THIS is in response to the two letters, both published in your issue of Aug 26. August.

The last line of the first, “Our Justice System,” by Kunwar Idris, one of the finest civil servants Pakistan has had and a gentleman personified, dampened much of my fragile hope that Pakistan can change for the better.

It bears repetition: “I withdrew my petition, carrying an impression that where an adverse public reaction was expected even the highest court of the land baulked.”

In one fell swoop for power and Arab pelf, ZAB disenfranchised and disinherited a whole segment of our population. That set the tone for what we today face: mayhem and tacitly approved extermination of those whose turbans, payjamas and beards do not conform to the dictated norm. And all in the name of the one God!

That the Attorney General, Defender of the Laws of the Land did not have the time, or more likely gumption, to vociferously defend the constitution he has pledged allegiance to shrieks volume about our moral fibre. That, in 23 attritional hearings the “highest court of the land,” also remained unable to do the same and throw the petitioner out sends a clear message of which way the whirlwind blows!

And then, “Politically exposed,” by Shahla Moin confirmed the direction Pakistan is going and the increasingly limited options open to those who want to survive.

At Rs 106 plus: $1 if you can get it the reference to the SBP Deputy Governor having “difficulty in transferring $10,000 from one…”probably perfectly legal currency from one local bank to another spells out the faith even our “custodians of the Pakistani rupee” have in the nation’s future.

It does not bode a nation well when its lawmakers are falling like ninepins as lawbreakers. When the custodians of our state are unable to uphold the basic tenets of the state or lack faith in that state what is to be the fate of the common man?

As we look, yet again, to our military-- that brought us here-- to cure of us of our ills perhaps the Supreme Court and the military high command will take some time off to do some introspection about where we are and where we really want to be?

Dr Mervyn Hosein

Karachi

Published in Dawn, August 31st, 2015

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