Road to Democracy

As one skims through the history of Pakistan, he is faced with the dilemma of what to believe and what not to. Another predicament would to segregate the guilty from the innocent. These quandaries are further exacerbated by the fact that the historians are not as unbiased as they should be. Nobody is, for that matter. Senior journalists have admitted, on various occasions, that they are not as unbiased as their profession requires them to be.
Whosoever took Pakistan studies in his high school years and read shahab nama later in his life would agree that there are a number of grey areas in there. Some of them have been or were locked away and some were never probed as they should have been. Hamood-ur-Rehman Commission Report would be an instance of the former and the 1990-94 genocide in Karachi of the latter.
The history of Pakistan has seen a chronic struggle for power between democratic institutions and the military, or at least what the books have to say. Democracy, however, has been barely there. Even the most ardent proponents of democracy failed to live upto the expectations of their followers and embarked upon a dictatorial journey, meeting their end on the way.
Having a degree in finance and career in banking and investment management, I will venture into a territory of political science and explore the fallacies and anomalies in a democratic set up (within Pakistan). Since I have been so bamboozled by this journey to democracy I googled “what is democracy” and here is what I found.

whatisdemocracy.net

Assuming this site is the right place to start, I would conclude that Pakistan is a democracy (for now) and that too a representative one. The same site goes on to elaborate that representative democracy is representative only as long as the constituencies are consulted on every major decision or else it becomes an elected dictatorship. Now isn’t this familiar?
My next stop was Wikipedia and without going into the history and evolution of this form of government, I was found the pre-requisites; rule of majority, freedom of speech, political expression, association and press. So now that I have a fool proof recipe for democracy, I find it very easy to conclude that its not just the military that has sabotaged the democratic process in this country. I will deal with every “ingredient” separately.
Rule of Majority: 70% illiteracy. And the feudal lords in rural Pakistan (who are also the democratically elected representatives) have made every effort to keep education as inaccessible as possible. I find it difficult to understand how a person should be allowed to decide the fate of his country when he can barely read or write. Moreover, this particular class has been used by their respective feudal lords on balloting days when votes are bought against “free aatay ki bori.”
Whatever we are left with the “educated class” happens to be a small group of greatest porn googlers.
Freedom of Speech: Now this is a right that, I don’t think a person is born with. A person should be granted this freedom only if he is worthy of being heard. Given the fact that more than half the population is illiterate, this right should be usurped right away.
Freedom of political expression: Did you think Zia-ul-Haq was bad? Think again. Bhutto did not allow his party to negotiate with Mujeeb-ur-Rehman. Benazir bitch and Nawaz not-so-Sharif went against MQM during their first tenures using everything they could; military, establishment, money, judiciary. This is not a secret anymore.
Freedom of press: Now this one does not any explanation. The press owes its freedom to a military dictator. And I cannot possibly forget the vendetta that was launched by Nawaz not-so-Sharif against the Jang group.

Now I am not a student of political science so I didn’t bother going into facts, figures and statistics. Instead, I had to rely more on my own memory. However, if someone could possibly convince me otherwise, please do so. Your comments and suggestions would not be censored and your families would not be intimidated or threatened.