Pakistan Independence Day: what is there to celebrate?
August 15, 2009
Pakistan Independence Day: what is there to celebrate?
by Waseem Shehzad
(Thursday, August 13, 2009)
http://world.mediamonitors.net/Headline ... -celebrate"The country is submerged in a mountain of debt but the rulers live a lifestyle that would be the envy of most rich people even in the West. Is there anything to celebrate on Pakistan's Independence Day this year?"
Each year August 14 is celebrated as Pakistan's Independence Day. Flag-hoisting ceremonies are held in most major cities. Whether such ceremonies will be held this year as well given the turmoil gripping the country and the military engaged in fighting its own people is an open question. Even the wreath-laying ceremony at the mausoleum of the person who led the movement for the creation of Pakistan — Muhammad Ali Jinnah, popularly called Quaid-e Azam (the great leader) — in Karachi may be in doubt. If it happens, it is likely to be amid tight security for fear of a terrorist attack.
Such is the tragedy of Pakistan that most people including the president, Asif Ali Zardari, do not care even for the state's founding father. He has removed Jinnah's portrait from the presidential palace in Islamabad and replaced it with son, Bilawal Zardari's, a student at Oxford. There is speculation that once Bilawal graduates, Zardari may appoint him prime minister. This is not mere conjecture; in 1996, Nusrat Bhutto, the family matriarch had said that if Benazir (her daughter) could be prime minister, why her son, Murtaza Bhutto could not occupy the post of chief minister of Sindh. For the Bhuttos, and now for the Zardaris, Pakistan is a family fiefdom...
