All forms of government destroy themselves by carrying their basic principle to excess.
[Will Durant].

Fatal cycle of political evolution known to us through Plato: monarchy, aristocracy, oligarchic exploitation, democracy, revolutionary chaos & dictatorship; allows us to view the current state of affairs in Pakistan in an objective manner. Providing us with some structure to predict its direction. While shades of each may seem to contribute, the dominant pattern appears to be an overlap between the last three stages. Its subjective interpretations ostensibly suggest this impasse is secondary to the whim of one person or an edict of a narrow class. Pompey the Roman general (circa ~ 100-50 BCE) when questioned about the legality of his military actions in Sicily, in his reply said “do not quote laws to us to we hold the swords”. True then as now. And suffice it to say that, in a systole & diastole of a nation’s life, the age of freedom seems to be ending & the age of discipline has begun. 

Democracy is a luxury of disseminated intelligence, security and peace. They who claim the electoral rules of democracy must prevail overlook the reality that Pakistan does not satisfy any of these democratic essentials. The State of Pakistan is merely yet a carved out geographic treaty with its neighbors. It lacks the homogeneity needed for a true Westphalian Nation State. And geography has historically smiled at such unstable treaties. Safeguarding this geography of the carved out state thus remains the basic principle of our political elites. So be it, and do away with it, might democracy try to come in the way of this basic principle.

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