We Need Sanity !

After spending my whole life here in Pakistan, one thing I understood is that our biggest dilemma is our inability to think rationally. We are the champions of creating conspiracy theories. We are the experts in forging history the way we like. We like to be self-righteous and normally lake the courage to hear the opposite opinion. We express our patriotism by hate speech against India. For us army is the only non-corrupt and trustworthy institute in this country. And though we all vote for them, we believe politicians form the single most corrupt class of people in this country. We never practice Islam ourselves but fanatically talk about implementing it on others. This has always been in our blood though accelerated in Zia regime.

Both India and Pakistan dedicate the lion`s share of their budgets on their militaries. I am not sure but perhaps the percentage of defence budget in these two countries is highest in the world with quite a margin. This is done on the name of threats that we both countries pose to each other. I don`t know about India but we, here in Pakistan, don`t even know the exact amount of money we are spending on our defence because it is a national secret. The defense budget cannot be discussed even in Parliament which consists of direct representatives of the public of Pakistan. So nobody knows, except of course our security establishment, that how or where this money is spent. 

Now just take a moment and think for a second what if we could spend major share of our budget on education, health, jobs, poverty, and development. Just think who is benefitting from Pakistan being a national security state than being a welfare state. Who benefits most from this continuing conflict between us two countries? It is the security establishment of both the countries that don`t like peace to sustain between both the countries. Because the only reason both the countries are madly spending on military is because of tensions between both countries. If somehow peace can be sustained through some treaty, the most affected parties will be military establishments of both countries. So, they don`t let peace sustain between the two nations. Whenever both the countries are reaching towards some positive agreement security establishments of both countries create tensions between both countries by either directly interfering or using extremist groups. In India they use Hindu extremist groups which spread hate speech against Pakistan and here in Pakistan our military establishment controls Islamic extremist groups which spread hate speech against India and some even urge you to go to jihad in India.

 Now the question is why we hate India? Once this fact is established that it’s our military establishment that don`t want good relations with India because it will stop their “income”, it’s simple to know then why we hate India? For about 35 years we have been illegally ruled by military dictators. In their tenures basic human rights were suspended and they were the center of all the powers in the country against the will of public of Pakistan. Even the rules of civilian governments were controlled by military. So when they are controlling everything from our syllabuses to our newspapers to what we see on television how do you expect them to show us something that is against their vested interests. We have all grown up in military regimes. So when we are taught form very young ages in schools that we have to hate India, how can we do otherwise? If our relations with India were presented to us as the battle between “Islam” and “kufar”, how can we think otherwise? And they forget that the population of Muslims in India is greater than in Pakistan.

We have been taught from very young ages to blame everything on India (and US and Israel). We were told how India has always shown aggression towards Pakistan and they are to blame for all our wars with them. But we were never told that it was us Pakistanis who started the whole mess in 1965 by military interference in Kashmir in 1965 after assuring United Nations not to do it in 1949-50. It was a disobeying general of Pakistan army who created international incident in 1999 by attacking Indian Territory Kargil against the will of his government. And the officer who should have been punished for this act of indiscipline went on to become the president of Pakistan for next 10 years. Another very interesting fact is that all our major rifts with India happened in regimes of military dictators. And an example of interference by security establishment when both countries were close to settling their issues is 1999 Kargil operation. Indian prime minister visited Pakistan and signed an important agreement with prime minister of Pakistan at Minar-e-Pakistan which had to lead both the countries towards resolving the issues between both the countries. But whole process was disrupted by that general by attacking Kargil against the order of his supreme commander prime minister of Pakistan.

Then there are our war fanatics who are busy on television to spread more and more hate. I am unable to understand why a person like Zaid Hamid, who should be admitted in some mental hospital ASAP, is getting so much air time on our major television channels? All he ever has to say is that whole world is planning against Pakistan and we should first attack the whole world and win the battle. And obviously you have heard rumors, with many proofs, that he is planted by ISI. And don`t forget the columnist with ISRAELI name who has predicted Ghazwa-e-Hind between India and Pakistan in 2013 and has advised us to attack India. And believe me or not people are sharing it madly on social media networks.

Another thing that forces me to think about our sanity as a nation is our portrayal of a local cleric as the most expert person on foreign affairs in the whole country, Hafiz Saeed. He is on television daily attending many shows discussing what should be our foreign policy. And of course you all know that he openly admit sending people to Indian controlled Kashmir to operate against Indian administration. On a show last week on express news he admitted helping Kashmiri jihadists and said he`ll continue to do so. And remember this is what India accuse us of doing and we always deny that no Pakistan state or non-state actor is involved in any such thing. And to my complete non-belief in Dunya news show “TOP STORY” he has claimed that Indians are conducting all terrorist operations in Pakistan and it has nothing to do with Taliban. He said that Indians want to defame Taliban. And I wonder if Ehsanullah Ehsan, TTP spokesperson who graduated from Peshawar University, is from India?

What we need is to think rationally on our relations with India. I am not trying to make a point that only Pakistan is responsible for sour relations, of course India also behave irresponsibly. But we are responsible only of our side. Our government and most of our media has responded very responsibly to the recent events at line of control and we need to support our government. But there is strong sentiment in Pakistan to go mad and attack India. You open your Facebook or twitter page and scroll down, you`ll come to know how insanely people are reacting. So there is a need to spread facts around. Media has a role to educate people on this issue and show some refrain in putting fanatics like Zaid Hamid on screen. I hope someday, not very far, people from both sides of LOC will show sanity and responsibility INSHALLAH. May God bless us all!

P.S. About a year ago when government of Pakistan announce to give “Most favorite nation” status to India, everybody in Pakistan got mad and started criticizing government. The government of Pakistan had promised to give MFN status to India by January 1, 2013. But under this severe pressure we broke our promise and have not given MFN status to India. And here is a fact for all these fanatics that India gave us MFN status 20 years ago and Pakistani businessmen are utilizing this since then. Only last year Pakistani cement industries did business of about 20 billion in India.

GOD BLESS PAKISTAN.
[arslan.moon@gmail.com]