Why people say ‘quit politics’

Is it true politics has been used so willfully over the years that it has lost its significance for the common man? Schoolchildren put many questions to parents: “what’s this ‘siasat’ (politics); if it doesn’t benefit us and our motherland, why should this kind of activity not be banned, and we all unite to work and use our time and energy for the integrity and survival and strength and prosperity of our homeland?”
College boys and girls experiencing socio-economic miseries with iron determination to fight poverty and terrorism, seem more conscious than leaders as regards internal and external challenges.
Economically hard-pressed teachers moved by the spirit of patriotism tell their students in an easy to understand way that man is a social animal, no man is self-sufficient, his needs are many as are purposes, but the basic needs include ‘roti’, clothing and shelter. For the satisfaction of his requirements to survive he has to associate with his fellows and seek their co-operation. But the life of living together and co-operating with one another requires adjustment of behaviour according to rules.
It implies that if I wish to grow and prosper, I owe to others that they too should have the same conditions of life as I wish for myself. Realization of this fact is a way of regulating human conduct, and all conduct in the society of humans occupying a definite territory must conform to certain uniform rules of behaviour. An organized society then requires the presence of some individuals who make and enforce rules. The society so organized is called the state, as Pakistan was yesterday and is today.
The rules which determine social behaviour are the laws of the state, which have to be enforced by the government and honoured by all. The common people and the architect of Pakistan had wanted it to be a welfare state. Has it ever been so?
The word politics is commonly used to mean current political problems that a country and its government face, but the term nowadays refers to problems which, as often as not, are more economic and social in character than political in the scientific sense.
Politician in the present scenario is a person who is good at using different situations to try to get power or advantage for his/her own self, pretending to promote the poor man’s man. But the fact seems otherwise; that’s why suffering people say: “Quit politics.”
What heartens the depressed is the youth’s awakening to the real cause of socio-economic disaster of their motherland. To them a skilled worker or leader is the one who has enough ability, experience and knowledge to do something well for others.
zasarwar@hotmail.com