Originally Published in Yale Daily News
Published Friday, November 30, 2007
Within minutes of learning of a threat to public safety, more than 300 armed policemen — among them commandos of the elite Anti-Terrorist Squad, the pride of Pakistani police — had surrounded and violently subdued the would-be rebels. They acted swiftly and efficiently. Forty-eight young men were captured and whisked away to prison, where, under the anti-terrorism laws in force since the imposition of martial law in the country, they could be kept for as long as was deemed necessary. The reason for the imposition of martial law was to increase the ability of law enforcement agencies to take quick action, and the efficiency of this operation meant that the decision had been right: The state had won, its opponents crushed. The war on terror was back on track.
Except: Those arrested had nothing to do with terrorism. They were students of local schools — secular institutions that regularly send graduates to colleges like Yale — and they had peacefully gathered after school to protest against martial rule in the country. Their mouths taped shut in protest, they held placards with their demands. Their demands: independence of judiciary, freedom of expression, restoration of democracy and reinstatement of the country’s constitution along with the fundamental human rights enshrined within it.
Apparently, that is too much to ask. Since the imposition of “a state of emergency” (euphemism for absolute martial law) in Pakistan on Nov. 3, thousands of ordinary citizens — lawyers, judges, journalists, intellectuals and students — have been arrested for demanding basic human rights. Many have been released, the regime trumpets, but many more are still being held on baseless charges, and in some cases without any charges filed at all. And then there is the matter of hundreds of people who have been missing for months (and some for years) after having been picked up by intelligence agencies in faux counter-terrorism operations. All this while, the government has failed to check the real threat to Pakistan and the rest of the world: the militancy brewing in the tribal areas on the Afghan border.
Musharraf’s Pakistan is a case study in the sheer hypocrisy of the Bush Doctrine. While using democracy as an excuse to go to war against a hostile dictator in Iraq, the current American administration has labeled Pakistan’s dictator “an indispensable ally” and propped up his regime by billions of dollars in military aid. Up until the imposition of absolute rule in Pakistan, Bush administration officials labeled Musharraf’s clampdown on opposition “an internal matter,” and even after the imposition of absolute rule in Pakistan, their reaction has been little more than a slap on the wrist.
By demanding that Musharraf give up his post as the head of the military to his handpicked successor before taking oath as president — a demand that he fulfilled yesterday — the Bush administration has demanded merely a cosmetic change. The real issue is not whether Musharraf wears a military uniform to work, but whether his power can be checked by any institution of the state. Musharraf has amended the constitution to give himself special powers and has arrested all the independent judges who challenged him. By replacing them with his cronies, he has effectively ended any checks to his power, and the fact that the Bush administration has conveniently chosen to ignore this in its demands to Musharraf speaks of its duplicity.
However, the Bush administration has not been merely hypocritical in supporting dictatorship in Pakistan; it has also been dangerously naive. The administration has remained convinced by Musharraf’s claim that his absolute rule is the best bet for combating terrorism in Pakistan, that a democratic Pakistan will fall to rising Islamism and, ultimately, terrorism. This claim could not be farther from the truth.
While it is true that some parts of Pakistani society have had a dangerous flirtation with extremist Islam, they have always existed outside the mainstream political process, which has tended to remain moderate. Pakistan’s is a vibrant and progressive political system: The country saw (and almost elected, save election-rigging by another American-backed dictator) its first major female candidate for president when Hillary Clinton was still in high school. By suppressing moderate and secular democratic opposition, and bypassing the political process, the current regime has only served to strengthen extremist forces. As a result, the threat of terrorism faced by Americans and Pakistanis alike is greater today than it was ever before primarily because of the current American administration’s decision to cast its weight behind a dictator instead of civil society and democratic institutions.
This decision is proven wrong every day in Pakistan when thousands of citizens gather peacefully to defy Bush’s indispensable dictator while, at the same time, opposing extremism. Today, Pakistan will see the largest youth-led protests in recent history: Coordinated student rallies are planned in three cities across the country. Some of us may get arrested, some injured and some may even disappear.
But in the struggle for freedom for our countrymen, these are risks we have to be willing to take. Will we succeed? The answer may just lie in how indispensable a cowardly dictator is for the land of the free and the home of the brave.
p.s. the title in YDN was "The real terrorist in Pakistan is Pervez Musharraf". I did not choose that title, and I don't quite agree with it personally. In my view, Musharraf is not "the real terrorist", but a dictator who has failed his country and his American sponsors by failing to tackle the threat of terrorism.
30 November 2007
12 September 2007
The children of 9/11
Op-ed in The Guardian
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/samar_abbas_kazmi/2007/09/the_children_of_911.html
We hate them, said one of them passionately as the others nodded in agreement.
We were in the heart of the Pakistani capital, a few days after the government’s crackdown against the Red Mosque. The boys, none older than 19, had just graduated from an elite secular school owned by the family of the Pakistani Foreign Minister. And, no, ‘them’ did not refer to the terrorists killing dozens every week across the country. It referred to the Pakistani government and the Western powers with which it is allied.
I had run into some of my ex-students –from when I had taught during my gap year before heading off to college in America –at Hot Spot, an upscale ice cream joint and one of the few places for youngsters to congregate in Islamabad. Even though it had been more than five years since I had last seen them, I remembered them well: they had been the smartest and the most sociable amongst my students. We started talking and, as is often the case in Islamabad, our conversation soon turned to politics. Theirs was a simple politics, one that traced the origins of all of Pakistan's ills to Washington and London via the establishment in Islamabad. Why do they insist on running our lives? They talk about democracy and then support dictators. When we dissent, they call us terrorists. If they can’t accept our differences, they deserve what’s happening, I was calmly told, they are all hypocrites…
Radical words these, especially coming from them¸ the scions of moderate and liberal families that constitute Musharraf’s ‘silent majority’, the last people one would expect to be openly anti-Western. And a far cry from one of the first times we had discussed politics: for Jinnah’s death anniversary, which fell quite ironically on 11/9, as they date was still styled in those days, I had asked my students to speak on what that day meant for Pakistan. Only 13 then, these very boys had expressed grief at how the founder’s death, soon after the birth of the nation, had made it easy for mullahs –all hypocrites, someone had said then –to hold successive governments hostage and take power away from the people.
I remember also how distraught we had all been in class the next morning –9/12, no matter where you were in the world –and how one of the boys had talked about his family having stayed up the whole night worrying for his uncle who worked in New York City’s financial district.
And I can not forget the day our school participated in the first of the Sab Sey Pehlay Pakistan (“Pakistan before All Else”) rallies the government had sponsored in order to demonstrate support for its decision to ally with the US against the Taliban. All my students had turned up with enthusiastic letters of support from their parents, and had waved Pakistani flags and chanted slogans to show their support for the government. Same government, same war, but now, such opposition!
So, what happened to the class of 2007, once the poster boys of Musharraf’s Enlightened Moderation?
A quick recap of the last six years. With the exception of the most cold-hearted of our human race, everyone was appalled at the attacks of 9/11. Such unprecedented sympathy and support went to America that Bush really should have saved the ‘with us or against us’ for another time. The case for the war against the Taliban was strong, and most Pakistanis supported, loudly or silently, an action that would neutralize them. On October 7th, the bombing began, by November 12th, Kabul had been secured, and by early 2002, a new Afghan government was in place. So far, so very good. However, at some point soon after that historic jirga where the new government was selected, someone, somewhere between Washington and London, somehow lost the plot. The idea had been to destroy the ability of the terrorists to use Afghanistan as a base camp, which meant that after the overthrow of the Taliban and the installation of a friendly regime in Kabul, Afghanistan was to be stabilised and developed. This would have meant, in the more revolutionary days of the Marshall Plan, more boots and more aid.
Neither came. Afghanistan ached, pined and suffered. The Taliban resurfaced, and soon it became clear that the Americans did not have enough resources on the ground to tackle the resurgence. So, they started pressurizing the dictator next door, whose illegitimate regime they had shored up by giving him a lot of money, to do more on his side of the border. This is what they asked him to do: there are some people, who may have escaped from right under our jurisdiction into those tribal areas of your country that your army is, by law and custom, not supposed to enter. Find them and bring them to us. Orders given, off they went to liberate other lands elsewhere. America’s war had been successfully outsourced.
Or so they thought. Musharraf had his own concerns to deal with. If he went in to the Tribal Areas, it meant exposing his soldiers to the wrath of the fiercely independent tribes. On the other hand, if he stayed out, it meant exposing himself to the wrath of his American patrons. Always a decisive man, he did neither and both, and, in so doing, incurred the wrath of each. In the meanwhile, having neutralized most major secular opposition in the country, he held elections, and the MMA –a coalition of religious parties, many of whom had supported the Taliban during the war and continued to endorse them –won the provinces on the Afghan frontier. The possibility of Islamists gaining power democratically meant the end of real American pressure on Musharraf to democratise. With the only earthly enforcer of Pakistan’s destiny not interested, Musharraf was free from his sworn responsibility to reintroducing democracy.
Five years have passed since the last Pakistani elections, and the next ones are due soon. While Musharraf has promised to transition to democracy many times, not once has he come any close. Americans, for their part, have continued to pay lip-service to democracy, but have, in practice, discouraged any real movement, with the exception of their recent toying around with the idea of a Benazir-Musharraf alliance. Meanwhile, the security situation in Pakistan has deteriorated to an unprecedented level, and mass violence has become routine.
It is in this milieu that the boys I knew in 2001 have spent their entire teenage years, along with millions of other Pakistani youth. They live in a constant state of aftershock, the reverberations of 9/11 being felt every day, from the mobilisation of troops on the Eastern front in 2001 to kidnappings of troops on the Western front last month. Their world is not one in which America was attacked, but one in which the resonance of America’s response is felt daily; it is one that is affected more by the aftermath of the tragedy than the tragedy itself. For these young men, the tragedy of 9/11 is a faded memory of childhood, shrouded in politics for which they do not care. Their tragedies are different and more recent: suicide bombings in Pakistani cities, disappearances and extra-judicial killings in the name of the war against terror, and the disproportionately low news coverage such instances receive in the Western media. The only face of the West they see is an ugly one: soldiers pointing guns at old women, prison guards smirking as they photograph tortured prisoners, haughty US senators accusing their country of being solely responsible for terrorism. That the world is no safer today than it was six years ago is less of a concern to them than the fact that their world is a lot more dangerous today. They have had it with being unimportant citizens of a country that is routinely brushed aside and insulted by its allies. How is it that we are always called terrorists, asked one, rhetorically of course, when we have suffered more loss than any of their allies?
They have had enough of America’s war, a thankless war for a dubious cause that took over their childhood. They have had enough of their government, with nothing to give them but empty promises and lies for their youth. They are angry and they are willing to do something about it. They believe they have been dealt the worst hand in America’s war of revenge, and they are rearing for a new chance. Next elections, they will be eligible to vote, and their worldview will definitely form a part of the discourse. The children of 9/11 have come of age, and they demand to be heard.
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/samar_abbas_kazmi/2007/09/the_children_of_911.html
We hate them, said one of them passionately as the others nodded in agreement.
We were in the heart of the Pakistani capital, a few days after the government’s crackdown against the Red Mosque. The boys, none older than 19, had just graduated from an elite secular school owned by the family of the Pakistani Foreign Minister. And, no, ‘them’ did not refer to the terrorists killing dozens every week across the country. It referred to the Pakistani government and the Western powers with which it is allied.
I had run into some of my ex-students –from when I had taught during my gap year before heading off to college in America –at Hot Spot, an upscale ice cream joint and one of the few places for youngsters to congregate in Islamabad. Even though it had been more than five years since I had last seen them, I remembered them well: they had been the smartest and the most sociable amongst my students. We started talking and, as is often the case in Islamabad, our conversation soon turned to politics. Theirs was a simple politics, one that traced the origins of all of Pakistan's ills to Washington and London via the establishment in Islamabad. Why do they insist on running our lives? They talk about democracy and then support dictators. When we dissent, they call us terrorists. If they can’t accept our differences, they deserve what’s happening, I was calmly told, they are all hypocrites…
Radical words these, especially coming from them¸ the scions of moderate and liberal families that constitute Musharraf’s ‘silent majority’, the last people one would expect to be openly anti-Western. And a far cry from one of the first times we had discussed politics: for Jinnah’s death anniversary, which fell quite ironically on 11/9, as they date was still styled in those days, I had asked my students to speak on what that day meant for Pakistan. Only 13 then, these very boys had expressed grief at how the founder’s death, soon after the birth of the nation, had made it easy for mullahs –all hypocrites, someone had said then –to hold successive governments hostage and take power away from the people.
I remember also how distraught we had all been in class the next morning –9/12, no matter where you were in the world –and how one of the boys had talked about his family having stayed up the whole night worrying for his uncle who worked in New York City’s financial district.
And I can not forget the day our school participated in the first of the Sab Sey Pehlay Pakistan (“Pakistan before All Else”) rallies the government had sponsored in order to demonstrate support for its decision to ally with the US against the Taliban. All my students had turned up with enthusiastic letters of support from their parents, and had waved Pakistani flags and chanted slogans to show their support for the government. Same government, same war, but now, such opposition!
So, what happened to the class of 2007, once the poster boys of Musharraf’s Enlightened Moderation?
A quick recap of the last six years. With the exception of the most cold-hearted of our human race, everyone was appalled at the attacks of 9/11. Such unprecedented sympathy and support went to America that Bush really should have saved the ‘with us or against us’ for another time. The case for the war against the Taliban was strong, and most Pakistanis supported, loudly or silently, an action that would neutralize them. On October 7th, the bombing began, by November 12th, Kabul had been secured, and by early 2002, a new Afghan government was in place. So far, so very good. However, at some point soon after that historic jirga where the new government was selected, someone, somewhere between Washington and London, somehow lost the plot. The idea had been to destroy the ability of the terrorists to use Afghanistan as a base camp, which meant that after the overthrow of the Taliban and the installation of a friendly regime in Kabul, Afghanistan was to be stabilised and developed. This would have meant, in the more revolutionary days of the Marshall Plan, more boots and more aid.
Neither came. Afghanistan ached, pined and suffered. The Taliban resurfaced, and soon it became clear that the Americans did not have enough resources on the ground to tackle the resurgence. So, they started pressurizing the dictator next door, whose illegitimate regime they had shored up by giving him a lot of money, to do more on his side of the border. This is what they asked him to do: there are some people, who may have escaped from right under our jurisdiction into those tribal areas of your country that your army is, by law and custom, not supposed to enter. Find them and bring them to us. Orders given, off they went to liberate other lands elsewhere. America’s war had been successfully outsourced.
Or so they thought. Musharraf had his own concerns to deal with. If he went in to the Tribal Areas, it meant exposing his soldiers to the wrath of the fiercely independent tribes. On the other hand, if he stayed out, it meant exposing himself to the wrath of his American patrons. Always a decisive man, he did neither and both, and, in so doing, incurred the wrath of each. In the meanwhile, having neutralized most major secular opposition in the country, he held elections, and the MMA –a coalition of religious parties, many of whom had supported the Taliban during the war and continued to endorse them –won the provinces on the Afghan frontier. The possibility of Islamists gaining power democratically meant the end of real American pressure on Musharraf to democratise. With the only earthly enforcer of Pakistan’s destiny not interested, Musharraf was free from his sworn responsibility to reintroducing democracy.
Five years have passed since the last Pakistani elections, and the next ones are due soon. While Musharraf has promised to transition to democracy many times, not once has he come any close. Americans, for their part, have continued to pay lip-service to democracy, but have, in practice, discouraged any real movement, with the exception of their recent toying around with the idea of a Benazir-Musharraf alliance. Meanwhile, the security situation in Pakistan has deteriorated to an unprecedented level, and mass violence has become routine.
It is in this milieu that the boys I knew in 2001 have spent their entire teenage years, along with millions of other Pakistani youth. They live in a constant state of aftershock, the reverberations of 9/11 being felt every day, from the mobilisation of troops on the Eastern front in 2001 to kidnappings of troops on the Western front last month. Their world is not one in which America was attacked, but one in which the resonance of America’s response is felt daily; it is one that is affected more by the aftermath of the tragedy than the tragedy itself. For these young men, the tragedy of 9/11 is a faded memory of childhood, shrouded in politics for which they do not care. Their tragedies are different and more recent: suicide bombings in Pakistani cities, disappearances and extra-judicial killings in the name of the war against terror, and the disproportionately low news coverage such instances receive in the Western media. The only face of the West they see is an ugly one: soldiers pointing guns at old women, prison guards smirking as they photograph tortured prisoners, haughty US senators accusing their country of being solely responsible for terrorism. That the world is no safer today than it was six years ago is less of a concern to them than the fact that their world is a lot more dangerous today. They have had it with being unimportant citizens of a country that is routinely brushed aside and insulted by its allies. How is it that we are always called terrorists, asked one, rhetorically of course, when we have suffered more loss than any of their allies?
They have had enough of America’s war, a thankless war for a dubious cause that took over their childhood. They have had enough of their government, with nothing to give them but empty promises and lies for their youth. They are angry and they are willing to do something about it. They believe they have been dealt the worst hand in America’s war of revenge, and they are rearing for a new chance. Next elections, they will be eligible to vote, and their worldview will definitely form a part of the discourse. The children of 9/11 have come of age, and they demand to be heard.
09 September 2007
Intrigue, intrigue
Off they flew then. With Regaine on his head, is Nawaz Sharif headed to regain what he had once shed? Or is the toupeed General going to blow the challenger away as before? Where, in all this, is Benazir? And is it true that she actually wears that dupatta to hide her baldness? Intrigue, intrigue.
And, more importantly: with Nawaz gone, and Benazir purportedly planning to leave, is the Dominion of Pakistan finally ready, 60 years after its creation, to be administered from inside its own borders? Wait, scrap that: Altaf Hussein is still in London to hold the fort for the Empire.
Nawaz '99 v Nawaz '07
And, more importantly: with Nawaz gone, and Benazir purportedly planning to leave, is the Dominion of Pakistan finally ready, 60 years after its creation, to be administered from inside its own borders? Wait, scrap that: Altaf Hussein is still in London to hold the fort for the Empire.
Nawaz '99 v Nawaz '07
06 September 2007
A Note of Thanks
Pakistan Defence Day, a solemn day of remembrance, a day when we set aside our internal differences, and come together as a nation, to thank those men in uniform who have made the supreme sacrifice for our motherland. We thank the young men whose mothers await death to reunite with their sons; we thank the newly-weds whose widows will spend their lives alone; we thank the fathers who exist only in faded childhood memories.
Today, I take the opportunity to thank the unsung heroes of our history: the brave and selfless Generals who have always forsaken their rights to martyrdom, choosing instead to suffer the misery of growing old with their children, and dispatched generations of men to everlasting glory.
On this day, how can I not thank the tactful Generals of ’65, the masterminds of the designed-to-fail Operation Gibraltar? The stalemate of a war you invited may have spilt innocent blood on both sides, and may have ended without the resolution of any issues, but it did put into reality for our nation that elusive philosophical concept, The Other: the perpetual enemy in whose opposition we must always define ourselves. We thank you for this important contribution to our national identity. We thank you also for being trendsetters, for your unprecedented actions have paved the way for the Generals of today.
I salute the resolve of the honourable Generals of ’71, whose tireless efforts made history. The mass murder that you oversaw in an assiduous, yet ultimately futile, attempt at maintaining our national honour and unity has rightfully catapulted Pakistan into a select list of proud nations alongside Japan and Germany. You tenaciously waged a war that most would have deemed unwinnable, just because it was honourable to do so. I have no doubt that the half a million Bihari patriots you deserted in Bangladesh join me in thanking you from their refugee camps for according us all this dignity.
I thank Allah daily for the benevolent Generals of ’77. An ambitious populist is a dictator-in-waiting, so thank you for pre-emptively liberating us by hanging Pakistan’s first popularly elected Prime Minister. It matters not if the charges against him were false: there is, after all, such a legal tradition as the Doctrine of Necessity. It is sad that only in the World Hereafter will we be able to properly thank you, O martyrs of Bahawalpur, for Islamisation and guns and drugs. It is no exaggeration to suggest that our thankless society will need a collective effort at a superhuman level to squander these gifts.
But the selfless Generals of ’07, I cannot thank enough. The entire Free World joins me in gratitude, my Lords, for you are beacons of freedom in the Muslim world. You have gallantly stood in the line of fire to defend us, and put Pakistan before all else. Your diplomatic acumen and political shrewdness have complemented each other to ensure that instead of being bombed ‘back to the Stone Age’, we will be suicide-bombed back merely a millennium and a half. To express our appreciation for this and so much more, the least we can do is to accept you and your successors as our Overlords for eternity; you are truly indispensable.
Dear Generals of the past and the present: thank you so very much. You have led us you with such exemplary tact, honour, benevolence and selflessness, that we continue to try and emulate you in our mundane civilian lives. You have shaped us as a nation, more so than any other force. You are the reason why any Pakistani, anywhere in the world, can proudly claim to be one. Were the great Noor Jehan alive today, she would surely re-dedicate to you her tribute to the fallen brave of September ’65:
Aey watan key sajeelay jawanu!
Meray Naghmey Tumharey Liay Hain…
O! Brave young men of the nation,
My songs are all for you…
------------------------
Today, I take the opportunity to thank the unsung heroes of our history: the brave and selfless Generals who have always forsaken their rights to martyrdom, choosing instead to suffer the misery of growing old with their children, and dispatched generations of men to everlasting glory.
On this day, how can I not thank the tactful Generals of ’65, the masterminds of the designed-to-fail Operation Gibraltar? The stalemate of a war you invited may have spilt innocent blood on both sides, and may have ended without the resolution of any issues, but it did put into reality for our nation that elusive philosophical concept, The Other: the perpetual enemy in whose opposition we must always define ourselves. We thank you for this important contribution to our national identity. We thank you also for being trendsetters, for your unprecedented actions have paved the way for the Generals of today.
I salute the resolve of the honourable Generals of ’71, whose tireless efforts made history. The mass murder that you oversaw in an assiduous, yet ultimately futile, attempt at maintaining our national honour and unity has rightfully catapulted Pakistan into a select list of proud nations alongside Japan and Germany. You tenaciously waged a war that most would have deemed unwinnable, just because it was honourable to do so. I have no doubt that the half a million Bihari patriots you deserted in Bangladesh join me in thanking you from their refugee camps for according us all this dignity.
I thank Allah daily for the benevolent Generals of ’77. An ambitious populist is a dictator-in-waiting, so thank you for pre-emptively liberating us by hanging Pakistan’s first popularly elected Prime Minister. It matters not if the charges against him were false: there is, after all, such a legal tradition as the Doctrine of Necessity. It is sad that only in the World Hereafter will we be able to properly thank you, O martyrs of Bahawalpur, for Islamisation and guns and drugs. It is no exaggeration to suggest that our thankless society will need a collective effort at a superhuman level to squander these gifts.
But the selfless Generals of ’07, I cannot thank enough. The entire Free World joins me in gratitude, my Lords, for you are beacons of freedom in the Muslim world. You have gallantly stood in the line of fire to defend us, and put Pakistan before all else. Your diplomatic acumen and political shrewdness have complemented each other to ensure that instead of being bombed ‘back to the Stone Age’, we will be suicide-bombed back merely a millennium and a half. To express our appreciation for this and so much more, the least we can do is to accept you and your successors as our Overlords for eternity; you are truly indispensable.
Dear Generals of the past and the present: thank you so very much. You have led us you with such exemplary tact, honour, benevolence and selflessness, that we continue to try and emulate you in our mundane civilian lives. You have shaped us as a nation, more so than any other force. You are the reason why any Pakistani, anywhere in the world, can proudly claim to be one. Were the great Noor Jehan alive today, she would surely re-dedicate to you her tribute to the fallen brave of September ’65:
Aey watan key sajeelay jawanu!
Meray Naghmey Tumharey Liay Hain…
O! Brave young men of the nation,
My songs are all for you…
------------------------
and for a tribute to the real heroes...
Aey watan key sajeelay jawano!
Meray naghmey tumharey liay hain.
Sarfroshi hai iman tumhara;
Juratoun keh paristar hau tum;
Jau hifazat karey sarhadoun kee,
Woh falak baus diwaar hau tum.
Aey shujaat key zinda nishano!
Meray naghmey tumharey liay hain.
Beweeion, maon, behnoun kee nazrein,
Tum kau dekhein tau yoon jagmagaein,
Jaisey khamoshion kee zubaan sey,
Dey rahee haun woh tum kau duwaein.
Quam key aey jaree paasbano!
Meray naghmey tumharey liay hain.
Tum peh jau kuch likha shairoun ney,
Uss mein shamil hai awaz meree;
Urh keh pohncho gey tum jis ufaq par,
Saath jaey gee perwaz meree.
Chaand taroun keh aey razdano!
Meray naghmey tumharey liay hain.
30 August 2007
Cricket Diplomacy
Barack Obama wants to bomb Pakistan.*
Upon hearing this, I admit, I was a little taken aback: Bomb Pakistan?! One of the most crucial allies in America’s war?! The country with the strongest army in the Muslim world?! Because some of its citizens are sympathetic to the other side?! Surely that’s absurd! That would be like bombing West Germany at the height of the Cold War!
For a moment, my loyalty to the phenomenon that is Obama wavered. Could he, Barack Obama, the future of the Democratic Party, really be so politically naïve as to openly suggest bombing a nuclear power? It would be one thing if the flip-flopping Democrats of old made such an absurd statement in a vain attempt to attract a few votes, but certainly Obama, the new hope for the American left, does not need to resort to such measures.
My mind blasphemed: Obama is no better than all the other Democrats who would say anything to try and woo those whose loyalties are already sealed for the other side because of their hatred for all darkies, Muslims and/or queers?
Soon, however, I got to thinking: there is great wisdom in Obama; there has to be a reason. After all, he is not your average trigger-happy American politician, being the only leading candidate openly willing to engage Iran, North Korea and Cuba in dialogue. He has repeatedly stated his desire to strengthen ties with traditional American allies, and reach across cultural barriers to engage those who have been left feeling estranged by the insensitive Bush administration.** Why attack Pakistan, “the most allied ally in Asia”?***
Then, it hit me: Obama, in his universal cross-cultural wisdom, has deciphered that most treasured of Pakistani cultural secrets, the mass murder of innocent civilians.
Killing civilians is a long-established and well-respected tradition in Pakistan. The sole domain of the very rich and powerful in the past, mass murder has become, with technology, and the grace of Allah, a truly national pastime. Today, even an illiterate, desperate, hopeless young man can kill hundreds on a good day. In the 70s, the country’s first popularly elected Prime Minister bombed the country’s largest province. In the 80s, America’s favourite dictator imported millions of AK-47s to meet our growing national demand for civilian-killing, along with the refugee-assassins and the drugs to facilitate it. Today, the Punjabis kill the Baluchis; the Baluchis kill the Pathans; the Pathans kill the Muhajirs; the Muhajirs kill the Sindhis; and the Sindhis kill their daughters. The Shias kill the Sunnis, the Sunnis kill the Shias, and everyone kills the Ahmadis. Only the Bengalis, unable to meet the minimum citizenship requirement of mindless violence, failed to join in the fun, and look what we did to them. I bet Mush wakes up every morning half-wanting to carpet-bomb Islamabad, infested with all those liberal extremists, religious fanatics, and activist judges challenging his moderately enlightened wisdom and what not. Unfortunately, in this day and age of media-induced scandals, he has to resort to covert kidnappings and targeted murder by the secret services. Let’s face it: more so than cricket, our national pastime is killing other Pakistanis, the more innocent the better.
So, Obama’s stated desire to bring the war to Pakistan should be seen as nothing more than a demonstration of deep respect for our culture. Violence really is the Pakistani equivalent of extending an olive branch. Some people say hi and some say aloha; we kill each other. Obama is merely trying to reach across cultural barriers and communicate with us. Forget the “cricket diplomacy” of the 20th century; we now have “bombing diplomacy”. With BO at the helm, the world will soon be fragrant with peace.
------------------------
O, Obama! Forgive me for having doubted your wisdom. Bomb away all you wish! And, while you’re at it, please send a few over to London as well: a lot of Pakis here feel really unloved in the West.
------------------------
*http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post_group/ObamaHQ/CpHR
** To that point, please check this out. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/6964564.stm
This government can’t seem to get anything right in the world nowadays.
*** Term coined in the 60s when Pakistan was a member of SEATO and CENTO, and re-used when Pres. Bush designated Pakistan a Major non-NATO Ally
Upon hearing this, I admit, I was a little taken aback: Bomb Pakistan?! One of the most crucial allies in America’s war?! The country with the strongest army in the Muslim world?! Because some of its citizens are sympathetic to the other side?! Surely that’s absurd! That would be like bombing West Germany at the height of the Cold War!
For a moment, my loyalty to the phenomenon that is Obama wavered. Could he, Barack Obama, the future of the Democratic Party, really be so politically naïve as to openly suggest bombing a nuclear power? It would be one thing if the flip-flopping Democrats of old made such an absurd statement in a vain attempt to attract a few votes, but certainly Obama, the new hope for the American left, does not need to resort to such measures.
My mind blasphemed: Obama is no better than all the other Democrats who would say anything to try and woo those whose loyalties are already sealed for the other side because of their hatred for all darkies, Muslims and/or queers?
Soon, however, I got to thinking: there is great wisdom in Obama; there has to be a reason. After all, he is not your average trigger-happy American politician, being the only leading candidate openly willing to engage Iran, North Korea and Cuba in dialogue. He has repeatedly stated his desire to strengthen ties with traditional American allies, and reach across cultural barriers to engage those who have been left feeling estranged by the insensitive Bush administration.** Why attack Pakistan, “the most allied ally in Asia”?***
Then, it hit me: Obama, in his universal cross-cultural wisdom, has deciphered that most treasured of Pakistani cultural secrets, the mass murder of innocent civilians.
Killing civilians is a long-established and well-respected tradition in Pakistan. The sole domain of the very rich and powerful in the past, mass murder has become, with technology, and the grace of Allah, a truly national pastime. Today, even an illiterate, desperate, hopeless young man can kill hundreds on a good day. In the 70s, the country’s first popularly elected Prime Minister bombed the country’s largest province. In the 80s, America’s favourite dictator imported millions of AK-47s to meet our growing national demand for civilian-killing, along with the refugee-assassins and the drugs to facilitate it. Today, the Punjabis kill the Baluchis; the Baluchis kill the Pathans; the Pathans kill the Muhajirs; the Muhajirs kill the Sindhis; and the Sindhis kill their daughters. The Shias kill the Sunnis, the Sunnis kill the Shias, and everyone kills the Ahmadis. Only the Bengalis, unable to meet the minimum citizenship requirement of mindless violence, failed to join in the fun, and look what we did to them. I bet Mush wakes up every morning half-wanting to carpet-bomb Islamabad, infested with all those liberal extremists, religious fanatics, and activist judges challenging his moderately enlightened wisdom and what not. Unfortunately, in this day and age of media-induced scandals, he has to resort to covert kidnappings and targeted murder by the secret services. Let’s face it: more so than cricket, our national pastime is killing other Pakistanis, the more innocent the better.
So, Obama’s stated desire to bring the war to Pakistan should be seen as nothing more than a demonstration of deep respect for our culture. Violence really is the Pakistani equivalent of extending an olive branch. Some people say hi and some say aloha; we kill each other. Obama is merely trying to reach across cultural barriers and communicate with us. Forget the “cricket diplomacy” of the 20th century; we now have “bombing diplomacy”. With BO at the helm, the world will soon be fragrant with peace.
------------------------
O, Obama! Forgive me for having doubted your wisdom. Bomb away all you wish! And, while you’re at it, please send a few over to London as well: a lot of Pakis here feel really unloved in the West.
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*http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post_group/ObamaHQ/CpHR
** To that point, please check this out. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/6964564.stm
This government can’t seem to get anything right in the world nowadays.
*** Term coined in the 60s when Pakistan was a member of SEATO and CENTO, and re-used when Pres. Bush designated Pakistan a Major non-NATO Ally
13 August 2007
A celebration of nothing, really
In West London, the sun is setting on what is left of the British Empire. Time zones ahead, Pakistan is preparing to live the eve of its inception for the 60th time.
In Islamabad, the city of my birth, young boys are trying to tie large Pakistani flags –made by a Chinese, sold by an Afghan, what loving neighbours we have –to the hoods of their family Toyota Corollas. Tonight, the streets of Islamabad, usually so empty that bored teenagers organise road races during rush hour, will be teeming with people and vehicles. You will see pick-up trucks carrying entire neighbourhoods. You will see motorcycles carrying families of five: the husband at the helm, the 4-year old and the 3-year old behind him, and, behind them, the pregnant wife, sitting side-saddled, trying to keep the chador on her head and the infant in her lap from flying away. You will not see any BMWs: their owners are staying home tonight, complaining about the deafeningly unpleasant noise outside.
This noise, the cacophony of unrestrained laughter and joyous cheers, will make its way along the roads of Islamabad* to the Parliament. The Parliament, the symbol of the collective will of the people in most countries, serves as the venue of the annual Finally-A-Non-Religious-Holiday/Independence Day celebrations in Pakistan. It is cleaned and it is groomed: the grass is trimmed, and the spider webs, I hope, removed. It is, along with all the other major buildings in the capital, heavily decorated: flowers, flags, multi-coloured electric lights, portraits of Jinnah thanking him for the gift of freedom. Tonight, people will gather around it, singing songs (patriotic, romantic, whatever comes really), dancing on the roofs of their cars (men only), and setting off fireworks. The celebrations will last late into the night, for midnight is when it begins.
------------------------
All of the above, of course, is how I remember growing up in Islamabad. It may be very different now, as I have not been present for an Independence Day since I left for the US five years ago. Islamabad today is a very different city, and the capital of a very different country.**
In 2002, we were about to hold our first elections under Musharraf, and there were still a few people around who, deluded by his slogans of Enlightened Moderation and Sab Sey Pehlay Pakistan (Pakistan Before All Else), trusted his intentions and ability. We had just found ourselves on the right side of a mad war of revenge, and were quite content to be earning dollars for our support. There was idealistic talk of resolving lingering issues of provincial autonomy, and the government seemed committed to stamping out regionalism and religious extremism. It appeared that Pakistan, at 55, might just figure out who she really was and where she wanted to go.
What a laugh, then, the past five years have been. We are no nearer to a real democracy than we were in 2002, the regime having side-stepped due processes as it saw fit. The war of revenge that we were so gladly profiting from has come back to bite everyone involved in their posteriors. Regionalism and religious extremism have flourished thanks to the military government’s trigger-happy approach to conflict resolution. At 60, Pakistan is less sure of its identity, and its direction, than it was ever before.
------------------------
It is around midnight in London, the city where you were named, and, some would argue, conceived. So, happy birthday to you, dear Pakistan: may you have many more.
Those who love you will continue to love you, unconditionally, as we always have. But this love has gone unreciprocated for too long, some of us are beginning to complain a little. You love the Americans, and you love the Chinese, and you love the entire Muslim Ummah, but do you love us, those who have loved you without reason or gain? If only we knew what it is that we were doing wrong, we’d change. Just let us know what you want from us, and from yourself: it really is about time. For now, we will go on the streets and celebrate nothing.
------------------------
* Given that Islamabad was meticulously planned, these roads must have been named by someone with a sadistic sense of humour: King Faisal Avenue runs parallel to Ataturk Avenue, and Constitution Avenue is the best-maintained of all the roads in the city. My personal favourite, Shahrah-e-Jumhuriat (Democracy Avenue), remains, quite aptly, the only road in the city whose name is not translated for the benefit of those who cannot read Urdu: the architects and planners of Islamabad, it seems, were well aware from the beginning that our American friends wouldn’t really notice the absence of such a word in our national capital.
**During my last visit, there was a bomb blast near the city centre. A bomb blast!? My friends exclaimed, In Islamabad?! How is that possible? It is, obviously, possible, but the idea of a city, where theft and homicide were unheard of until recently, facing a violent insurgency is, understandably, a tough one to grasp. Silver lining: may be we are a real Pakistani city finally? What say you, Lahore and Karachi?
In Islamabad, the city of my birth, young boys are trying to tie large Pakistani flags –made by a Chinese, sold by an Afghan, what loving neighbours we have –to the hoods of their family Toyota Corollas. Tonight, the streets of Islamabad, usually so empty that bored teenagers organise road races during rush hour, will be teeming with people and vehicles. You will see pick-up trucks carrying entire neighbourhoods. You will see motorcycles carrying families of five: the husband at the helm, the 4-year old and the 3-year old behind him, and, behind them, the pregnant wife, sitting side-saddled, trying to keep the chador on her head and the infant in her lap from flying away. You will not see any BMWs: their owners are staying home tonight, complaining about the deafeningly unpleasant noise outside.
This noise, the cacophony of unrestrained laughter and joyous cheers, will make its way along the roads of Islamabad* to the Parliament. The Parliament, the symbol of the collective will of the people in most countries, serves as the venue of the annual Finally-A-Non-Religious-Holiday/Independence Day celebrations in Pakistan. It is cleaned and it is groomed: the grass is trimmed, and the spider webs, I hope, removed. It is, along with all the other major buildings in the capital, heavily decorated: flowers, flags, multi-coloured electric lights, portraits of Jinnah thanking him for the gift of freedom. Tonight, people will gather around it, singing songs (patriotic, romantic, whatever comes really), dancing on the roofs of their cars (men only), and setting off fireworks. The celebrations will last late into the night, for midnight is when it begins.
------------------------
All of the above, of course, is how I remember growing up in Islamabad. It may be very different now, as I have not been present for an Independence Day since I left for the US five years ago. Islamabad today is a very different city, and the capital of a very different country.**
In 2002, we were about to hold our first elections under Musharraf, and there were still a few people around who, deluded by his slogans of Enlightened Moderation and Sab Sey Pehlay Pakistan (Pakistan Before All Else), trusted his intentions and ability. We had just found ourselves on the right side of a mad war of revenge, and were quite content to be earning dollars for our support. There was idealistic talk of resolving lingering issues of provincial autonomy, and the government seemed committed to stamping out regionalism and religious extremism. It appeared that Pakistan, at 55, might just figure out who she really was and where she wanted to go.
What a laugh, then, the past five years have been. We are no nearer to a real democracy than we were in 2002, the regime having side-stepped due processes as it saw fit. The war of revenge that we were so gladly profiting from has come back to bite everyone involved in their posteriors. Regionalism and religious extremism have flourished thanks to the military government’s trigger-happy approach to conflict resolution. At 60, Pakistan is less sure of its identity, and its direction, than it was ever before.
------------------------
It is around midnight in London, the city where you were named, and, some would argue, conceived. So, happy birthday to you, dear Pakistan: may you have many more.
Those who love you will continue to love you, unconditionally, as we always have. But this love has gone unreciprocated for too long, some of us are beginning to complain a little. You love the Americans, and you love the Chinese, and you love the entire Muslim Ummah, but do you love us, those who have loved you without reason or gain? If only we knew what it is that we were doing wrong, we’d change. Just let us know what you want from us, and from yourself: it really is about time. For now, we will go on the streets and celebrate nothing.
------------------------
* Given that Islamabad was meticulously planned, these roads must have been named by someone with a sadistic sense of humour: King Faisal Avenue runs parallel to Ataturk Avenue, and Constitution Avenue is the best-maintained of all the roads in the city. My personal favourite, Shahrah-e-Jumhuriat (Democracy Avenue), remains, quite aptly, the only road in the city whose name is not translated for the benefit of those who cannot read Urdu: the architects and planners of Islamabad, it seems, were well aware from the beginning that our American friends wouldn’t really notice the absence of such a word in our national capital.
**During my last visit, there was a bomb blast near the city centre. A bomb blast!? My friends exclaimed, In Islamabad?! How is that possible? It is, obviously, possible, but the idea of a city, where theft and homicide were unheard of until recently, facing a violent insurgency is, understandably, a tough one to grasp. Silver lining: may be we are a real Pakistani city finally? What say you, Lahore and Karachi?
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