Why democracy is not suitable for Pakistan!

Umer Sufan

“Democracy is beautiful in theory, in practice it’s a fallacy.” Benito Mussolini 

Democracy is the government of people, for the people, from the people. Most of us think that democracy works the best in all circumstances. Most of us think that we are an independent country. Democracy has always stood synonymous with freedom and rights of the people, yet we over the years have seen horrendous miscarriages of justice, liberty and human rights which have just served to illustrate that democracy does not guarantee a life of freedom.

Although we have been an independent country for seventy one years, but we have never questioned ourselves that if we are a free country in a real sense then what we have done to make our country free and a developed country? Does democracy serve the best in our country?

We have done nothing at individual level that can contribute to our countries success path but now it’s time to work.

Freedom does not only mean any specific or limited boundaries. In recent times, democracy has just emerged as a system of government which exists to serve the interests of rich benefactors to work out for them in the so called halls of democracy.

Aristotle gave the idea of philosopher kings refuting totally the idea of democracy, which he sarcastically called mobocracy. In modern times, the fall of communism and failure of socialism led to liberal democracy as the foremost system signaling the end of ideology.

Now, it has gotten to the point where governments no longer require approval of masses and the parliament to bomb a country in the Middle East. We are at a cross roads . Either we can bow down to the established ideas that we have been conditioned to believe right and wrong or we can choose to make our own way.

We do not want democracy. That is not our goal; the goal is freedom.

How can we say that democracy is working the best in our country when more than sixty percent of our children are not able to go to schools? What kind of system is it if still people in our country are committing suicide because they cannot fill the stomach of their families? Moreover, our leaders are not loyal to our country; they are just after their status and are trying to fulfill their lavish wishes on the name of a democratic system. They do not care about the people of their state. So, there is no advantage of such a system that is just named as democratic system but in reality it is a system of brutality and injustice. According to the constitution of the Islamic republic of Pakistan, every person has the right of free trial, freedom of speech and right to information, but these all things do not happens in our system.

We just need a system that works independently.  The goal is freedom, which means liberty to have an opinion, liberty to have education, liberty to have healthcare. We want freedom so that no child dies in the lap of his father rushing towards the hospital after getting stuck in these democratic protests. We should change our country and make it the best.

Actually the question mark is not on the working of the system, but the question mark is of morality. Today’s youth is unaware of the difficulties that were faced and the sacrifices that were made to make this country a free state.  The level of patriotism of today’s youth has greatly fallen as compared to the Pakistanis living a few decades ago.

In conclusion, democracy does not always works the best for every state. For example, China is not a purely democratic country, but it has the strongest economy and is one of the leading countries of the world.

If no one stands up, we should stand up. If no one fights, we should fight. If no one speaks, we should speak. Because freedom is not what we have achieved but freedom is what we are striving for. We should make this country a better place for generations to come.

The contributor is a student at FC College Lahore.