Is religion the opium of Pakistani masses?
Institutionalized religion can have a major social impact on society, for good or for evil. This blog is not concerned with discussing the ‘dogmatic’ aspect of religion; rather it revolves around religion’s impact on society. Generally, it is the poorer societies that have the greatest proportion of the population following institutionalised religion. For this reason, religion tends to have a greater social impact in poorer societies, where it is supported more strongly by the majority. Either the religion controls the government or the government uses religion as an opiate in a majority-poverty society as influence. When Karl Marx stated that “religion ...
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Ripples of liberation: Will Libya and Bahrain go Egypt’s way?
The Egyptian army had to face a choice when people took to the streets against a three-decade-long autocratic rule: make a change or gun down your own people. Both options worked against the repressive regime; shooting its own people would have further diminished their legitimacy, while allowing a democratic transition would effectively end their power circle. Eventually, history was made. The liberated Egyptians walked tall; the corrupt leader succumbed to the power of the masses. The dream of democracy now seems not too far. However, history, as glorious as it seems to be for the Egyptians, reveals that democratic transitions whether ...
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Two faces of the hypocrisy coin
Although it’s a common human trait (one of the most abundant natural commodities, individually and collectively) I try to focus on the society that I live in, and while focusing on my society, I try to scan it from both perspectives, the so-called conservative and the so-called liberal perspective. The so-called conservative Pakistani society is dominated by conservative factors. The overwhelming majority of the urban middle class, especially in Punjab, highly reveres the religious clergy and looks upon it for guidance. But as the saying goes, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, the contractors of religion tend to degenerate into ...
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Power crisis: The road to impending doom
The nation faces a severe power crisis yet again, not entirely unanticipated, as summers draw to their summit. Because of the frequent outages and prolonged load shedding hours, the masses are already on the streets, violently recording their protest. The disruption has also adversely affected commercial activity and industrial production all around the nation and the losses have accumulated to deteriorate national economic indexes. The governmental policy of two-day weekends and the 8pm shutter down have not fared well as the masses continue to express their anger against such short-term measures. It has also pushed ground-level commercial actors, the shopkeepers, ...
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