Survival depends upon unity

People, in the wake of internal and external challenges, have come to realise the old wise saying that “united we stand, divided we fall.”

Many ask one another: “Where do we stand in the present socio-economic and political scenario when apparently there’s no guidance, no direction, and how should we deal with such a situation?

Answer to such questions, senior citizens say, is nothing but national unity that’s the need of the hour today. “Who will deny there’s an outside attempt to destabilise the country economically?”

Citizens ask why our leaders did not ever realise the urgency of unity. The gulf between what they say and do has caused us colossal loss of time and energy.

“We feel driven to socio-economic and political anarchy, financial indiscipline and religious disharmony.”

Suffering people say soul-searching, self-analysis and criticism will not do any harm to our democracy. That will rather ensure people’s dignified survival and their march as independent and sovereign nation towards peace, progress and prosperity.

Let’s not be shy of confessing that we ourselves and our leaders are responsible for being disunited, feud, hatred and, more often than not, slavery to foreign powers. Selfish motives of most of our leaders, rivalries, acts of corruption, greed for money and lust for power have resulted in multiple miseries, such as unemployment, poverty, insecurity and uncertainty.

Needless to say that most of time hypocrisy, sidelining the Islamic teachings and morale of the life-long struggle of Mohammad Ali Jinnah, have been the hallmark of our politics.

The man -- who earned the ‘father of the nation’ title for his uncompromising commitment to the cause of the enslaved and exploited masses -- told a tribal Jirga at Peshawar that he wanted every Muslim to do his utmost and help him and support him in the creation of complete solidarity among the people, because “we believe in one God, one Book and one Prophet; so we must stand united as one nation.” But the tragedy is that we have remained virtually disunited bathing in the dirty pool of politics decorated with slogans of sorts, feeding the masses on false promises.

Old citizens say most of our leaders, shorn of foresightedness and wisdom, adopted unending ways of servitude to foreign loan-giving agencies, which brought the country on the verge of disaster.

There is no denying the fact that people facing high cost of living, drinking water shortage, and outages etc. are split into groups and sub-groups of numerous parties clamouring for access to power.

They have been divided into four classes: the upper, the middle, the lower middle, and the poor besides the ones below the poverty line. God save us.

City olds say the homeland is blessed with enormous potentialities -- all the wealth of the nature -- and it lies with us to make the best of it.

Only one thing can save the country and energise people to regain the lost ground. And that is unity.  

zasarwar@hotmail.com