بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
Pakistan Headlines 26/03/2016
Headlines:
- Musharraf's Get Out of Jail Free is Gift of Democracy
- Circular Debt is Consequence of Privatizing Public Property
- Heavy Industry is Neglected Again Because of Colonialism
- Pakistan Day is a Reminder of the Need for the Liberation of Kashmir
Details:
Musharraf's Get Out of Jail Free is Gift of Democracy
Former military ruler retired General Pervez Musharraf left the country last week for treatment following a Supreme Court order. But his departure became the sticking point that turned 21 March’s joint sitting of parliament into a political slugfest between the government and the opposition. Buoyed by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s presence in the house, parliamentary leaders of the opposition PTI and PPP used the opportunity to remind the PM how he had let the former president and his arch-nemesis off the hook without taking parliament into confidence. Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly Syed Khurhseed Shah, and PTI parliamentary leader Shah Mehmood Qureshi, one after the other, recalled how the PM — soon after taking office on June 24, 2013 — had declared in the lower house that his government would try Gen Musharraf under Article 6. Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan responded in kind, taking the opposition to task for what he termed their “criminal negligence of not taking the general to court”.
The mudslinging between the opposition and the ruling over the exit of the criminal Musharraf distracts from the fact that Democracy itself is by design made to protect the interests of the ruling elite. Wherever democracy exists, exploitation and corruption by the few elite will always occur. It is a world wide phenomenon that the richest people are those with access to political power in democracy, either directly or through sponsorship of politicians. Democracy was always a tool for the ruling elite and was conceived to concentrate power and subsequently wealth into the hands of a few. This is made clear in the following statement by Madison, the Founder of the American Constitution stated, “landholders ought to have a share in the government, to support these invaluable interests, and to balance and check the other. They ought to be so constituted as to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority.” And Democrat Robert C Byrd lamented of his democratic country as “an administration of the wealthy, by the wealthy, for the wealthy…Today I weep for my country”. In modern democracies, land owners have been replaced by the corporate businessmen, industrialists, property owners and families already in politics predominate. So its no surprise that the same Democracy that secured National Reconciliation Ordinance to give a blank cheque to hundreds of corrupt politicians, gave a get-out-of-jail-free card to Musharraf.
Only once democracy is abolished, will checks and balances will have value. Otherwise these checks and balances are only for securing the rights of the elite to oppress the people more and more. As for checks and balances in the Khilafah "Caliphate", they all ensure that Sovereignty is for Allah (swt) alone. Islam puts the essential duty of accountability on the Ummah; the Ummah is the first and last check to protect the Islamic State. The Ummah supports the Khalifah, but if he strays from Islam the Ummah should account him, and if he openly abandons Islam he should be confronted and removed.
Circular Debt is Consequence of Privatizing Public Property
The circular debt of the power sector is continuing to rise despite a series of surcharges imposed on consumers and other measures taken to contain it under a three-year plan. An official of the water and power ministry told Dawn in a statement published on 21 March that “under-budgeting of power sector subsidy by the finance ministry is emerging as a major stumbling block along with other structural rigidities in the system in controlling the circular debt”. He said the government had allocated a subsidy of Rs98 billion in the 2015-16 budget compared to Rs221bn in 2014-15 “to artificially lower budget deficit at the cost of power sector’s financial stability”. This has been brought to the notice of the prime minister and the finance minister, he added.
The World Bank has closely overseen rises in electricity charges, which surged between 2000 & 2004 and continue to rise such that people are paying as much for electricity in the winter as they used to in the peak of summer before massive privatization took hold. So, whilst private owners amass huge wealth by owning electricity resources, the rest of society is stricken by increasingly un-affordable energy prices. In addition, regarding the electricity shortages, the government itself fell into debt to these private interests to the order of billions of Rupees. Then the private interests reduced production of electricity because they were not paid what they were due and were not able to maintain profits. This “circular debt crisis” is the reason that only 10,000 MW or less electricity is being produced. This is even though the total installed capacity is over 20,000 MW, dropping to 15,000MW at times of low river flow. This is against a demand that varies between 11,500 MW in the cooler months up to 17,500 MW, during the peak of the hot summer. So it is clear twelve to eighteen hours without electricity per day in the summer and six hours in the winter, is the result of not producing at capacity. All this is the result of making electricity a business and not a right for the people.
Islam will end the capitalist economy and establish an Islamic one. As a system Islam ensures the distribution of wealth and one of its mechanisms is the public ownership of electricity resources as well as coal, oil and gas. As such these resources are neither owned by the state nor individuals. Instead, the state administers this resource to ensure that its benefit is used for all the citizens, regardless of race, color, school of thought and religion. The Khilafah "Caliphate" (caliphate) upon the method of the Prophethood will abolish taxes upon power and fuel which have further greatly inflated their prices. It will charge only to cover their production and distribution costs, if needed, and any profit from sales to non-hostile non-Muslim states will be put to use for taking care of the public's needs. Islam's electricity policy will contribute to a massive industrialization of Pakistan, supervised by the Khilafah "Caliphate".
Heavy Industry is Neglected Again Because of Colonialism
An annual export target of $35 billion by 2018 has been set in the medium-term (2015-18) Strategic Trade Policy Framework announced on 22 March. The framework will be implemented with a total funding of Rs18bn in 3 years. Four major targets include: boosting exports, improving competitiveness, transition from factor-driven economy to efficiency-driven and increasing regional trade share. In order to increase the sophistication level of identified sectors - fans, home appliances, rice, cutlery and sports goods - an incentive for technology upgradation will be provided in the shape of investment support of 20 per cent or mark-up support of 50pc up to a maximum of Rs1 million a year per company will be available for import of new plant and machinery. So the vision-less regime has condemned Pakistan to more importing of heavy machinery from abroad to make house hold and sports goods, without establishing its own substantial heavy industry.
Democracy will never allow Pakistan to achieve its potential because it is what implements the Western colonialist policies limiting the transfer of technology. Intent on exploiting the world resources, colonialist powers want to keep Pakistan a state with poor industry, unable to extract its resources by itself, devoid of heavy industry such as engine and jet engine manufacture, dependent on import of even simple agricultural machinery, provider of cheap light industry products for Western markets such as electric fans, surgical equipment, hand craft and sports goods, as well as making Pakistan’s population a huge market for Western products. Widespread unemployment, expensive goods, dependence on the West for weapons technology, brain drain of brilliant sons and daughters to the West are just a few symptoms of this deeply seated colonial program. This colonialist policy is being implemented since the time of East India Company and is implemented today through democracy, which is just a rubber stamp for the colonialist policies of the World Bank and IMF.
Only the Khilafah "Caliphate" will end the neglect of the heavy industry. In its Introduction to the Constitution, Hizb ut Tahrir has adopted Article 74, “Thus it is necessary that the State has factories for producing all types of atomic weapons, rockets, satellites, airplanes, tanks, mortars, naval ships, armored vehicles and all types of heavy and light weapons. It is necessary that the State has factories which produce machines, motors, materials, and electronics, and factories which have a relation with public property and light factories which have relation with the military or war industries.”
Pakistan Day is a Reminder of the Need for the Liberation of Kashmir
Members of the Asiya Andrabi-led Kashmiri group Dukhtaran-i-Millat hoisted Pakistan flags at several places here on Wednesday, when Pakistanis celebrated Pakistan Day. Activists and workers of the group hoisted the flags at several places in the city, including the Civil Lines and Lal Chowk, officials said. Police personnel later removed the flags. Last year she was booked under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act for unfurling a Pakistani flag. Such acts of defiance demonstrate that the desire for Kashmir baneyga Pakistan “Kashmir will be Pakistan” is very much alive in the hearts of the Muslims. However, the current rulers of Pakistan are bent on the division of occupied Kashmir and granting India degrees of autonomy over it, as per the American plan.
Should the Raheel-Nawaz regime succeed in implementing American's plan, the Muslims of Kashmir will be condemned to further and more severe oppression at the hands of India. The American plan is to prevent the unification of Muslim Lands, the very means to gathering and strengthening the Muslims against their enemies. Indeed, how will the Muslims of the tiny, divided Kashmiri states ever know of peace and security, when the Muslims of larger states, Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan, have faced continual mischief, bloodshed and chaos instigated by the Hindu State?
Moreover, there will never be any peace for Kashmir, or the Indian Subcontinent, as long as the Hindus have any degree of authority within it. They are undeserving of what the British granted them of government at partition, or what the America seeks to grant them now of dominance through her Kashmir roadmap. The Hindus are incapable of justice when they have any degree of authority over others, whether Muslim or other oppressed minorities throughout India, such as the Tamil or the Sikh. Their religion is based upon discrimination between the priest class and the untouchable, the Hindu and the non-Hindu. Democracy by its very nature only worsened and brought excess to this tendency, because Democracy always favours the majority over the minority. Under the world's biggest democracy, the Hindu State, the Muslims have suffered most of all the minorities, whether in Assam or Gujarat. As for Occupied Kashmir, tens of thousands of Muslims have been murdered or held in prison without trial, thousands have been raped or tortured, hundreds have been burned alive or disabled and hundreds of mosques and hospitals have been levelled to the ground. There will never be an end to oppression under any rule of kufr, democracy or dictatorship, capitalism or communism. Allah (swt) said,
[وَمَنْ لَمْ يَحْكُمْ بِمَا أَنزَلَ اللَّهُ فَأُوْلَئِكَ هُمْ الظَّالِمُون]
“And those who rule other than what Allah has revealed they are the oppressors.” [Surah Al-Maidah 5:45] And there will never be peace and prosperity whilst the Hindus have a state and authority through which to harm the Muslims.
Allah (swt) says,
[مَا يَوَدُّ الَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا مِنْ أَهْلِ الْكِتَابِ وَلاَ الْمُشْرِكِينَ أَنْ يُنَزَّلَ عَلَيْكُمْ مِنْ خَيْرٍ مِنْ رَبِّكُمْ وَاللَّهُ يَخْتَصُّ بِرَحْمَتِهِ مَنْ يَشَاءُ وَاللَّهُ ذُو الْفَضْلِ الْعَظِيمِ]
“Neither those who followed earlier revelation who deny the truth, nor the Mushrikeen like to see good bestowed upon you from your Sustainer; but Allah bestows grace upon whom He chooses - for Allah is limitless in His great bounty.” [al-Baqarah 2:105]