In the revolutionary upsurge in the ME, the lack of social justice in the society served as the combustible that ignited the demand for civil liberties. Reliable surveys of viewpoints, expressed by the groups and young people in Tunis and Cairo following the replacement of political regimes, discovered a nearly identical pattern. With a sense of belonging to, and patriotism for, their respective nations, they evinced the aspiration for real change in and right transition of the political system. Towards this end, the multitude want real elections - versus the rigged polls - for the sake of genuine democracy, contrasted with the sham democracy. The yearning for such a democracy is an expression of the people for their political freedom, as a necessary component of their empowerment. The demand for democracy is not just a process-oriented exercise, that is, participation in elections and balloting without any reasonable correlation of the process with its underlying function of political accountability, electing the genuinely representative candidates, and maintaining the sanctity of vote. On the contrary, a result-oriented democratic process is longed for, so that the representative dispensation ensures from rulers such political conduct and the formulation of policies as to underwrite public and national interest. The economic factors enacted their own incendiary role in the eruption of popular upsurge. The lack of economic opportunities, employment and social justice served as a triggering mechanism in the uprising. The rising price-index brought the discontented people in an open tumult. A cogent fact of proximate significance, related to the issue of mass uprisings being witnessed in the ME, is the extraordinary happening of the mostly manipulated food-price hikes in the international market. The principle, of course, instrumental behind the engineering of indicated consumer prices is the economic determinism - a principle that was also at the centre of supposedly outdated Marxism. The irony cannot escape the observation that if Marx systematised this principle for the sake of humanism, in the present circumstances the principle seems to have been put into its perverse usage. Now as a well known fact, the volatile point for the transnational uprisings in the ME was the attempt at self-immolation by a roadside hawker under economic duress in Tunis. As an index of the general feelings of economic distress, this particular episode became widely associated with the lack of political freedom as well. In the revolutionary upsurge in the ME, the lack of social justice in the society served as the combustible that ignited the demand for civil liberties. Social justice refers to a morally defensible distribution of benefits or rewards in society, evaluated in terms of wages, profits, housing, medical care, welfare benefits and so forth. Inequalities of economic and employment opportunities due to political favouritism and similar other reasons, besides of course the mismanagement of budgetary allocations, are evidently violating the norms of social justice. As a matter of fact, the prolonged and wide-based mismanagement of national economy in the form of foreign and domestic debt-servicing, lopsided defence expenditure, and daily printing of paper-money by the Pakistan government in place - reportedly Rs 2 billion daily to meet the expenditure - without regard to the induced inflation, are the main factors in the deterioration of social justice. The unequal distribution of wealth between the prosperous and industrial north and developing south is multi-factorial, no doubt. However, the fact relevant to worsening economic conditions in the Arab ME and arc of other Islamic countries, including Pakistan, from the standpoint of social justice, remains the flight of capital abroad. The famously made statement, ascribed to British statesman Palmerston, concerning permanent allies versus permanent interests, finds its application upon some ranking Western states in the present sense. For instance, as an index of the flight of capital - so valuable and much needed for the countries of its origination for investment, development, and employment opportunities - according to credible estimates by Global Financial Integrity, approximately $57 billion in illicit assets left Egypt alone between 2000 and 2008. With the permanent interests of some leading Western states centring upon such large, likely illicit, financial assets, the economic distress in the ME Arab nations became the cause of widespread discontentment that was to erupt in popular demonstrations. The transfer of financial assets to the international market, from these developing Middle Eastern and other Muslim countries, is an illicit activity that indicates the rampant corruption practised by the ruling regimes. Aside from the damages attributed to the illicit flight of capital, the soaring corruption in the societies under review adds at least as much as 10 percent to the internal cost of doing business globally, and as much as 25 percent to the cost of procuring contracts in developing countries. The deleterious impact upon the export, domestic economic development and employment opportunities is an additional factor that compounds the discontent among the populace. The economic factor as the cause of public upheaval in the developing countries - the Arab ME and Pakistan included - was most affected by the world food crisis (2007-2008) that continues without control. The excessive increase in the prices of food commodities has also impacted the prices of other commodities. This problem remains acute even as nations report renewed economic growth and as global food production remains stable. The rising prices of food products prompt merchants to retain and horde their goods for the sake of profiteering. The principles of demand and supply, though serve as the explanatory basis for the rise in food prices, but the market fundamentals do not offer a satisfactory rationale. Because the main reason behind the food crisis lies elsewhere. For instance, over 150 percent surge in rice prices during 2007 in the presence of stable rice stocks, with normal market fundamentals, is in need of an explanation separate from demand-and-supply principles. After the collapse of the housing market in the US, banks and hedge funds started to divert exorbitant amounts into financial speculation on food commodities. During 2006, the indicated speculation was causing the food commodity prices to trade at 50 percent higher than what could have been the prices on the basis of market fundamentals of demand and supply. As a consequence, the effects of artificial food price increase have been significant upon the developing countries. It is estimated that 50 to 60 percent of the income is being spent on food purchases in the Arab and Muslim states, in contrast with 10 percent in the advanced states. In this perspective, a recent article in The Moscow Times, under the caption Link between capitalism and hunger, attributed the crisis of food prices, in the countries presently experiencing revolutionary tide, to a system in which human needs are subordinated to the whims of the market. According to the UNs Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), which monitors the Food Price Index - that is, average monthly price changes for a variety of key staples - world food prices have hit record highs. The food price index in the preceding month was at the highest level since FAO began monitoring prices in 1990, and the latest index was the 18th consecutive monthly rise. The oil price spikes, experienced due to lost output from Libya, could push the food prices even higher. With the risk of the unrest spreading to other oil producing countries of the ME and Arabian Peninsula, the oil prices are likely to increase further and, due to the nature of conflict, particularly in Libya, the price hike is a long-term scenario. Higher oil prices affect all aspects of the sequence of food production from fertiliser to transport. Therefore, the popular unrest in the arc of Muslim countries is likely to spread. A brief consideration of three aspects will allow a predictable view of the revolutionary future of Pakistan. These aspects are: The politico-economic conditions that ushered in the French Revolution (1789) - adopted in history as a model of revolution. Reliable view concerning the tendencies in a society prior to a revolution. An assessment of the ongoing revolutionary tide in the ME. In the French Revolution, a revolutionary state of mind, shaped by lingering political conditions in France, coincided with an economic breakdown - near bankruptcy of the state. A historian, Crane Brinton, analysing the tendencies of a society, considered socio-political tensions due to the gradual breakdown of the values of a society as features of a pre-Revolutionary society. There are prominent common features between the revolutionary conditions in the ME and Pakistan, e.g. deteriorating economic conditions and deficiency of credible national leadership. However, Pakistan differs from the situation in the Arab ME for at least having semi-dependable institutions, such as the elected government, freedom of press, judicial independence, and political party system. Notwithstanding these encouraging features, with the coexistence of revolutionary conditions in society - especially, economic conditions and political disillusionment - a trigging event on the analogy of the dismissal of popular Finance Minister at the initiation of French Revolution, or the recent initiating event in Tunis, prediction of popular upheaval in Pakistan cannot be excluded. The writer is the chairman of the Pakistan Ideological Forum Email: suhrabaslam@hotmail.com