NEW JERSEY, MAY 6 - Every nation has an indigenous way of
demonstrating that it's time for a change.
In USA, all's well as long
as Texas and the Midwest remained silent. In Pakistan, as long as Punjab remains quiet and the Punjabis
silent, no matter how much Karachiites scream and yell,
all's well.
What are those indigenous ways? In USA, they poll it out or
the media takes care of it in concert. In Bangladesh, they
go into a frenzy of roadside killing. In Pakistan, the military
steps in, and the same happens in Turkey. In India, they
take it out through ballot or make a scandal out of it -
sometimes, their collective displaced emotions will embody a
Hindu-Muslim riot. Or, at the most surrealistic end of
things, the
crowd will make a blockbuster out of an ordinary movie.
Pakistan doesn't have movies. Nor enough Hindus to engineer
a riot. Roadside killing - a been there done that affair.
Since there are hardly polls, the nation don't think in
those lines at all. After all how can they replace a General
through the ballot. Scandals are a dime a dozen, mostly
fodder for the mushrooming media. Thus, the military acts. If it
has already stepped in, it either declares a hybrid Martial
Law and appoints a Chief Executive or a State of Emergency
is declared with all the trappings of a Hosni Mubarak
government.
Having said that, it does not mean Karachi's uncanny ways to
mobilize public opinion have gone unnoticed. This time it is
in favor of the establishment, albeit the army though. Hence, the
raising of the eye brows and the soft murmurs of the opinion makers.
Even the international media had to unwillingly switch from their auto
mode, realizing that Karachiites also rally for a General. There was
hardly more than one picture of MQM's rally
on Yahoo in favor of Musharraf vis-a-vis Judicial crisis.
Delayed reaction!
There was a time when Pakistan acted as the buffer against
spread of Soviet socialism. In fact, its creation was so
rationalized by the West. Pakistan paid heavy prices though.
To date it remains in a fish bowl, the nation still in a
daze having gone through roller coasters while the powers to
be played the musical chair for sixty years, betting some
one else's game, losing it in the long run. The collateral
damages have finally showed up. The real estate is once
again up for sale.
Generals have risen to great heights of arrogance in their refusal to acknowledge that the
Pakistani nation has changed. Their effort to provide
turn-around-management through Military Inc has been at best
pathetic. The first intervention (Ayub era) took the country
into a 11-year tailspin. One war and a U2 incident later,
the General realized he had no friends, as he was the
master.
The second intervention, short but a profound one, was done by
yet another General, this time a drunken one though. He
facilitated the break up of the country and the de-acceleration
of nation's morale for ever.
It's an irony that the military staff and war colleges do
not discuss even the military aspects of the 1971 and 1965
war histories, let alone their politico-cum-strategic
aspects.
While interviewing Dr Mubashir Hasan a couple of years back
on his "out of the box" proposal on Kashmir issue, I asked
him why such intellectual "think-tank" approach to the East
Pakistan imbroglio was never pursued. His answer was short
and precise. "There was no body who knew how to handle the
situation. They didn't understand what was going on," he said.
The third ominous ride (another 11 years thru Zia's rule)
took the nation to outer space -- and forced it to observe,
watch, inanimately, like the Hubbell Telescope gazing
everywhere but nowhere in the universe. The fallout was
worse than an asteroid hitting the earth. The debris keep
hitting the nation to date in a never ending fashion. Thanks
to the Afghan Jihad War!
The fourth ride is the one we are on now! Some say it
is enlightened, moderate! I say it is a 20,000 league under the
sea water boarding!
Zia's trip was southbound in the name of Jihad and Islam,
sponsored and paid for by the West. Musharraf's is
northbound in the name of moderate Islam, again sponsored
and paid for by the West. Interestingly, both these trips
were paid by those who are Westbound, while we are
historically Eastbound, if the History Channel is to
be believed.
While dollars and cents are pouring into the country as if
it may go out of fashion soon, the Pakistani nation and its
psyche, having been internetized (web-sensitized), is kind
of reacting differently, somewhat incoherently lately. There is no
one word to describe it. An irregular patchwork quilt of
varying degrees of reactions and mindsets has engulfed the
nation's body.
A large set of people is going through a state of denial,
having been intoxicated by the West with jihad during Afghan
war- these programmed zealots thinking that the Afghan Jihad would help them spread the "glories of
Islam" like Salahuddin Ayubis stampeding away on
Arabian horses.
Then there is another big set, who stayed back, did not
jihad, found nowhere else to go, ended up being mostly
unemployed and bombarded daily with internet ideas, CNN news
and gossips, cellular phone, SMS, idiosyncrasies, etc.
Between the two is a motley crowd of the "enlightened ones"
who fitted nowhere but in the wilderness of the West and its
opulence. They mostly live in Pakistan but their
loyalties are elsewhere.
What the British Empire did to China with the opium, the
West has done the same with Jihad to Pakistan and the Muslim
World. Mao Tse Tung was right. Religion is the opium.
Imagine the Chinese after having been
opiumed, being told to give it up - because the British
Empire changed its mind or it's no longer in their national
interests! The world map would have looked different.
Here's the million dollar question: If the pixels look so
murky and hazy, how does one expect the big picture to look
good. Besides, who are the pixels and what is the big
picture?
Given historical precedents, which are never wrong, Pakistan, and
other countries going through similar roller coasters, are the small pixels which make up
the West's big picture. There's no way out. They control 72
percent of the world's resources, including oil. Can you
beat that?
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