???Most Pakistanis Don???t Want The Army In Politics???

Unrepentant Marxist, writer, journalist, filmmaker and political campaigner, Tariq Ali is still searching for socialism with a human face. He sits on the editorial board of the New Left Review and is a regular columnist for The Guardian, Counter Punch and the London Review of Books. He compares Marx with the Prometheus of Greek mythology who stole the heavenly gift of fire from Zeus and brought it to the mortals. What we do with that fire is up to us, he is fond of saying. Tariq Ali was in Delhi recently to deliver the Faiz Ahmed Faiz Memorial Lecture. He had a freewheeling interview with Bharat Bhushan, a shorter version of which appeared in print:When you look at your original homeland, Pakistan, what thoughts come to your mind?A congregation of pain ??? to quote from Faiz Ahmad Faiz???s great poem Aaj ke naam ??? in Urdu, ???dard ki anjuman???. The country has gone from bad to worse. You feel sometimes that things can???t get worse and they do. We first had the effect of military dictatorships on social political life in the country and now we have got a civilian government which is probably the most corrupt government in the entire history of the country. What staggers me is that Zardari is so shameless. On his face you do not read any regret for what he has done and he will carry on doing it till the United States keep him in power. That is the situation in the country today.You have often said that Pakistan has mostly been ruled by governments which have been US puppets. How and when will Pakistan be government by and for Pakistanis?The young people want to get a government elected by the people and for the people. Whether Imran Khan will pull it off or not ??? I do not know. The planks of his programme are friendly, but independent, relations with the United States and moving away from puppet status. He actually says that in his campaigns ??? about 70 per cent of the population sees the US as its enemy. It used to be India, but now it is the United States.”Th