SHOULD those that rule this country not have some sort of consideration for its people? Should those that make them miserable not have some pity? I asked a gloomy friend? You are either naive or stupid, retorted Gloom and Doom. Has anyone ever even attempted to answer the question you have so often asked: ‘How to shame the shameless’?

It seems that President General Pervez Musharraf has been satisfactorily persuaded by his smoothly coiffed perpetual propagandist, Sheikh Rashid of Rawalpindi town, by his newly appointed prime minister, Shaukat Aziz, backed by his mammoth cabinet, by his party chief Chaudhry Shujaat of Gujrat, by the heavily mandated Punjab Assembly, and by thousands of citizens who have bombarded him with e-mail messages and telephone calls that the nation needs him to remain in place and in uniform.

Some bright spark has calculated that 96 per cent of the 160- odd million citizens of this country feel so, and the general has duly accepted the figure. Question : after his four-day visit to Karachi last week to inaugurate Ideas 2004 (arms for peace indeed!) does he know that the figure of 96 has perhaps been somewhat reduced?

Numerous citizens have written to the press complaining bitterly about how, for four days, their lives were sorely disrupted by the presence in the city of the president, and pleading that in future, for the sake of the sanity of millions, he simply avoid coming to Karachi.

Roland deSouza, that staunch believer in ‘faith, hope and charity’, and an equally staunch defender of the city of Karachi, spoke on Friday at a seminar held by Shehri-CBE on the woes of our city. My suggestion was that he time his speech so that it started just before lunch, when the house would be full. This is what he had to say : “We Pakistanis tend to be eternal optimists. Whenever there is a change in government or administrative system, we initially believe that the new order is bound to be better than the old.

“Yet we ourselves remain the same kind of people that we always have been. We expect others, especially those in power, to transform themselves, while we cling to our old ways of living, working, and interacting. Do we actually believe that if everyone were to behave like we now do, the world would be a better place? Be honest. Are we model citizens, speakers of the truth, hard- working, law-abiding residents who will transfigure Karachi into the city of our dreams?

“Most of the speakers today will tell us what others should have done over the last three years. Would it not be more useful were each of us to examine what we have done to improve the quality of life in Karachi, to encourage better governance systems, and to reduce the hypocrisy that seems to overwhelm all we do or say?

“It is not only the nazims, the city or union councils, the DCOs, the TMOs, and their teams who are responsible for the problems we see around us, and for their solutions. Each one of us has a distinct and important role to play in refining the quality of life for our fellow citizens and ourselves. We will have to confess, rather shamefacedly, that we have not pulled our weight. We have been selfish. We have ignored the needs of others, and, consequently, have not even been effectively able to address our own needs and dreams.

“Over 50 per cent of the city’s population lives in katchi abadis, a mute testimony to the abject failure of the formal systems of city planning to cater to the basic human right of the vast majority of citizens. This proportion of the deprived and their absolute numbers are increasing, as the population swells, by 1,400 persons, or 230 households, every day (half a million annually). We do virtually nothing to proactively cater to this poor majority of our city.

“On the other hand, we are deliberately destroying (or apathetically allowing others to destroy) the fine town planning that was the hall mark of the city of Karachi during the first thirty years of its life as the predominant urban area of Pakistan.

“In the recent past, the government has taken four measures that critically affect the built environment of Karachi: : (1) The ‘Regularization’ of thousands of illegal buildings, including the unlawful conversion of land-use; (2) the strip ‘commercialization’ of 19 roads, allowing up to ten times the originally planned amount of construction on front-line residential plots; (3) the ‘Regularization’ of illegal allotments, conversions and exchanges of land; and (4) the approval of building plans in great excess of what is permitted by zoning regulations and land-grant conditions.

“All these procedures are being carried out without the obligatory town-planning studies and without providing the enhanced utilities and infrastructure required. Do we actually believe that such short-term, ad hoc strategies will bring about an improvement in the quality of life for our fellow citizens?

“As we listen to all that is said today, and share the valuable experiences of many others who have given of their time and talents to the implementation and improving of district governance systems in the country over the last three years, let us ask ourselves if we have really done our part.

“If we have not, if there is something we could change or improve, if there is time we could give to the development of our neighbourhood, our union council jurisdiction, our town, our city district — let us not wait. Let us show that we care, that we realize that without the active participation of all citizens, no governance system can be successful.

“And whenever you get discouraged, remember the inspiring words of the famous anthropologist, Margaret Mead : ‘Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has’.”

Now, let us find the group of ‘thoughtful and committed citizens’. We have one aspiring prime minister living in Jeddah, a second flitting between London and Dubai studiously avoiding Switzerland, and a third a proud citizen of the United Kingdom living on the outskirts of London. Will the incumbent prime minister, Shaukat Aziz, kindly step in and stop the violation of Karachi before he takes up residence elsewhere?