own interests.
Thsi si not to say there are not many sincere ppl around, but the same core group of politicians, and probably even more importantl;y the same core group of bureaucrats that has sat there for decades calls teh shots. There truly is a "ruling class" in pakistan and if you go to places like the Civil Services Training they will openly say that.
Chaltahai and Fraudz, how do you explain places like Singapore, Malaysia, and Saudi Arabia? Economic development has nothing to do with Democracy or vice virsa.
I read somewhere that if you give communism to Scandinavians, they will make that work too. I don’t think that the political system is the key to social and economic prosperity. It can be argued that anarchy is more homologous to economic and social prosperity than a democratic structure. I presented a paper on industrial democracy and market socialism, and my conclusions were that an organization with worker ownership was more productive and democratic than a privately held organization. For any entity to be effective and successful, it needs to combine many elements, and not just run like a chicken without a head after democracy and market economy.
Here’s the humor. How can a capitalistic firm be democratic? Can it not be argued that democracy is a tool by which capitalists assert control? Now I sound like Kahalifa.
This ruling class that you are talking about was/is (to a lesser degree since the 90's) also prevalent in India. Political freedom was easier in India. But it is the economic freedom that people craved aeter the democratic processes were in place. The biggest challenge was to undo the british and Nehru policies of a bloated civil service, gov't control of Industry and abolishing the license Raj which was stifling innovation, entrepreneurship and competition and exacerbating corruption. You are right, it does rquire bold leadership. But it also requires immense crises to make it happen.
It happened in India in 1991 with the currency crises. IMF laid down the terms and India had no choice but to change it's monetary and fiscal policies. Debt rescheduling is always decried by the fundos (I say that after reading multiple HT posts), in INdia the obstacle to change was the civil service, the opposition parties like BJP and the unions. In Pakistan you have the religious parties that have a different, god given if you will, methodology on governance and economics that cannot prevail in the modern world. In seven hours P.V. Rao, Manmohan Singh, Montek Ahluwalia and Chidambram undid what it had taken 250 years to do by the british and the gandhian gov'ts.
The interesting thing is that the change has been slow due to factionalism in democratic India. But some economists argue that selling off PSU's too fast and deregulating certain industries too quickly and implementing convertibility to the Indian Rupee could have made India susceptible to certain slowdowns. i.e. Asian flu etc.
I think Pakistan has a clear choice in front of it. It needs to concentrate on both the economics which will lead to democratization and democracy which will eventually lead to economic boons.
what is the word democracy? it is about people. what about Allah. shouldnt we run by allahs law rather than man made? the problem today in the world is democracy and the disguise of democracy. all i can say is people have forgotten religion and those who talk about religion are called fundementalists, strange etc. they say stop being a mulla etc. well as is says in the quran the kafir will be laughing at you in the world but the believers will be laughing at the kafir on the day of judgement. remember whats after death? if you but knew!!!!!
well a lot of people know but leave it to one side. the best way to progress is with the quran and sunnah. and with allahs help. then you will be victorious and the leaders not like today where we are the dogs and we are barking to the world masters! wake up, the master is Allah and that is the key. we call ourselves muslims but do not really act.
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*Originally posted by talib_khan: *
what is the word democracy? it is about people. what about Allah. shouldnt we run by allahs law rather than man made? the problem today in the world is democracy and the disguise of democracy. all i can say is people have forgotten religion and those who talk about religion are called fundementalists, strange etc. they say stop being a mulla etc. well as is says in the quran the kafir will be laughing at you in the world but the believers will be laughing at the kafir on the day of judgement. remember whats after death? if you but knew!!!!!
well a lot of people know but leave it to one side. the best way to progress is with the quran and sunnah. and with allahs help. then you will be victorious and the leaders not like today where we are the dogs and we are barking to the world masters! wake up, the master is Allah and that is the key. we call ourselves muslims but do not really act.
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talib, okay lets take teh words democracy out and substitute it with "government chosen by people"
Thats the essense of the discussion here. Lets set aside the issue of mad made laws and divine laws because just like you can have a bad prime minister you can have a bad khalifah, history would support that stance.
Additionally even in this Khilafah that you propose, man would have to make laws, yes you can use quran as a guide but it would not have direct answers for limitations on car speeds, or pollution ratings etc. Someone has to decide, and its best if its an agency of a government chosen by the people.
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*Originally posted by Chaltahai: *
It happened in India in 1991 with the currency crises. IMF laid down the terms and India had no choice but to change it's monetary and fiscal policies
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we went through something similar in UK wrt interest rates a few years back. It basically led to the collapse of the Tory government when rate shot to 15% through Govt interference.
Actually X-treme I think what happened in England was the result of increased inflation and the gov't response of raising the short and long term funds rate. In India there was a balance of payment crises. Similar to what Pakistan went through a couple of times in the past decade.