Pakistan: failed state?

More and more it seems likely that Pakistan will disintegrate in a few years. Where else but in a failed state does the ruling party indulge in rioting and killing when the Supreme Court rules against it? In India, the same thing happened last month, but the prime minister and the ruling party admitted that they had been in error. Here, when the Supreme Court ruled that the PPP’s appointment of Justice Deedar Hussain Shah was illegal, the party leaders told their activists to come out in the streets and kill people and damage private property. I passed Bilawal House (Zardari’s residence) a few minutes before PPP activists emerged and torched the first bus. Although the cops posted there carefully scrutinized every car and every vehicle, they failed to stop the party’s activists from indulging in indiscriminate firing and burning property. Why did they burn buses belonging to poor people who had done them no harm? Don’t they realize that their own voters will be adversely affected? This morning they again forced shopkeepers to shut down and fired at vehicles on the roads. It is this flagrant contempt for the law that should worry every thinking Pakistani. We’ve reached a point of no return when the politicians want to continue looting the country and think no one can stop them. It’s too late for me to leave the country but I wouldn’t be surprised if my children decided to migrate to a place where there is respect for the law.