Chaos

Just turn on the news and all you see is chaos. Chaos everywhere! Pakistan, was never a peaceful state. Now with a puppet democracy that almost everyone wants to save, the situation seems more dire! First, in the process of democratization of the Middle East, scores have been decimated. Now, from the time of inception, Pakistan has been under dictatorship longer than under democracy. Its constitution has been dissolved more than it has been upheld! So in effect, Pakistani ideologies, and sensibilities that are truly intrinsic to Pakistan have been nurtured under 'one-man-shows'. So all of a sudden, if someone throws freedom and the right to choose your way of life at the people, they are dumbstruck, and cannot figure out how to use the tool called free intellect and independence! As a result, they elect one that comes along, and the one that comes along, happens to be one that is bullied by the powers that be.

Ok, we all know that democracy has its own flipsides. Simple decisions, take eons to materialize on account of the multiple checks and cross checks, and many a time, in Parliament, a move for a decision is check-mated! Take our own country. Now that polls are around the corner, the poll scene is fraught with chaos! we have an NDA, a UPA, a third front, and a dozen parties, whose full forms I don't know. No offence, but when parties are started almost every year, and a leader defects from one party to another, I, with my own schedule in life, find it a tad difficult to keep track of the developments. That said, the political tamasha with free television sets, cash, hooliganism and the like makes for interesting sideline reading! But since we believe in the power of being able to rule ourselves, we stick on with the model. But when modes of government in our neighboring country change as often as we change governments, it can understandably make matters difficult for people to get acclimatised to a certain way of life! So, a demand to reinstate judges takes ages, for whatever reason, and so, people take to the streets. The only other available political contender decides to swoop in and try to switch the fledgling government to his favor, and all that happens is CHAOS!

Meanwhile, Sri Lanka is still suffering from political and ideological unrest. Suddenly someone has said that Osama is in the Hindukush mountains. Israel just went through its own political circus, with a George W Bush - Al Gore like situation, with both PM candidates declaring their respective victories. First bush fires that destroyed acres and acres of land, and the lives of scores of people, killing 200 odd people, and allegedly started by arsonists, and now a toxic oil slick that is threatening wildlife, Australia is in ecological turmoil.

While every nation grapples with its own share of strife, one common thread seems to be a state of chaos. A chaos in the midst of calm. Like in India, political chaos, in the midst of civilian calm. Overall calm in America, but in the midst of economic chaos. Military calm in Australia in the midst of ecological chaos. Can everything be traced back to an inherent unrest and unease, at the prospect of a dull economy and a bleak economic forecast? Can one assume that the civilian unrest is an offshoot of the worrisome nature of the world economy? If so, I guess symptomatic solutions are only part of the answer, and our world leaders need to act fast before the world becomes too hard to handle.