Pakistan’s Receding Green & Crescent
Pakistan’s national flag, the Green and the Crescent, is slowly receding into the background. It is one sign of how the Pakistani identity has been weakened by these failed parties. I call them family-run businesses. When these parties have nothing else to sell to the people, they use ‘language and ethnicity’ and try to divide Pakistanis along language and ethnic lines, create new issues where none exist.
PPPistan or Nawazistan or Altafistan or Pakistan?
Ahmed Quraishi | June 24, 2009
For four days now, the flags of PPP, the ruling party, adorn the highway from the airport to the heart of the capital. No one dares remove them. The occasion for turning the capital of Pakistan into a capital of ‘PPPistan’ is the late party chairman Benazir Bhutto’s birthday. But that was four days ago. The flags are still there.
|
|
Before these PPP flags, on this very same poles a few days ago were the flags of Mr. Nawaz Sharif’s party. The occasion was the 11the anniversary of Pakistan’s nuclear tests that officially turned our country into a declared nuclear power. Even national occasions have now been turned into narrow party occasions. We have few national occasions that bind all Pakistanis and even those are being eroded.
Political differences aside, late Mrs. Bhutto is a former Prime Minister of Pakistan. She has done a lot of good for the nation during her career and deserves full respect.
But this is not about her. This is about the gradual disappearance of everything Pakistani from our sights.
When the PPP came to power, somehow even the portrait of the Founding Father, the Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah, was reduced into a dull, discolored and neglected little frame next to the fresh and newly framed picture of PPP leaders on the walls of the Presidency and the Prime Minister House.
Today, walk into any office of any federal minister and you will find party flags and pictures adorning walls and tables. PTV, the national TV network, has never celebrated the rich legacy of the Quaid-e-Azam the way it celebrated the founding fathers of a ruling political party. This happened a little over a year ago, when, for an entire week, the lobby of the PTV building in Islamabad was filled with the pictures of PPP leaders. And – believe it or not – audio recordings of the speeches of PPP politicians blasted from large speakers placed in the hallways of the building every day from morning till night for the whole week. Jokes have it that Aspirin consumption jumped in PTV during that week because of the headache from the noise but no one dared end the charade. [To be fair to PPP, the party didn't order this event. The Managing Director of PTV at the time had put together this show in order to save his job!! But he was still kicked out and now he's running another Pakistani news channel. So much for the 'visionaries' we have.]
Unfortunately, it is not just the PPP and Mr. Sharif’s PMLN who think their party flags take precedence over the National Flag. There is MQM and ANP and JSQM and BNP and BRP and God knows what else. All of them are allowed to flaunt their flags in public places. So much so that it is rare to see any of these parties owning the national flag.
Pakistan’s national flag, the Green and the Crescent, is slowly receding into the background. It is one sign of how the Pakistani identity has been weakened by these failed parties. I call them family-run businesses. When these parties have nothing else to sell to the people, they use ‘language and ethnicity’ and try to divide Pakistanis along language and ethnic lines, create new issues where none exist.
The average good-hearted Pakistani citizens await a group of strong leaders in Islamabad who will outlaw the public display of party flags and revive national confidence and morale. Until then, it should be the responsibility of every individual Pakistani to remind these ‘leaders’ why there is no place for the Flag of Pakistan in their offices, rallies, meetings, and press conferences.
Source: Ahmad Quraishi’s Lounge
POSSIBLY RELATED POSTS:
- Pakistan’s Founder ‘Muhammad Ali Jinnah’ Has No Place in His Homeland
- Pakistan or Zardaristan? My Worst Fear!
- Party At My Country
- The Green Card Effect:Future of Pakistani’s in the Non-Muslim countries
- Report: Where Did Our National Flag Go?
- Blackwater (XE Worldwide), Pakistan and Our Leaders
- Video: Is Pakistan a Muslim Country? – A Critique by Abdul Raheem Green
- Exclusive Al-Jazeera-Gallup Pakistan Survey
- Pakistan’s Battle Of The Generations: We Want Change
Thank God someone raised the voice on this issue. Nothing irritates me more than looking at a big photo of the late PM and a small side photo of the founder of Pakistan in any press conference of the present govt. officials lately. I really dread that our young kids might not be able to recognise the founding father.
So much cry for the free and independent media, especially TV which does it best to follow the footsteps of media of other countries, be it news channel or prime time TV. But forgets to remind us that we as a nation have certain values and a distinct identity.
What will force us to be PAKISTANIS again rather than being Sindi, Punjabi, Balochi, Pathan, Muhajir, PPite or Leagui.
Thank you again for taking notice and pointing it out to the apparently too indulged nation which seems to be too lenient.
This is common persons’s pakistan, not the property of Zardari’s, not Nawaz Sharif’s and certainly not US/any other dictator’s property. Lets TELL them we need Pakistani Flag and Quied-e-Azam / Allama Izbal pictures back in president’s house and on the streets of Pakistan. They better do that now or we will take it to the Supreme court – and they will be facing CJ …
[...] Pakistan’s Receding Green & Crescent [...]