Victor Hugo’s timeless warning — “No force on earth can stop an idea whose time has come” — feels uncannily relevant in Pakistan today. Because what’s unfolding in the country is no longer just a clash between Imran Khan and the state; it’s a confrontation between a public hungry for transformation and a system built to resist it. For decades, Pakistan’s colonial-era machinery — its hierarchies, its opaque power centres, its entrenched patronage networks — has survived every crisis by simply outlasting the people demanding change. But this time, something is different.
Across cities, screens, and social circles, millions of Pakistanis see in Imran Khan not merely a political leader, but a symbol of possibility — the idea that the old order is neither sacred nor permanent. His popularity, despite imprisonment, censorship, and political exclusion, has turned into a phenomenon the state can’t easily explain away. It signals a profound shift: a population that no longer accepts governance as a privilege granted from above, but as a right that must be respected from below.
Whether one supports Khan or not, it’s clear that the real battle isn’t about him. It’s about an idea that has taken root: that Pakistan’s power structure must finally be accountable, transparent, and modern — that the post-colonial scaffolding holding the country back must be dismantled. And history shows that once a society begins to believe collectively in such an idea, force alone cannot bury it. In fact, attempts to suppress it only prove its urgency.
In Pakistan today, the question is no longer whether the old system can resist change. It’s whether it can survive pretending the country hasn’t already changed.
No comments:
Post a Comment