Lee’dership

Lee used his legal training to fight for fairer wages and working conditions for workers

Lee Kuan Yew has left the world but he is and will remain in this world for time immemorial. In the present era we have had the privilege of having at least three leaders who left an indelible mark on history for their services to their countrymen and to the world in general. They are Nelson Mandela, Mahatir Mohammad and Lee Kuan Yew. All had different styles, all had different views but all had a common goal of going beyond themselves and making other people aspire for and acquire a better future. Such leaders are not transactional leaders but transformational leaders. Such leaders are not there just for power annexation but for national reformation. Such leaders are not there for a personal story but for human glory. Of the three leaders, Lee Kuan Yew’s ability to change a tiny country with no natural resources into an economic powerhouse in the world is a case study incomparable.

Gaining independence from the British in 1959, Lee Kuan Yew became the prime minister of Singapore and made this almost overlooked piece of land become a powerhouse in South East Asia and then in the world. There are leaders and then there are great leaders. Lee belonged to this very exclusive club where such leaders will keep on leading without being present. Leadership of this calibre is rare because what they do most cannot. Such leaders have vision, the ability to see what others cannot see and do what others cannot do. Who would have thought that this geographical dot called Singapore would one day become a giant in terms of its GDP, its per capita GDP, its literacy and its systems and also become a role model for many nations to follow and many generations to study? Lee’s ability to free Singapore, first from the clutches of the British and then from Malaysia, and later beating both these countries on many global fronts was what made him outstanding in his pursuit of dreams and designs. Singapore, which had a per capita income of $ 500 at the time of its independence, went on to become one of the highest per capita income countries, reaching a per capita income of $ 55,000 and became a benchmark that very few countries have been able to beat.

Another attribute of great leaders is their ability to sacrifice many personal opportunities for a national cause. Quaid-e-Azam, with a British education, a law degree and a bar-at-law from Lincoln’s Inn could have led a comfortable life of luxury. Similarly, Lee was born in Singapore in 1923 to a wealthy Chinese family that had established itself on the island in the 1860s. He had the privileged upbringing of British colonial standard, speaking English, going to top schools, playing cricket and tennis. He studied law at Cambridge University, which could have set him up in a profitable law practice in the UK. Admitted to the English bar in 1950, while studying, he was impressed by the UK’s Labour government and its social service initiatives, such as the National Health Scheme. It turned him into a moderate socialist and he returned to Singapore hoping to raise living standards.

He used his legal training to fight for fairer wages and working conditions for workers. As the British began reforms to turn Singapore from a colony to a self-governing nation, Lee became involved in politics. He formed the Peoples Action Party (PAP) that became a representation of the impoverished Chinese. As a great leader you exercise not formal or positional authority but moral authority. Lee could have gone on to form the government as he had won the elections with a majority but he chose to reject position for standing by the people who had been fighting for the national cause with him. In 1959, free elections were held according to a new constitution. Lee’s PAP won 43 of the 51 seats but Lee refused to form a government until he had secured the release of the left-wing PAP members who had been arrested for their alleged part in the riots of 1956.

Like all legendary leaders, Lee was a dreamer and a doer, a man of both vision and action, a man of aspirations but also a man of relentless pursuit of goals. He envisioned a clean government and set up mechanisms of discipline to ensure them. Like many countries, Singapore had problems with political corruption. Lee introduced legislation giving the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB) greater power to conduct arrests, searches, call up witnesses and investigate bank accounts and income tax returns of suspected persons and their families, including all in the ruling seat as well. However, Lee also believed that ministers should be well paid in order to maintain a clean and honest government. In 1994, he proposed to link the salaries of ministers, judges and top civil servants to the salaries of top professionals in the private sector, arguing that this would help recruit and retain talent to serve in the public sector. He made it very clear that despite all these luxuries, if they misused their authority, the CPIB would ensure severe penalties that would become lessons for any transgressors.

Secondly, he focused on transforming Singapore from a third world country into a first world economy. His vision was, that even if Singapore had no natural resources, they would convert the available human resource into a competitive advantage. Thus he implemented a five-year plan to modernise the country, clearing slums, building public housing, improving education and industrialising the country. This aspect of a clean government and a disciplined and developing economy made billions of dollars of foreign investment pour into this island.

A leader knows how to satisfy the basic requirements for a people to live, survive and then thrive. To survive, people need housing and, to thrive, people need attractive job opportunities. For these two main objectives he developed a Housing Development Board and an Economic Development Board. The Housing Development Board did superb town planning to turn ghettos into simple living apartments in this space-constrained country. The Economic Development Board created job opportunities by focusing on attracting investment and then creating skills in human resource to match those opportunities created by pouring investments, creating a spiral of more and more prosperity. His ability to satisfy the people of Singapore for such a long period is reinforced by the fact that his party, PAP, won elections again and again, and is still in government

Such leaders are immortal in many ways because what they have achieved for millions inspires many to be like them in future. When asked what he thought about the incredible transformation of something so small into something so huge, he replied with his typical philosophical pragmatism, “We took the world as we found it, and then we built on our dreams. We wanted to build a prosperous nation in a sea of poverty.”

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Law ‘less’

It is open knowledge that many parties are a law unto themselves due to their militant wings, and their own people whether in the police or other institutions within the province have been ensuring the continuous crime spiral the city has witnessed in the last few years

The law of the jungle would begin to appear more appealing compared to what we have witnessed in the last few days. Firstly, Karachi, where stories of hundreds of assassins being ‘overlooked’ by many governments has knocked out all sane justifications and then Lahore where the merciless killings by terrorists in churches, which resulted in an almost civil war-like situation, has made a banana republic more habitable. When does violence result in more violence, anger in more retaliation and crime in more crime? Unfortunately, when respect for law becomes a laughing stock. The scenes we have seen of angry mobs and the desperate police hiding to save themselves are a sorry but very alarming example of a breakdown of all systems and values.

State institutions have the role of providing support for governance to the government and it is through these institutions that the work of the government gets implemented. The main task of any government is to ensure the safety and welfare of the people it serves. In a democratic government the parliamentary members are debating and passing laws with these service elements in mind. Institutions like the police, the judiciary and the like are ensuring the enforcement of these laws for the protection of the people. However, over a period of time, the role of the people employed in these institutions has been confused with regards to the interpretation of titles of being either a public servant or a government servant. When they call themselves government servants they actually obey the people in the government and not the people in general. Thus their actual role of being able to provide various services and delivery pertaining to security, health, education or justice is way down in their list of priorities. Systems may have changed but not the people who run these systems. A majority of the political leadership of the country comes from feudal backgrounds and despite clamouring to be saviours of democracy, their thinking and approach is that when we rule, state institutions and the people working in these institutions have to be aligned with our personal interests or they will find their careers and even lives blocked or made redundant.

Take the city of Karachi and see the dilapidation and deterioration. Being the largest, most populated city with a label of being the commercial hub, it has over the years become the most dangerous, the most uncertain and unsafe city of Pakistan. Mugging is a normal phenomenon and the people of Karachi find it difficult to accept that there are still Karachiites whose phone or wallet has not been snatched. Kidnappings for ransom are talked about less openly but are regular occurrences. Extortion is now considered a survival tax, which if not paid, will result in destruction of property and lives. This governance mayhem has been discussed in the Assemblies and media but unfortunately nothing has been done about it. The present focus on the Rangers operation in Karachi has been hyped up as a very focused goal of getting all criminals apprehended and penalised. Some daring steps and consequent actions and revelations are also being made to support this goal, and one can only hope that these steps continue with the same zeal.

However there are still some major question marks that need to be pointed out if Karachi has to serve as a role model for the restoration of peace in the country. The very fact that the Rangers had to be called in to solve this problem is an admission of governance failure, be it in the city or the province. This operation will dismantle the crime hubs in the city as it also did in 1992. However, the Rangers are not the law enforcement institution that will be used on a permanent basis for keeping the city safe and protected. Ultimately the police have to be responsible and will be and consequently for the police, the provincial government is and will be responsible. If governments have destroyed the police culture by politicising it and thus making the police unable to challenge the militant wings existing in the political parties, how will a Rangers-backed operation do anything more than bring a lull before the storm? The conflict over appointing the Inspector General of Police (IGP) of the province amongst the top parties in the province is a classic case of political patronage of criminal outfits in the country. Honest and daring officers in police are either dismissed or transferred or threatened into silence. Thus the first goal for ensuring peace and law enforcement is to ensure the safety and respect of the law enforcers. Secondly, the focus of this operation should not solely be on one party but all parties and all outfits that are engaged directly or indirectly in supporting these activities. MQM is under scrutiny and its workers are being held for various charges but more than these workers, the people who have hired people to execute such crimes need to be brought to the forefront and the people who have hired people to hire people should not be spared just because they are ‘political leaders and political stakeholders’. Thirdly, if the MQM has been allowed to operate despite the intelligence on their activities and law enforcing agencies have been politicised by ruling parties to protect these activities, this makes such parties a party to these trade offs and should be taken to task as well. It is open knowledge that many parties are a law unto themselves due to their militant wings, and their own people whether in the police or other institutions within the province have been ensuring the continuous crime spiral the city has witnessed in the last few years.

What has happened in Karachi needs to be the beginning of the end of the ruination of a city with a potential to beat the likes of Singapore and Bangkok when it comes to its strategic location and a vibrant financial DNA. However, outside ‘forces’ stepping in to do the cleansing is not the solution. For sustainable peace, a complete inside cleansing needs to take place where depoliticisation of the police and other institutions and deweaponisation of the political parties and other outfits is a must for any meaningful change and any reform to take place. A whole new culture for creating respect for law, respect for law makers and a respect for law enforcers needs to be inculcated. But before that happens, the continuous, indiscriminate and relentless pursuit of every big and small individual involved in disrespecting, dismissing and dismantling laws and law enforcing institutions should be brought into the clutches of the law to reverse this circle of lawlessness.

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Unfit Institutionally

While we blame the team and the captain for a dismal start to the World Cup, we need to recognise that for the last few years, the PCB top chair has been more of a musical chairs contest

Cricket may be just a game but it is a game that embraces much more than a sport. It is a game that involves the passion of billions, it is a game that reflects the competitive spirit of various nations and teams, it is a game that brings out the best and the worst in individuals and is thus a reflection of the national mindset. To brush away Pakistan’s miserable start against India and the West Indies in the World Cup is to brush away the many viruses infecting the best of talent, the extent of self-esteem and the ultimate pride of being a Pakistani. All this talk of talent not being there is negated by the fact that this team, a few weeks ago, defeated Australia and previously many other teams as well. However, their performance has never been consistent and will never be consistent given the extreme stress and uncertainty surrounding them. Cricket is a subset of what ails this country: lack of vision, lack of will and lack of institutionalisation to unleash and harness this talent into consistent performance.

In normal circumstances, institutions beginning with the country name should bring a sense of pride and patriotism. However, anything beginning with Pakistan brings an image of mismanagement, hopeless performance and infamous incidents. The reason is the complete politicisation of these institutions. Public institutions are always up for sale either to the lowest bidder or up for lease to those whom the politicians owe a favour. The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) is a hot seat amongst the favour-dole-out largesse by politicians in power. In times of military rule the generals were appointed as heads of the PCB and, in times of democracy, from anchors to bankers, all are eligible as long as they are in the ‘I owe you’ category of men in charge. This is the reason for PIA, PTV, PCB or any other Pakistani institution becoming case studies of how to kill potential.

Cricket has become a science and a game that requires extraordinary physical and mental toughness. In the more developed countries, physical fitness is part of general awareness and sports fitness is a mandatory requirement. The present cricket team has always had a great deal of vulnerability to injuries. Most youngsters are not only overweight but are also not really conscious of the importance of fitness. Players like Nasir Jamshed should have been disqualified on purely this basis a long time ago, as they become a huge liability on the field. With such fierce competition where each run counts in the net run rate category, a fielding miss is almost unpardonable. Similarly, the fitness level of our fast bowlers like Junaid and Irfan needs ruthless monitoring and supervision. With a huge team of physios, trainers and coaches, it is amazing that half the team has some injury problem or the other.

However, the most disturbing part is the mental fitness of the players. There seems to be a complete lack of self-belief in our players to perform in any department of the game. This is where the team management seems to be totally misreading the situation. Cricket is a game of specialists who need to be used with controlled aggression. Having part time wicket keepers, occasional bowlers and makeshift openers has made the team look at best a make-do arrangement where the fear of losing becomes apparent even before the match starts. Match strategy itself speaks volumes for this defensive mindset. Having won the toss against the West Indies and electing to bowl first in a tournament where teams batting first have won a majority of the matches just shows the lack of confidence and self-belief in the team.

To excel under conditions of fear and uncertainty is really difficult. Credit must be given to our team because, despite such adverse circumstances, they do manage to raise their game to a level where they manage to beat the best from time to time. Politicisation of institutions has visibly made performing an almost impossible feat. It started with state institutions like the police and judiciary, spread to state enterprises like PIA and Pak Steel, and now has also permeated to all levels of sports organisations. While we blame the team and the captain for a dismal start to the World Cup, we need to recognise that for the last few years, the PCB top chair has been more of a musical chairs contest between the ex-appointee of the PPP versus the present appointee of the PML-N, causing a mockery of the institution. It took a tampering of the Constitution to accommodate the PML-N candidate and bypass the legal contest. This led to change in the selection team, coach and many other posts. When the top post is not on merit, then all posts are contentious and controversial. When people at these positions are there due to their connections, they will always make decisions to save their seats rather than serve the best interests of the game, when players in the team know that people in positions are not following the rules of merit or law, they will be encouraged to violate discipline and use connections to retain their positions in the team, and when matches are played with this intent. the likelihood of a volatile and uncertain performance will always be a high probability.

The difference between the more consistent performers in any sector, including sports, is to have institutions based on systems, rather than based on personalities. The Australian team is an example of how, regardless of players’ coming and going, their performance variation is in an acceptable range. Hardly will you see in the world the head of the country heading cricket patronship and appointing people of his own choice as heads of these institutions, hardly will you see such a big entourage of officials accompanying teams, hardly will you see top team officials interfering in every aspect of team selection and training, hardly will you see any team making random decisions of replacing players in the chosen squad. The mismanagement of the two great assets of Pakistan cricket, Saeed Ajmal and Mohammad Hafeez, is primarily due to the fact that with so much politics in the organization, planning for these two trump cards was left till it was too late.

Despite having a poor structure, despite having the uncertainty sword hanging over their necks and despite having no international teams visiting Pakistan, the team has done extremely well in spurts, and that is the hope for the remaining World Cup. However, if the performance does not improve, the real people to penalise are the ones who have sowed this virus of institutional decay to an extent where the fittest team has become too unfit to deal with the rigours of a world-class tournament where the margin of error is non-existent

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Price Of Power

The contrast between what the senate is supposed to represent and what it actually does indicates how democracy is being abused to suit the elite capture we have witnessed in our political system

That there is no free lunch in politics is understandable but that the lunch is extortionately expensive is unbelievable. Politics, in economic terms, is the game of imperfect competition. In democratic terms, those who enter parliament and the senate are people who represent the ordinary public and thus should be the true representative of the masses. When we look at the type of people who enter these august houses we find faces that, by no stretch of the imagination, resemble what the ordinary Pakistani represents except perhaps in one unfortunate aspect. The ordinary Pakistani is not educated and the same is the case with most of our political leaders, if we go by the generous amount of fake degrees being discovered amongst the assembly entrants. Ordinary Pakistanis can hardly afford two decent meals a day and live in abject poverty but our parliamentarians and senators live a life of abject luxury, ordinary citizens are being gunned down and bombed by mercenaries but parliamentarians ride in bulletproof cars with security people all around them to protect their precious lives, ordinary citizens, when sick, cannot find basic healthcare in public hospitals but politicians get millions of rupees in medical allowances to get healthcare in VIP hospitals abroad, ordinary citizens cannot find and afford decent education for their children but politicians go to conferences and programmes worth billions to the most exotic countries in the world and, of course, the ordinary citizen will pay huge amounts in direct and indirect taxes on his paltry income but politicians will hardly bother to register an NTN number in their name on their unlimited income.

That is why being a parliamentarian, senator or minister beats anything else as far as money, luxuries and power are concerned. That is why being elected in one of the houses is such a cutthroat and wheeling dealing business. That is why more money exchanges hands in elections than in a stock exchange. The business of elections follows the same rules of seeing how many buyers are there and is based on supply and demand price per seat formula. The current senate elections have also become a market place for the highest bidder with the starting price being so high that no ordinary man can dream of being part of this ‘upper house’. Again, the contrast between what the senate is supposed to represent and what it actually does indicates how democracy is being abused to suit the elite capture we have witnessed in our political system regardless of the form of government. The constitutional purpose of the senate is to provide a proportional representation of each province in law and policy making for the whole country. Senate elections take place in accordance with Article 59 of the Constitution. Each of the four provincial assemblies elect from the next senate election 23 members from their respective provinces that include 14 on general seats, four on seats reserved for technocrats including the ulema (clergy), four on seats reserved for women and one on the seat reserved for non-Muslims. Four members i.e. two on general seats, one technocrat including aalim and one woman, are elected from the federal capital whereas eight members are elected from the Federally Administrated Tribal Areas (FATA) in such manner as the president may by order prescribe.

The senate is a permanent legislative body that symbolises a process of continuity in national affairs. The term of its members is six years. However, one-half of its members retire after every three years. A vacancy in the senate, caused by resignation, death, incapacitation, disqualification or removal of a member, is filled through elections by the respective electoral college and the member so elected holds office for the un-expired term of the member whose vacancy he has filled.

A person seeking election to the senate should not be less than 30 years of age and should be registered as a voter in an area or province from where he seeks election and should meet other qualifications prescribed under Article 62 of the Constitution. Constitutionally, the candidate’s character and background requirements are highlighted in the typical articles but politically the major requirement is just huge money and the right connections in the right lobby. Many politicians who have been denied a seat have come open with the facts that bidding price for the seat starts at Rs 250 million and can go up to three times this amount depending upon the number of aspirants for that seat.

The very fact that people have paid such astronomical amounts to enter this house makes their purpose very clear. They see this entry as a gateway to status, recognition and a high return on investment. Being a senator gives them access to the VIP culture that is extremely important for people having this great need for pomp and ceremony that elevates them politically and personally. Secondly, becoming a senator gives you the power of being at the centre of doing or not doing favours to industries, contracts and projects. That ability to influence a decision in favour or against projects worth billions makes the job of recovering your seat cost easy. Thus the desire to enter the upper house is aligned with the desire to have an upper hand at wheeling dealing billions through various lobbies and the desire to up the game of having the privileges and pleasures of a blue passport, a chance to be another head with heads of states, an opportunity to be in the limelight of the media. As far as desire to serve the country is concerned that is, of course, a very noble desire and should be versed in every public conversation but has nothing to do with the intent of most of these upper men of the upper house.

Power not only corrupts but also makes you addicted to control. The ability to buy people’s choices, influence national decision making and subjugate all men of rank to your way of thinking is a very heady combination that explains this almost insane desire to bid all for a mere seat. This then is not democracy but a form of distributed autocracy. In the autocratic system one man gains control through force while, in this form of democracy, a few people and their connected individuals through a high priced auction system ensure that power remains hoarded in a club whose membership fee makes the entry of the ordinary man impossible. When power is purchased but not earned it will never be used for the benefit of the masses. To ensure that those who truly represent the masses are the ones who enter these houses, there is a need to review the entire system of not only electing but screening candidates, for creating barriers to power pushing, for ensuring a level playing ground between power haves and power have-nots. Otherwise democracy will always be a deceptive ozone layer for power hoarders.

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Intelligence Unwanted

The poor owners had their factory burned, case registered against them and yet paid Rs 150 million to probably save themselves from target killing

If ignorance is bliss, deliberate ignorance is an abyss. Being human and being ignorant is not fair and being human and not wanting to know is almost criminal. However, the art of looking the other way and the art of pretending it never happened is what is referred to as qualities of a sensible and mature person. Does being sensible mean being insensitive to one’s surroundings? Does being sensible mean being indifferent to the obvious? With so much innovation, development in the world to connect and communicate with everybody at all levels, why has this knowledge and information era made us more unaware and inactive? Social media is the true boundary breaker in the communications world. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and all sorts of chats have made messaging and talk cost-free and instant. Clickomania has overtaken face-to-face and telephonic conversations. One click and the life of the individual becomes bare and naked in front of you. With such advancement in technology, it is virtually impossible to hide under the excuse that information is hard to find, provided you do want to find it and, having found it, you want to do anything about it.

Here lies the dilemma of nations like ours where the proper usage of information is not being made to cruise along with more developing countries on the information highway. Lack of education and awareness is an almost inevitable feature of an underdeveloped country. However, the bigger crime is when information is turned into intelligence and deliberately suppressed or distorted to abuse the innocence of ignorance. It is this censor on the truth that makes countries become havens of crime and violence. What can be a bigger incentive for criminals to flourish than to see investigations leading to hardcore evidence being brushed away till it ceases to matter? This results in hardened criminality with multiplication of crimes to an extent where it is hard to distinguish who is and is not involved — exactly the reason for where Pakistan is today in terms of terrorism and law and order. With such a ‘distinguished’ record of investigative reports being pushed into the rubbish bin, one more report — on the Baldia Town fire — is just waiting to be shelved and become part of our bitter history. Why is there such an aversion to taking these reports seriously?

To answer the second part of the question, the best way to pacify the hue and cry of an aghast public is to order an investigation. It is legally and ethically the best immediate answer. Then you make it difficult for the report to be compiled and buy time so that by the time it is leaked or is debated, the events have lost their relevance and fury. Also, if those who commissioned the report have changed then it becomes easy to disown it and dismiss it. That is why, despite some really brilliant reports written on strategic level critical incidents, nothing has ever happened to make the whole effort worth it.

The most famous one was the Hamoodur Rehman Commission report. This commission was set up by the government of Pakistan to investigate the reasons and causes of its worst ever defeat by the Indian army and Mukti Bahini, a group that was involved in the freeing of Bangladesh from the oppressive control of Pakistan. The commission that was constituted on December 26, 1971 by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto submitted its report on October 23, 1974. It gave complete details of how moral, political and administrative failings were responsible for the surrender of the Pakistan army in East Pakistan. It also gave political reasons why the leaders in East Pakistan, including Mujibur Rehman, who was the president of the Awami League, were forced to resort to military struggle for the creation of Bangladesh. Sheikh Mujibur Rehman’s Awami League had won the election of united Pakistan held in 1970. The commission headed by the then Chief Justice (CJ) of Pakistan, Justice Hamoodur Rehman, held widespread atrocities, serious acts of human rights violations, other abuses of power by Pakistani generals and complete failure in civilian and martial law leaderships responsible for the loss of East Pakistan. The commission recommended stringent punishment for top army officials, including court martial for a number of them. The response of the man who commissioned this report was that Zulfikar Ali Bhutto ordered that each and every copy of the commission report be burnt.

Similar was the fate of the Abbottabad Commission report and the more recent Model Town Joint Investigative Team (JIT) report by Jusitce Najafi. The original JIT report by Justice Najafi stated that Punjab Chief Minister (CM) Shahbaz Sharif, then Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah, then Principal Secretary of the CM Dr Tauqeer Shah and other senior police officers were directly or indirectly responsible for the killings of at least 14 Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) workers and injuries to over 100 people when police clashed with PAT workers on June 17 in front of Tahirul Qadri’s residence in Model Town. The CM suppressed the report and withdrew it by saying that it was not complete and accurate, and then ordered another one under the supervision of the same people who were incriminated in the event.

Thus, when the Baldia Town report came out after two and a half years its delay was no surprise. But its findings are shocking. That 289 poor men, women and children were burnt alive as punishment for refusal of extortion is indigestible and unforgivable. The arrested target killer had recounted to interrogators how the factory was set on fire when its owners refused to pay extortion of Rs 200 million. Upon the refusal of the factory owners, Rehman Bhola and his unknown accomplices hurled chemical substances at the factory, which caused the inferno.

After the incident, a former provincial minister who belonged to the same political party got registered a case against the factory owners and, subsequently, used his influence to cancel the bail of the factory owners when they approached the court. However, the factory owners paid extortion money of Rs 150 million under duress for disposal of the case. Imagine the poor owners had their factory burned, case registered against them and yet paid Rs 150 million to probably save themselves from target killing.

This report is the true test of political parties, the state, media, civil society and public. The burning alive of 289 people is the biggest terrorism incident in recent history, bigger than Shikarpur and bigger than the Army Public School (APS) Peshawar, and with full intelligence available and criminals caught. Even if the politicians do the disappearing act, can we as human beings let something worse than Hitler’s gas chamber extermination of innocents be forgotten because we are too terrorised or cynical to challenge this tyranny? Time for some introspection and time for some action.

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