Call to rid country of colonial system

LAHORE:Intellectuals and opinion leaders at a book launching ceremony stressed the need to revamp the basic colonial, capitalist system on which the country has been run over the last seven decades despite achieving independence in 1947, suffering from a sharp decline in moral, social and political values prevailing in the society.

They warned that the dearth of sincere leadership was a direct result of decadent moral and social values of Pakistani society which cannot be changed unless Islamic system based on Quran and Sunnah is enforced in place of the capitalist system, the legacy of British colonizers.

They were speaking at the launching of book “Ham Abhi Manzil Sey Buhat Door Hein” by Masroor Akhtar Qureshi, a mechanical engineer. This book was the seventh book in a series he has penned during the last few years highlighting the social and moral evils in the society and ways and means to change them. He has also written nearly 25 books highlighting the problems in various departments of Railways and how to resolve them.

Former federal minister, researcher, author of several books and chairman Pakistan Jago Tehrik, Qayyum Nizami was the chief guest while other speakers included poet and author Nazir Qaiser, principal of Jamia Naeemia Allama Raghib Naeemi, senior journalists Nasir Sherazi and Anees Ahmad, social worker Abida Qaiser and others. G A Sabri, president of Tehzibul Akhlaq Trust, running several free educational vocational training institutions was also present. Qayyum Nizami lamented that country was still running under the colonialists system designed for slaves, which is the reason the nation is performing as mental slaves. He cited the vision of founding fathers of Pakistan, including Allama Iqbal, Quaid Azam etc. and said the roots of all crises are in the centuries old judicial, bureaucratic and ruling system of the British colonists.

Masroor Akhtar Qureshi also introduced his two recently launched books titled “A Nation’s Character Building” and “Global and Pakistan’s Poverty Alleviation Program”, saying the former focuses the character building of the nation especially the youth. It comprises of 54 Quranic verses and their translations giving basic principles of a sound character. He cited father of country’s nuclear programme Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan who had praised one of his earlier book “Akhlaqi Aqdar and Tameer-e-Shakhsiyat” and wrote a newspaper column on its contents, terming it should be essential part of schools/college syllabi.

MA Qureshi stated that the second part of the book (Ham Abhi Manzil Sey Buhat Door Hein) consists of the reasons of destruction of Pakistan Railways, once a gold mine for the country but some bureaucrats of DMG group brought it to huge losses. Anees Ahmad also lamented that DMG group officers caused the profit earning Railways to suffer from huge losses. Nasir Sherazi warned that if privatization of profit earning institutions was continued on IMF dictates than the country would become poorer. Raghib Naeemi said nation’s character building depends on mind building of the youth which is endangered since our education system is being run on western values.