Trump nominated Wesley Hunt as U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia who has been critical about Saudi Arabia and Sharia laws

Editorial

The world is observing today, September 15, the International Day of Democracy. According to books, democracy ensures the sovereignty and will of the people, equality, freedom, human dignity, justice, the rule of law, and respect for dissent and minority points of view.

Much celebration is being held in the Western world where, during the last two years, thousands of students lost their university admissions and hundreds of teachers lost their jobs in educational institutions for holding protests against Israeli genocide in Gaza because they thought they enjoyed equality with chosen people (Israelis), freedom of expression, and their societies respected human dignity and the right of dissent. While holding protests in favour of Palestinians, they also forgot that the Magna Carta, which was established in 1215, was practically overwritten in 1945 when it was decided by European countries that Holocaust denial is punishable by imprisonment—so expression against states’ decision that the Holocaust took place had to be accepted by all. Since then, European states tailor rules about what can be said and what cannot be said.

Writing and speaking in favour of Iran, for example, is practically punishable in many European countries. The same is the case with questioning the 9/11 tragedy in the United States because serious questions about what happened on 9/11 can put the questioning person on the Homeland Security radar. Therefore, one can say that democracy is selective and it does not give citizens a meaningful voice in the decisions that shape ‘state’s interests. In the Western world, issues such as the Holocaust, Israel and 9/11 are priorities of the states, so their democracy does not automatically cover the right to speak about them. However, the Western world does not allow developing countries to decide what are priorities for them and what are national issues where so-called ‘democracy’ can harm them.

In the developing world, if Western democracy is not followed, the Western powers have the right to use hard power to replace governments and soft power to launch colour revolutions. Alas, Pakistan should have understood this point before providing politicians and the public to decide what earth-filled dam is a national demand, such as the Kalabagh Dam, what rules are critical to introduce by setting aside ‘demands of democracy and parliament’, and what actions are a must to protect the interests of the state.

Pakistan is the country where the federation cannot launch an anti-terrorism action/campaign in a province (for example, KP) because the provincial assembly and provincial government are not allowing the action. Pakistan is an interesting state where federating units decide what are the demands of the federation, such as forming new administrative units out of existing federation units (provinces). In Pakistan, provinces decide where to spend the hard-earned money of the public instead of people deciding what they need.

A provincial government can buy more than one aero plane or helicopter for the political head of the provincial government while only two out of 34 district hospitals can be run without MRI machines. Pakistan is a country where governments can sign 20- to 30-year-long contracts with IPPs to provide them money for such electricity units that they would never produce, but the public would bear the cost of the unit because the governments have every right to decide whatever they deem fit because they are ‘democratically’ elected governments.

Pakistan is a country where official estimates indicate that about 26.2 million children aged 5–16 years are out of school, but top bureaucrats can raise their salaries four times in the last three years. The figure of 26.2 million children comes from the Pakistan Education Statistics / Ministry of Federal Education and Professional Training, based on the latest available education data, while the actual figure can be higher. Pakistan is a country where the doctor-to-population ratio is 1 doctor per 850 people because of a lack of resources, but provincial governments can buy more than three SUVs for one higher-grade bureaucrat/public office bearer because only the government decides under the ‘democratic system’ what to do and what decisions are needed by the government to run the state/provinces.

This is what democracy is all about in Pakistan.

In all practical purposes, Pakistan is swiftly becoming a state that is democratic and a Republic but having no concern for the Public; therefore, sooner or later, it can become an example of a ‘Republic without Public’.