| In Pakistan, only the dead escape their dues; the living prefer to default. In a nation where living at the expense of others - whether by scavenging the resources of the State or on credit obtained from others - has become an accepted norm, it is not too surprsiring that as a consuequence that each of its citizens - every man, woman and the potential citizen in every child - is bound to the other by not so much the inviisble link of patriotism as by a ponderous chain of irredeemable debt. [EXTRACT] |
Published in DAWN 21 April 1998, and reprinted in THE BARK OF A PEN (2001). |
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