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Begging
for change
Ahmed Quraishi
Pakistan’s biggest revenue-generating
business hub city of Karachi was paralyzed by ethnic violence for
the third time in less than six months. Our American allies continue
to create worldwide confusion about Pakistan’s strategic weapons
programmes. And our silence on Washington’s Afghan blunders has been
purchased for a few billion dollars in US aid pledges on humiliating
terms. You would think we have enough on our plate to keep us busy.
Yet our foreign minister surprises us by finding time to protest how
the government of Burma treats that country’s opposition leader.
Instead of summoning the US
ambassador to protest the leaks campaign in the American media
against Pakistan’s nuclear programme, which is successfully and
gradually turning the world against Pakistan [as evident from the
disturbing statements from Russia and from the Shanghai Cooperation
Organization], the Pakistani Foreign Office instead calls the
ambassador of Burma and delivers a demarche.
We share good relations with Burma,
have strategic interest in that country, and the issue of the
opposition leader is none of our business. Aung San Suu Kyi is
strongly backed by Washington, which in turn is pursuing hardcore
strategic interests of its own in trying to destabilize the
government of Burma using democracy and human rights as an excuse.
Then there’s the statement by our ambassador to the US informing the
world that we are ready to ‘phase out’ our nuclear capability if
India does the same. While Mr Haqqani’s statement may have some
diplomatic value, its damage far outweighs its benefit. The Am-Brit
media has already twisted it to mean Pakistan should do it first and
then maybe India will follow suit. Why the self-defeating attitude?
It is already clear that last year’s
elections and the next ones too will do little to improve the
situation. Take the political parties in Sindh for example. When
Pakistan is facing a problem in its northwest that is also being
exploited by outside players to revive Pashtun nationalism
independent of Pakistani identity, we have elements in Sindh pushing
for an ethnic confrontation inside the country. The way Karachi has
been paralyzed for the third time since November indicates that this
effort is organized and predetermined.
While the concern of the Sindh
government – that our compatriots displaced from the north should
not be dispersed across the country – is legitimate and
understandable, the timing of the announcement itself and the choice
of words by the Sindh government and by some political parties
against a few Pakistani families moving in from Swat is in bad taste
to say the least. It is stunning to see ethnic-based political
parties creating a precedent for restricting the movement of
Pakistanis within their homeland.
If anyone needs evidence of the
irreversible failure of our political system, and the twisted
democracy spawned by it, this is it. Our political system considers
ethnic-based parties legitimate and almost all of our parties,
including the so-called ‘progressive’ ones, have withdrawn into
ethnic shells. Even more disturbing is how our ally, the US, has
cultivated direct, one-to-one contact with all the major and small
ethnic-based Pakistani parties. The Pakistani nation must be given
credit here because a majority of Pakistanis have never leaned
toward such divisions. If anything, the new generation of Pakistanis
is more integrated than their fathers and grandfathers at any time
in our modern history. The secular-religious debate, the question of
whether Pakistan should or should not support friends in Afghanistan
when our allies have turned that country into a base for exporting
terrorism into Pakistan, and the debate over democracy oiled by
American dollars, all of these are sideshows compared to the
essential issue. Which is: our situation begs for change. Will we
pay attention?
The writer works for Geo TV. Email:
aq@ahmedquraishi.com
The News:Tuesday, May 26, 2009
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