INTELLIGENCE: Death of Idealism-Agha H Amin

Saturday, February 13, 2010

Death of Idealism-Agha H Amin

Death of Idealism

Agha H Amin

When we were young our hopes were high and our imagination knew no bounds.

Lahore was the centre of brilliant liberal free thinkers and Government College,Islamia Collegae and Forman Christian Colleg had some brilliant professors and similarly outstanding students.

Discussion was of international level and the best philosophers in mankinds history were quoted and counter quoted.

There was Pakistan Times that citadel of Intellectual honesty led by the brilliant team of Mian Iftikharuddin and Nawabzada Mazhar Ali Khan.There were indomitable and heavenly poets like Faiz,Jalib and Faraz.

The list is long, Safdar Mir , Burney , Tariq Ali,Idris and many more.

Karachi had impregnable and priceless political activists like Mairaj Mohammad Khan.

Pakistan had students like Tariq Ali who worsted and spiked heavy weight US politicians on the BBC.

The NWFP had its own group of intellectuals mostly in Peshawar ,Charasadda and Kohat and when the Pashtun combines Pashtun individualism with the ideals of French Revolution and Russian revolution he is simply invincible.

Balochistan had indomitable and proce less jewels like Ataullah Mengal,Khair Baksh Marri,Bizenjo , Nawab Akbar Bugti and Gul Khan Naseer.

Sindh had ZAB who was matcless and GM Syed who was factional but nevertheless brilliant.

It was a galaxy of giants.

And then a dark age begain in 1958.With sycophants and darbaris like Qudratullah Shahab and Altaf Gauhar.Takent and individualism was destroyed.The civil servants were stripped of their immunity from arbitrary dismissal by Ayub Khan.Pakistans generals and their darbari civil servants destroyed talent.The process was accelerated in 1977 and refined in 1999 to the highest pitch.

Punjab was the worst hit.Being the major province it became a prime target for intellectual castration,intellectual slavery and economic manipulation.Today it is a sorry example of a paid press , leaders whose only distinction is that they are dirty rich and eat paya and all similar nonsense.Court with the generals and talk about democracy after throwing their workers in blast furnaces.

Balochistan is a war zone and no Baloch worth his salt wants to have anything o do with the thekedars of pakistan sitting in Islamabad and Pindi in civvies and uniform.

Sindh is divided and factionalised with a sharp urban rural divide,multiplying poverty and the danger of Talibanisation.

The NWFO is in shatters with corrupt politicians, with or without beards and moving towards a new geopolitical arrangement.

The Northern Areas are fast moving towards a new geopolitical arrangement and the two choices of being in a Chinese sphere of influence or a US base for a future guerrilla war against China.

Kashmir is condemned to be destroyed either by natural calamities or by a final Indo Pak war.

All roads lead to chaos and doom.

Idealism started dying in 1958 and its death was geared up between 1977 and 1988 and perfected by a cheap social climber in between 1999 and 2008.