The United Nations International Day for Abolition of Slavery is observed across the world, including Pakistan, on December 2 every year. This year, too, the day was remembered and the pledge renewed to end slavery in any form, according to a news agency report.
The God-fearing people are in search of any such electronic and print media reporter who can tell them if any activity was witnessed anywhere in Rawalpindi and Islamabad, or any human rights advocate, or non-governmental organisation, had arranged any function on the occasion in any urban or rural area around the federal capital territory to provide an opportunity to men, women and children to open their mouth against poverty, illiteracy and exploitation, which drove them to slavery. The common man, feeling crippled financially by surging food prices and aggressive utility bills, has lost confidence in political leaders and very often says most of them, in power or out of it, are intellectually slave to monetary institutions under the clout of an imperialist country whose president at the beginning of the 21st century asserted more than once that he’s the mightiest on the earth.
The common man says “there’s crisis of leadership in my country, 40 per cent of the country’s population live below the poverty line, we beg billions of dollars as loans from IMF, World Bank and the US on their exploitative conditions, how we spend such borrowed huge amounts, who takes away the money, and what’s the net result of such financial and economic policies, we the poor masses have no knowledge of real facts, we just feel we’re slaves — our children at the mercy of feudal lords and capitalists who sit in the so-called assemblies — and our rulers seek blessing as slaves from a foreign power.
Why don’t they seek guidance from God almighty? Doesn’t the Quran provide a complete code of life of mankind — social, economic, educational, cultural and political?” Haven’t we forgotten Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) who established the first-ever people’s welfare state in the world? Don’t we urgently need it now?
By the way, one purpose of the Anti-Slavery Day reportedly observed across the world is to remind the people that the modern slavery works against human rights, another is to exhort people and their governments to translate the words of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that “no one shall be held in slavery or servitude” through their actions. Does the Anti-Slavery Day have any impact on members of the United Nations Organization, like the United States of America, Israel and India? No! Not at all, not even in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, which was achieved after long arduous struggle against an imperialist power at the cost of more than a million human lives — men, women and children — with a great vision. And that was to evolve a state with a people’s government based on principles of equality and social justice, in other words socialism which emphasises equality and brotherhood of man, and equal opportunities for all.
About 13 centuries before the birth of the UNO (1945), of Pakistan (1947) and adoption of the UN Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others (Resolution 317-IV) of December 2, 1949, God’s last Prophet (PBUH) set up the welfare state as role model for the world for all times to come. He was a great socialist who found that the masses were being exploited economically and socially by a section of people who practiced usury. He forbade it and introduced the system of Zakat, Sadqah and Fitr. The distribution of wealth in the society dealt a deathblow to capitalism and feudalism. He encouraged the people to turn attention to trade and agriculture. Many such measures contributed to building of national economy. He abolished the slavery system in vogue among the Arabs.
The slavery system prevailed among the Greeks, the Romans, the Jews and the Christians, who treated the slaves very inhumanly and possessed the life-and-death power over them. They did nothing for the welfare of the slaves. Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) raised the status of the slaves, declaring “there’s no service more acceptable to God than the emancipation of slaves.” He himself purchased the slaves to set them free and advised his followers to treat them with kindness and justice.
The elders of the twin cities, including school and college teachers and media persons, recall the struggle of the lawyers, doctors, poets, writers and youths of revolutionary ideas to eliminate the system of slavery in whatever form it existed in the country. They blame the failure of the united effort on the feudal elements in the assemblies under the covert patronage of the imperialists who wanted perpetuation of class system in the country. That’s why and how slavery still exists in the country. The question also is alive: how to get rid of slavery? The answer, say the educated youths, is simple: unity of the people, both civil and military, with faith in God almighty and working discipline to develop Pakistan into a social welfare state with strong national economy and defence.
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