The Power of Tony Montana

In the 1983 epic crime film, Scarface directed by De Palma starring Al Pacino as Tony Montana, one of the dialogues that made it to the list of all time famous quotes in the history of cinema is Montana’s, ”In this country you gotta make the money first. Then when you get the money, you get the power. Then when you get the power, Then you get the Woman.”

For some of us living in Karachi, power is a touchy word. There’s always shortage of power here, theoretically as well as literally, so the power fails a couple of times a day. For those of you living outside pakistan, let me explain that the power i speak of here is “electricity” , and power outages on a daily basis, is a concept most of you in the west cant ever comprehend. Nevertheless, we here have become immune to this hapless system, and we have learnt well to manage our lives between the darkness and the light. Since we are a third world country, the powers controlling us, expect us to remain in the dark on most matters in any case. Here, if you are rich enough to do something about the darkness around you, then you will invest in a generator, produce your own electricity, and continue to pay high bills and government taxes for a basic utility they are not providing you. If you are poor, you’ll take an old newspaper fold it into a fan, and cuss at the authorities while fanning yourself to sleep at night, wondering to yourself, if those in power will ever manage to get the basics right, despite 61 years of independance. Could this be the power Tony Montana spoke of?

Perhaps Tony meant, another kind of power. The power to make things happen. I know alot of people who can make things happen, but just because they can, does’nt really mean they do. Has our government done all they could to better the lives of its citizens. Perhaps not, because Tony said, you gotta make the money first. So our new President thought he should go around collecting alms for the country first. Though most would think we could have exchanged all our aRms for aLms. Afterall dont we now want to promote ourselves as a peaceful nation, after Times magazine titled us the most dangerous country in the world earlier this year. Our current Govt has always felt, those previously in power spent too much of the GDP on defense, so here was a good chance to give up the defeanse weapons in exchange for money to feed and educate the poor, since AK47s and nuclear weapons cant satiate a country dying of hunger. Now, with a nice chunky loan from the IMF, the Presidential House can throw a bash for the big boys with the booze flowing freely, and of course the women too. Mr. Montana, how do you run a country with weaponry, wine and women?

When you have the money and the power, you just cant wait to spend it. With the recent loan, our government has immense buying power. At least someones got the buying power, the poor masses are being juiced out with the soaring inflation and the middle class is being juiced by taxes. So what will our new government buy us before the money burns a hole through the statesmen’ pockets. Will it buy us light in our times of darkness? Will it buy us peace with our friends across the borders? Will it buy an education system for 80% of the illiterate population? Will it buy us security ? Will it buy food for those dying in hunger? Will it buy us more arms? Will it buy us a new Global image? Or will it buy us a whole new system? Now that we got the money, according to Tony, next step is power.

Leaders like the late Ms.Bhutto, stood for the power of the people. Though whenever she was in power, there was little her govt ever did for the poor masses who elected her, but that’s the illusion we call “democracy”, a term that first appeared in ancient Greek political systems. The history of the democratic party in the US goes back to Thomas Jefferson in the late 17th century, who started the first political party with the conviction that the federal government was assuming too much power over domestic policy. One of the earliest instances of a civilization with a democracy was that founded in the republics of ancient India, established roughly sometime before the 6th century BC. These republics were known as Maha Janapadas, and among these states was Vaishali what is now Bihar) . It is interesting to note that The Republic of India is currently the largest democracy in the world, and so arguably also the oldest. Today there stands over 120 countries that enforce a democratic government which is an all time high and is a trend that is increasing rapidly, so much in fact that ”democracy” will become the universal standard of society.

In most democratic systems across the globe the extent of the peoples power is their choice to vote, after which the power of the people is transferred to their elect. What if, though, the people retained their right of power. Just like the caveman, a person in modern times is also playing the ‘surival of the fittest’ game, selfishly thinking only of himself. However, what we fail to realize is, that by collectively, combining thoughts and consiousness we could be more powerful than the world’s strongest army, is the pen not mightier than the sword? “United you stand, divided you will fall“ a farmer once, told his sons. Unfortunately, today the boundaries are increasing, the borders are building, the divides are vast expanding, the hatred and intolerance for each other on the basis of caste, color and creed, worldwide, is being ingrained into the mind of every individual through media and society, mentally draining us of any positivity and free thought we might have, rendering us powerless.

How unfortunate, because God created each one of us, with immense amounts of power, its just that we did’nt ever learn to acknowledge it. The power of the mind. The power given to each one of us when we are born, the power to create health, wealth and happiness for ourselves and peace for the universe, by simply channeling our thoughts in the right direction in accordance to the laws of this universe. How much does a human brain think? 70,000 is the number of thoughts produced on an average day. What do we think about?

So thought for today. Do you believe you have the POWER….if so which one? The one that will bring you the money and the women alongside, or the power that brings about change, given freely to you by the Creator, the essence of your soul !



Have a power packed week...