What? What did you say. Proud?
Come on. Don't tell me that. Have another look at the mirror.
We say we are Pakistanis and take a proud to be a Pakistani. Isn't it the joke of the century. Despite me being a Pakistani and loving my country to death I can't take pride. I consider myself to be that spineless creature who can just crawl on earth but can't raise its head up or even try to stand on its back.
I have no spine. I can't take any stands. Not even to protect my life leave aside integrity. And the tragedy is that all 183 million of us, world's sixth populous state behind Brazil and ahead of Nigeria, feel the same way.
We love poet/philosopher Dr. Allama Iqbal. We say that the world has not produced a leader of his calibre. We read his philosophies and poetry and do not hesitate to quote his sayings on any aspect of life. Our firebrand leaders do not take a second to quote him whenever they want to mesmerise people.
I quote him here. I repeat those leaders here. See what he said:
"Khudi ko kar buland itna ke har taqdir se pehle
Khuda bande se Khud pooche bata teri raza kya hai"
True. Our 'selfless' leaders believe in it to the 'spirit'. They practically do it too. "Woh khood hi ko itna buland kardete hain ke ham poochte hi reh jate hain bata teri raza kya hai".
Take the example of our third time prime minister Mian Nawaz Sharif. He kept raising and raising himself from the owner of small foundry to the biggest industrialist of the country and now he is at a stage where he owns almost everything in the country. His networth since becoming the premier has increased to reportedly 1.4b and is continually increasing.
But here we are not to discuss his wealth. We are talking about bulandi. So after perching himself to 'buland tareen muqaam' he elevated himself to the post of the patron-in-chief of the Pakistan Cricket Board. Constitutionally the president of Pakistan used to be the patron before his latest acquisition,in case you have forgotten. The problem is we forget everything very quickly..
How and who made this policy change nobody knows or cares. But we know why. You also know why then why want me to say it. OK I'll say it. A shoddy figure Najam Sethi had helped Mianji in "fixing 35 punctures" as a hand-picked care-taker chief minister of Punjab in the last general elections paving Mianji's way to the become prime minister yet again.
You know we are not thankless people. We always return the favours.
Anyway let us come back to the main topic of the story we had started. So the gist of the story is Mianji sacked the PCB chief Zaka Ashraf who after a long court battle was reinstated by the court and replaced him with his hunchman 'puncture fixer'.
The irony is Ashraf had taken a stand against the mighty Indian, English and Australian boards, the so-called 'big three' at the ICC meeting against their vested designs of hijacking of the world body. Mianji didn't like this. After all he is in favour of giving India the most favoured nation status as all his trade and wealth routes are linked with it.
Here we have to really think about other nations too who actually back-stabbed Pakistan at the meeting and supported the ICC position paper despite having assured Pakistan opposition to the resolution. If South Africa, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh would have kept their words and not deserted Pakistan at the last minute the world cricket would not have been a hostage to the big three today.
There is still time Pakistan. But alas it will not happen as Sethi would fix another 'puncture' for Mianaji. But for God's sake 'paaji, for the honour and pride of the nation don't do this. Pakistan is on the brink. Don't deprive the people of the only sport they love so dearly.
Pakistan can still galvanise the services of brains like Ehsan Mani and Haroon Lorgat and even Lalit Moodi, as it is all fair in love and war, to chalk out a strategy to thwart the nefarious designs of the 'big three' by forming a parallel body and luring back SA, SL, BD, WI, Zim to the fold. If India is the biggest revenue earner for ICC, USA can be an even bigger market for the new "WCC".
Remember Kerry Packer. Cricket need another revolution like that.
Again to quote Allama Iqbal:
"Khuda ne aaj tak us qaum ki halat nahin badli
na ho jis ki khayal aap apni halat ke badalne ka"
WASEEM SIDDIQUI
Thank
Strange, this is not a class room.... I don't even give it to the Arabs and Persians whom I despise.... 
