Articles of the year 2010
Published on September 13th, 2010
The Chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board has succeeded in bringing Pakistan to our lowest standing in the Cricket world. With the ICC about to be told that Pakistan will not be welcome in the upcoming world series in 2011 surely a bitter blow for our players, and the millions of cricket fans in Pakistan. The players are themselves partly responsible for their alleged involvement, and are paying the price for their greed and their own stupidity.
However the Chairman of the PCB, and the Patron cannot be absolved of the responsibility for this debacle. The PPP has always been anti-establishment sometimes deliberately so, and sometimes due to the incompetence of the designated officers. In the case of the England cricket debacle it was both, with our High Commissioner joining the fray by screaming at the journalists outside the High Commission, an act both stupid and undiplomatic. Of course this was ridiculed by the entire media both Print and Television. This crass behavior by the Chairman PCB and the High Commissioner is a direct affront to the ECB ,the Media and the , and will certainly not generate any sympathy from amongst the Cricketing establishment if we are to be brought back into the mainstream of the Cricket world. It is vita that these persons should be dumped before they cause more damage.
At a time when Pakistan is desperately in need of humanitarian aid for the flood victims, there is a turning off of the sympathy, replaced by anger, something we do not need at this moment. It is also something President Zardari does not need, a taste of this anger was on display to the Chairman of the PCB Ijaz Butt with shoes being thrown at him. It is becoming increasingly apparent that the President cannot venture out at all and he has withdrawn into a shell, pleading security, while his Nation is facing the most horrible disaster that Nature could have thrown at us. The contributions are drying up, with the Pakistani public setting up their own distribution systems, so skeptical are they of the political parties and especially of the PPP, who are considered to be corrupt and guilty of scamming from the poor and the destitute flood affectees.
The President should take note of the underlying anger amongst the people and must take immediate steps to distance himself from the corrupt officials who have brought Pakistan and our Cricket to this sorry state, also the diplomats in our foreign office who have , with their behaviour here and in the US, with the misuse of the huge gift of the of NASDAQ board on Broadway , which carried a large portrait of the Consul General of Pakistan to New York with only a personal message without any mention of the flood damage. The Chairman of Nasdaq withdrew the facility in disgust at the misuse of his charity donation, to be used to show the pedestrians on Broadway, the plight of the flood affectees, instead they were treated to a grinning petty Pakistani official looking down on the traffic at the highest visibility on the planet. It is yet another instance of the official stupidity of our Government, and how our good fortunes are wasted by an unthinking and senseless government. Such people cannot be allowed to continue in office for the damage they are doing to Pakistan is something we can ill afford. Pakistan has suffered more in the short Zardari government than in our entire history.
These and other actions are adding fuel to the anger within the people that is building up and cannot continue much longer, but it seems the Zardari Government is blind to this anger, and may not see the explosion when it does occur—so confident are they in the incantations of flattery that are being repeated ad nauseum.
Imran Khan has been doing a tremendous job in collecting and distributing the funds collected by charities to the flood areas, and the poor people are grateful at his hard work, which exposes the government officials even more. His efforts are encouraging more and more of the citizens to come forward with help, making the citizens more aware of the damage and the distress inflicted on the people. The anger will be unleashed on the political and government officials by the public who are already denouncing the Ministers, and the cronies whose cars are being stoned forcing them to remove the Ministerial flags before they can approach theses areas. These are the signals that should indicate the serious danger facing the country. Unfortunately the Zardari government is unaware of the danger or is incapable of doing anything to avert the coming disaster.