Jubilation in Pakistan: in word: Justice (IHT)

[katty]

more: http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/03/16/asia/voices.php

ISLAMABAD: It was a day of rejoicing, of drum playing and of smiling at strangers. Pakistan's chief justice had just been reinstated after a two-year struggle, and for those assembled in the country's capital to celebrate, anything seemed possible.

"We're watching history," said Javed Ali Khan, who had traveled for days with his wife and six children to participate in a national march on the capital called by the opposition. It was the opposition's perseverance in the face of government attempts to quash the march that led to the reinstatement.

Hassan Akhtar, a lawyer who grew up in England, gushed: "It's really wonderful. It's a once-in-a-lifetime experience. I couldn't even dream of this."

In the crowd, whose members included a radio announcer who was researching homosexuality and an illiterate mechanic who wore a flower pot on his head to stay cool and admitted to stealing monkeys to get by, one word was on everybody's lips.

"Justice," said Mr. Khan's wife, Rubina Javed, smiling broadly. "We came for justice."