In this era of the 21st century, we Pakistanis, as a society and as a nation have become habitual to criticise and blame government for our every problem. We blame government for corruption, for dry tabs, for load shedding, for illiteracy, for poverty, for unemployment, even for mosquitoes and many more.  

The reason behind it is that we live in a democratic country, whose constitution gives us some fundamental rights for the expression of our thoughts and hence we blame the government. Before blaming the government for our problems, we need to realise about our civic responsibilities and duties. We blame the government for illiteracy but first we need to realise that we are the people who do not send our children to government schools (which provide education, books and even uniform for free). We blame the government for uncleanliness, dirty roads and filthy public places but we should think about it who threw the litter. Surely authorities are responsible for daily cleanliness but civilians are responsible for that dirt and uncleanliness when they throw garbage instead of putting it in dustbin thinking that sweepers are responsible for that mess when they don’t do their duty.  

We blame government for territory but do honour killings ourselves. We blame the government for corruption but we give bribes to police and officials, we use pirated movies, software and music, we don’t pay taxes, we hide our income during the calculation of income taxes and we prefer to buy exam papers and grades instead of studying the whole year. Directly or indirectly almost every person is involved in corruption but we have a problem with only corrupted politicians. So before blaming officials and politicians we need to correct ourselves and realise our civic responsibilities. 

GHINWA NAEEM,  

Lahore, August 17.