The Feudal gods of Pakistan
(A Poem by Faraz Parvez, Pen Name of Dr. Arshad Afzal, Former Faculty Member, Umm Al-Qura University, Makkah, KSA)
I have seen them,
The Feudal Lords wrapped in velvet hypocrisy,
perfumed with borrowed morality,
lounging in their gilded palaces while the beggars burn in the sun,
picking their teeth with the bones of the starving,
smiling at the carcasses of justice rotting in their courtyards.
They ride white Land Cruisers over the spines of broken men,
their laughter thick with whiskey and the scent of blood,
while the peasants chew on dry roti and illusions,
sipping on dreams that dissolve in the acid of reality.
O Pakistan!
Land of saints and landlords,
where democracy is a brothel and justice is blindfolded with dollar bills,
where ministers plant factories in the gardens of the poor,
where the hands that build are chopped off,
and the tongues that speak are silenced, buried under unmarked graves.
The generals count their gold as the orphans count their tears,
the bureaucrats sign death warrants with ink made of sweat and sorrow,
while the politicians carve the nation’s ribs into banquet tables,
feasting on the fat of a dying republic.
I have seen the young man with a degree in one hand
and a begging bowl in the other,
standing before the mansion gates,
his future sold to the highest bidder—
but the auctioneer never called his name.
I have seen the woman in the hospital corridor,
her child gasping for breath,
as the doctor counts his bribes
and the minister inaugurates another useless bridge.
O Pakistan!
You were meant to rise,
but your wings were clipped by the greedy hands
of those who swore to protect you.
Your rivers dry while their Swiss accounts flood,
your soil cracks while their stomachs swell,
your poets are silenced while their lies echo through the marble halls.
But listen!
The streets murmur, the walls whisper, the air shudders—
there is a storm coming,
a revolution humming in the veins of the forgotten,
a reckoning carved into the stones of history.
No throne lasts forever,
no dynasty outruns the tide,
and one day, the palaces will crumble,
the golden gates will rust,
and the children of the broken will rise,
writing a new anthem with the ink of rebellion.
O Pakistan!
Wake up from the nightmare of your oppressors,
shake off the chains of these feudal gods,
and claim the dawn that was always yours
