Whenever Pakistani NGO people have a chance to mingle with fellow Subcontinental, one question always comes up. Why are Pakistani NGOs so passive and mute about the effects of International Monetary Fund, World Bank and World Trade Organisation policies?
As the question is inevitable, the answer has also been immutable—a routine palaver of how elitist Pakistani NGOs are, and how they don´t take pains to reach out to the grassroots. No matter how valid the excuses, the fact is that this deafening silence on the part of the public, and especially the NGOs, has helped make the Pakistani government the most willing, unprotesting and uninhibited embracer of free market economy and structural adjustment programmes.
It has been successful in drowning out the feeble squeaks of dissent in a cacophony of slogans and rhetoric such as: "In one year Pakistan has attracted more foreign investment than in the last 20 years combined."
What is not mentioned is that most of this investment is still on paper and even if it comes it will use the country as a free-for-all joyride exploiting its already overburdened people. "When we talk of the multinationals , among ourselves we say they have come to their Dubai," says Amjad Ali Jawa, president of a domestic pharmaceutical companies organisation.