Pakistan Continues Ritual of Declaring Collapse While Powerholders Maintain Status Quo, Threatening Future Stability.

The Express Tribune provides an editorial that describes how a certain Pakistani practice is a recurring public announcement that the country is broken. An official at a podium declares the system is collapsed, the audience nods or claps, and everyone then goes back to running what has been declared unrunnable. The writer notes that the word "collapse" has been used so often in Pakistan that it has become part of the everyday vocabulary, as common as a "cash only" notice at a utility counter. Because collapse is now a genre, the nation no longer treats it as a crisis. For the piece, the author reminds readers that Pakistan was founded with a promise of equal citizenship, but its institutions have not kept pace. Land records older than independence still decide who has food and who does not. The civil service was built by a colonial administration to collect revenue, and it remains largely in that form. The tax system, which many wealthy people avoid paying, places the deepest burden on the least able to feel. The editorial also cites specific mismanagement cases. It says Pakistan imports wheat even though it has some of the world’s richest river plains, and other sectors manage to obtain exemptions while the salaried class pays higher electricity bills. These failures are presented as a deliberate transfer of cost from the powerful to the powerless. The article points out that the government has never genuinely fixed the problems. It talks about new provinces and re‑arranging administrative borders, but these proposals rarely become reality. The piece concludes that change will only happen if those who benefit from the status quo lose something. Until that happens, the same rhetoric and the same incompetence will continue. The editorial is attributed to The Express Tribune.