Threatening scenario

IN the midst of persistent warnings that the simmering social unrest in the country could boil over one day and pull down the edifice of the government and might even threaten the democratic political system, the President has come out with the assertion that the fallout of the floods and the political scene do not pose any such threat. As the warnings come, alike from political critics, impartial observers, local and international media and in some subdued form even from Mr Zardari’s own supporters, there is a dire need for him to reflect why, after all, are there “all these fires”? If, from everywhere arise serious accusations of bad governance and distrust, there might be some substance in them! He would not at least doubt that the people, high and low, are living in a constant state of insecurity and lawlessness, with terrorists, thieves and robbers virtually running amok and striking at a place of their choice; this by itself should give Mr Zardari sleepless nights and a sense of the severity of the citizens’ outrage. The inflation that seems to know no limit; the evidence (seen during the floods) that the influential and rich landlords would do all they can to save their crops even at the cost of poor man’s sole source of survival; the brutalisation of society – witnessed whether in the Sialkot barbarity or the torture of a news reporter by unknown goons or daily acts of murder in the name of honour or a petty dispute that all take place in the country – and that give ominous signs of danger. A number of other disturbing inputs, the blatant disregard of judicial verdicts, for one, turn the scenario all the more darkening, with bad governance and corruption writ large on it. -nation