I had underestimated(putting it mildly) the impact or level of coercion a bureaucratic, institutional, monetary, indeed! political, military and intellectual/psychological continuation of the British Raj... running a state vicariously.
If it indeed remains to be said,
Pakistanis are NOT free!
The three centuries of serfdom reinvigorates/reincarnates ever more forcefully lockstep in the direction set long ago.
Hope though remains but in the ashes of current paradigm. I personally, do not see a switch anytime soon... as by now the system is so fine tuned that the actors merely sleep walk in the desired direction. Indeed they have been rather instrumental in furthering the cause of the empire and sticking with it through thick and thin.
CPEC, though is and was never the point... it was for once the hope... continuation or rather a reset, of a historic barricade set up by the empire. A Eurasian continuity, people's, ideas and trades flowing once more(how naive of me imagining a people so thoroughly colonized, they aim to be brits outside of it's confines).
Recalibration, realization and reorientation of the masses of once again being free and not agenda driven bots of the Empire.
