The way to peace among nations is to affect the ordinary people who need decent shelter, food, education and healthcare

There are around 20,000 families who milk Pakistan. They are on the take constantly. The rest are inconsequential. Is this statement too bombastic to fly? Probably not. One does not need a microscope to find these fat cats. You see their faces in newspapers; you hear them sermonize over television networks; you find them cruising in their Mercedes flying the Pakistani flag or the seths seated in their cushy SUVs; you find them strutting around fancy public places showing their muscle or jet setting, bankrolled either by the state or their own money, the colour of which is black.

The richer they are, the less the tax they pay.

The inconsequential ones, meanwhile, survive on prayers, patience and penitence. Why worry, say these stoics, Allah is their saviour. When they hear His call, they leave work and go for prayers. Some others put their cunning to use and go around the system — they cheat whoever and whenever they can to put food on the table. How else to live, they argue.

Where does the middle class fit into this bizarre imbalance made up of the haves and have nots? It is meant to be the bone marrow of a country, the intelligentsia of the nation, the engine to progress, and the hope of the future.

Why then is it spineless? Why then does it not react to the unconscionable injustice that is eating into the system, leaving millions in the lurch while opening doors of privilege for the 20,000 families?

The middle class in India strides forward with confidence. Its professionals are wresting attention from the rest of the world and being noticed. Even the most powerful man in the world is gravitating around the Indians. He wants them to be the ombudsmen of our region. These guys, in President Bush’s view, are serious people who don’t go wild and burn anything in sight when protesting as Pakistanis do.

And here I take issue with President Bush. Wagging his finger (not literally the way Bill Clinton did) at Pakistanis who vented their frustration by burning, breaking and chanting anti-Musharraf and Bush slogans recently, Bush resorted to verbal bashing of the protesters and put President Musharraf in charge to sort out the trouble-makers.

Bush claims to be a true friend of the “162 million Pakistanis.” If one was gullible enough to believe him, he should for starters discard the blinkered view that Musharraf is the only hope for Pakistan. The general may have been sincere in his words to take Pakistan forward when he became the ruler, but today, he’s a changed man, who rules from his bunker, blind as a bat to the incompetence and corruption around him.

As the loudest lover of freedom, did Bush not think that the unruly rage on the streets of Lahore and Peshawar was perhaps directed at the rulers? Yes, it was about the cartoons too, but it was also about freedom from want, freedom from hunger, and freedom from unjust and corrupt rulers.

Does Bush honestly worry for the millions of Pakistanis whose future has been stolen by the ruling elites who have no conscience?

“He’s a good fellow ... who I like ... he understands that moderation is an important part of a hopeful future,” Bush said of Musharraf. Bush thinks at the risk of his own life, President Musharraf is working overtime to improve the life of Pakistanis, despite the Pakistani press giving their president a hard time.

The man from Texas thinks Musharraf to be a mixture of a male Mother Teresa, a Nelson Mandela, and a Kemal Attaturk. But one thing Musharraf is not: he’s no Cory Aquino of the Philippines. Twenty years today, Ferdinand Marcos, the American puppet, was dislodged from the presidential palace in Manila. He and his infamous first lady Imelda Marcos were kicked out.

Who dared to defy the American-supported Marcos? The people of the Philippines, of course.

It was the typhoon season in Manila. The year was 1985. I met Cory Aquino. Her husband had been killed by Marcos’ militia.

She was scared for her life. Her children were still small. Her mother was ailing and Cory didn’t want to lead a revolt against Marcos.

“Besides, I am not good at making speeches,” she laughed. “I recycle them all the time. My friends tell me I shouldn’t do that, but I can’t lie and invent new things each time I speak in public,” said the shy housewife.

“I am willing to join the protest if I get one million signatures from people asking me to lead the revolt,” she told me that soggy afternoon in May, seated in the verandah of a clinic where her mother lay dying. In the distance as life roared on, suddenly the clouds parted to let a Manila sky light up in all its glory.

Nine months later, Cory Aquino became the president of the Philippines and the term “People Power” was born, with the colour yellow as its symbol. Cory was always seen wearing yellow.

“One swallow does not a summer make,” chastized the military attache at the Philippine embassy in Islamabad when my interview of Cory Aquino appeared in The Star, the sister publication of Dawn. The attache was the mouthpiece of Marcos, his president. He dismissed Aquino as the swallow who could never change the status quo.
Military propaganda never gels. The Mushahid Hussains of the world may bend over backwards trying to win approval of dictators by lecturing to the Americans at places like Harvard, but a more lasting impact with a ripple effect comes from informal sources, like the professor from Bush’s own home state.

Donna Meadows visited Pakistan last December and fell in love with it. On her return, she decided to celebrate Pakistan Day with her colleagues at the Austin Community College.

Donna began the day with laying out the tea she had brought back from Pakistan. She served it in a china tea service she had purchased at the Lahore Industrial Exhibition, “which I attended three times in one week.”

For lunch, “I’d prepared chicken tikka, basmati rice, spicy potatoes, a buttery daal and black-eyed peas (wanted to serve those because they are very popular in the American south also). The relishes were: a plate of sliced onions, green chilies, yogurt dishes, a jar of garlic pickles and a jar of mango pickles. And dessert was kheer.

“And I wore one of my 12 shalwar kameez that I returned with. I wore one to church last Sunday. Wearing them gives me an opportunity to talk about my trip and for people to see some of the lovely fabrics one finds in Pakistan.”

Dismissing President Bush’s visit, Donna in her email to me said, “I think it is one of those perfunctory trips, leaders make to countries whose assistance they want/need. I see nothing real coming from it. Bush is not a man with an open mind so I don’t expect him to learn anything or do anything of consequence.”

While in Pakistan it was clear to Donna that Pakistanis didn’t like the US administration and its policies and behaviours. “Neither do I,” she added.

She would like to see the “riches of the US be used to support Pakistan in educating its people instead of being spent on arms or chasing Osama bin Laden,” she wrote. “The way to peace among nations is to affect the ordinary people. Ordinary people need decent shelter and food, an education, good health care, safe communities. I wish President Bush cared about those things, but he doesn’t.”