Amer Zafar Durrani |
Friends, foes, and people! Welcoming 2019 and leaving 2018 behind, I cannot think of a single event that mattered more than Imran coming into power as our Chief Executive! Pakistan Zindabad! Elected or selected is not the debate. The debate should be what can we do with our first unshackled CEO. Do we let him fail and fall? Or, do we help him build our new future?
That, a mixture of chaos and happiness has reigned in the first few months following his elation and election, is a fact! Chaos defined by the 20th century fiscal and trade deficits. The falling rupee and the falling stock exchange. The bumbling subsidy seeking industrialists crying hoarse. IMF biting at the heels of public sector expenditure. The begging and seeking prime minister “looking for love in all the wrong places.”
It is found in the creased and wise smiles of our elders who remember why they sacrificed near and far for Pakistan. Happiness index of Pakistan, my friends, is at an all-time high.
A nation of traders running amok as its routine of real-estate, cotton, hawala and corruption, is challenged. It stands confronted by an equally bumbling judicial activism lead by a chief justice who thinks he is Damocles as he extols praises of justice! A justice which is not to be found in the land of the pure and plenty. Happiness, nevertheless, prevails.
One wonders, how. It is found in the overt expressions of the youth who like our CEO. It is found in the nooks and crannies of long subverted desires for a better Pakistan! It is openly extolled by drag bass junkies on Babusar top who blast “rok sako tau rok lo, tabdeli aayee ray” through their gazillion watts sound systems.
Read more: The promise of #NayaPakistan
It is found in the creased and wise smiles of our elders who remember why they sacrificed near and far for Pakistan. Happiness index of Pakistan, my friends, is at an all-time high. Let not the rating lapping, mindless, and oft simpleton media tell you otherwise. We, as a nation, are happy that Imran is here.
Bhuttos and Sharifs and their cronies need to know that their era of happiness is nearly over. Happy we are, but sad we are; why pick the house of Saud as an ally? We know the traditional compulsions, but they are the worst bed fellow barring Faisal, since Sykes and Picot. Let them fall and burn, for the Haram and Madina is for all Muslims, not Sauds. While Trump may not ditch them, the xenophobia that he brings to US of A is a reminiscence of the McCarthy era.
The forces maybe decadent but the civilian elites fed on subsidies, zero agriculture taxes, and corruption are at the core of this. We need to tax right, in the year of the pig.
The world is no longer “flat,” and may he succeed. As the US of A either impeaches him or symbolically withdraws from its multiple global battlefields, it is apparent that they never had the guile or the reason underpinning their false altruistic egos. The world needs to reform and Naya Pakistan will beat them to it. No harm in optimism. We will beat them as we are richer than them all. I just got back from the streets and let me tell you the display of wealth and the consumerism is mind-boggling.
Why are we short of revenue? Are we not looking in the right places for fear of being tipped over? PTI the question is to you, I guess, us. Are the so-called armed forces at the core of this. Maybe not. The forces maybe decadent but the civilian elites fed on subsidies, zero agriculture taxes, and corruption are at the core of this. We need to tax right, in the year of the pig.
Read more: Pakistanis wake up in Naya Pakistan
What with our best friends, Chinese, as our saviors in the coming year of the Pig? There is no dearth of money in Pakistan if we keep it here and let the entrepreneurs and the old wrinkled souls, the harbingers of Imran, invest it in learning, technology, and innovation. I have been rather sober in my soliloquy, so let me “wet my whistle” and welcome 2019. I leave you to ponder on riches, taxes, and pigs—. Blessings for 2019.
Amer Zafar Durrani is an acknowledged development expert who is presently involved in renewable energy and community-driven development; transport and logistics, trade facilitation, and connectivity. His experience spans over 33 years in 24 countries, of which 17 years were spent with the World Bank Group. Supported by Enclude, he is working on developing the Village Growth Accelerator Program (VGAP) which looks as accelerating villages’ clusters into conurbations- 100 cities of 100,000 by 2050. For enabling this he has launched IdeaGist Pakistan- bringing the world’s largest virtual incubator to Pakistan’s growing incubation and innovation entrepreneurial eco-system. The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Global Village Space.