TO repeat and repeat, to the extent of perhaps becoming a bore to some readers, and always in the hope that it may penetrate the mind of someone out there amongst the sorry lot of men and women who manage to wangle their way into positions of power so that they may continue to misguide this nation, we revert to the subject of Mohammad Ali Jinnah.

He founded and he put in place on the map of the world this man-made God-given country. Before the flag was raised for the first time, he gathered together his constituent assembly and told the members that the first duty of any government is to ensure and maintain law and order so that the lives, properties and beliefs of the people are protected and held safe.

He went on to firmly tell them that religion is not the business of the state. After the flag had been raised, in the short time he had before he died, he made it clear to all at home and abroad that his country would not be a theocracy, and it would not be subjected to a rule by mullahs imbued with a divine mission.

Those who came after him chose not to follow his edicts, for reasons of expediency and self-perpetuation. The first grand betrayal of Jinnah came on March 12, 1949, six months after his death, when the Objectives Resolution was adopted by the Constituent Assembly. This resolution which has since then haunted this land, was proposed by Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan (he called its passing `the most important occasion in the life of this country, next in importance only to the achievement of independence`). It proclaimed that the future constitution of Pakistan would be modelled on the ideology and faith of Islam, thus giving the clergy a clear field to impose themselves and their bigoted intolerant mindsets, and giving them a stranglehold over all the pillars of state, including this state`s powerful army.

The resolution forms part of the mauled and mangled 1973 Constitution (which was violated by its maker Zulfikar Ali Bhutto within four hours of its promulgation) and is in a large manner responsible for the impasse in which we today find ourselves. However, it happened and none has had the ability strength or the will to do away with it and start off with a clean slate, ridding the state of the burden of a warped form of religion which affects all form and manner of governance. We need someone to come along who will realise that religion, true or false, is indeed the opium of the masses, who will move on to a more tolerant, realistic, practical and democratic path and act to educate the masses rather than take great pains to keep them in the ignorance in which they now wallow.

Now, by a quirk of fate we find ourselves in thrall to the court of Asif Ali Zardari, our accidental president, whose legitimacy to high office will forever be challenged as it rests only on his word and on a brutal assassination.

Last week, on the anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Benazir Bhutto was posthumously honoured (along with several other living awardees) by the United Nations for her `outstanding achievements for human rights.` Her widower, our president, congratulated the nation and told us that the award had strengthened the resolve of the government and people to uphold human rights, and that his wife had given her life `for the right of men and women to live in security and dignity and in liberty`.

Now, what is the track record of his government`s resolve? Amongst the 60-odd ministerial appointments made for favours received or as future investments, was the appointment of Mir Israrullah Zehri in the new post of minister for postal services.

The man is on record in the Senate as having upheld the mur der of at least two women — they were allegedly buried alive — in Balochistan in the name of `honour`. He maintains that the murder of women who are suspected of `immoral acts` (a neat way of putting it when men wish to rid themselves of women) are `centuries-old traditions` and are time-honoured `tribal customs` which cannot be disturbed. One would very much like to know how Benazir would have reacted to this.

Another appointee to the distinguished cabinet is Mir Hazar Khan Bijarani, who has been handed over the portfolio of education. His distinction and his qualification to serve the nation lies in the fact that he was once (how many other times is not known) a member of a jirga (illegal) which ordered that five minor girls be handed over to the family of a murdered man as compensation. One would also have liked to have heard Benazir on this one.

And it must be added here that not one of the women appointed by her to high party office has publicly dared to utter against these two men, and that many of them sit happily with them in Zardari`s cabinet.

Further insulting the nation, and the memory of Benazir, was a half-page advertisement inserted in the press on Dec 9 by the Ministry of Postal Services. This was to pay `homage` to the United Nations award to Benazir, for `her tireless efforts to promote human rights in Pakistan`, and to announce the issuance of a special postage stamp. Depicted was the stamp, fine, then from left to right, Zardari, his underling Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani, his son Bilawal, the staunch believer in human rights the man Zehri and an unrecognisable man who is probably the secretary of the newly established Zehri ministry, and underneath, in large red letters, `The Nation`s Pride`. At the bottom, duly befitting to a post office, was the slogan `Living for Humanity, Dying for Peace`.

As my friend Naeem Sadiq has written and circulated by e-mail `The first accomplishment of our federal minister for post offices and defender of the belief that the burying alive of Pakistani women is healthy for society, was to place a half-page coloured ad in the national press. The ad, estimated to have deprived the national exchequer of Rs2m, should be preserved in the national museum`.

Does this government, together with Asif Zardari`s main minders, not understand that such appointments made and such press publicity merely disgust the minority thinking literate of this nation who do believe in human rights? But then, why should we expect anything different from these hijackers of the national interest?

arfc@cyber.net.pk