Daily Times

In response to a piece in this paper titled ‘Is the Islamic Republic of Pakistan going to disintegrate?’ (Daily Times, July 30, 2011), this author received many e-mails. Many of them were threatening and abusive. All the abusive ones had one thing in common. They claimed that I was certainly an American agent and received American dollars. One wishes one were that lucky! One fellow stated, “I want to discourage you from this (writing) profession.” I am sure this gentle fellow would have instantly declared me as one of the best brains this republic ever produced had I done the popular hatemongering against Afghanistan, the US, India and Israel.

The Islamic Republic seems to suffer from terminal paranoia given the kind of narratives most of its people are made to believe in, nay, made to kill and die for. What exactly did I say that had these friends of mine frothing at the mouth? I quote one excerpt from the column in question: “The republic is currently represented by a few Punjabi generals, religious fundamentalists, feudal lords and Syeds. This clique has to decide between two options. Either the Islamic Republic is allowed to disintegrate, or it has to fashion itself according to its ground realities.”

One fails to understand how one becomes an American agent by pleading with the generals, syedo-feudals and religious fundamentalists to have mercy on Pakistan. If the US indeed shares this view with the people of Pakistan, there could be no better friends. But one has doubts, for this rotten system has partially survived thus far courtesy the inflow of American dollars and military hardware.

The fact of the matter is that, starting from its inception, the Islamic Republic would have gone bankrupt many times over had it not been for the inflow of American dollars and military hardware. This applies even now. And yet we (by ‘we’ I mean the establishment and its consumers of brainwashing in the middle and upper-middle classes) are one of the most — probably ‘the’ most — anti-American countries on planet Earth! And this nonsensical anti-Americanism has brought the Islamic Republic to the verge of collapse. People’s energies are wasted on poisonous narratives rather than on positive things.

How unfortunate are we to have a country whose existence our policy makers believe depends on the perpetuation of conflicts, silencing of dissent, torture, human rights violations and hatemongering. Minus hatred, torture, turmoil and conflict, the republic is believed to have nothing that can keep it together. More than 60 years of its existence have been wasted. Had our leaders — military and civilians — built a stable economy and strong democratic institutions, the populace would have had this as an incentive to stand united and not let it disintegrate. Our leaders would not have depended on hatemongering and conflicts for the country’s unity.

The ‘educated’ middle and upper-middle classes — exceptions apart — whose rage shoots up at the mention of Afghanistan, the US, Israel and India, cannot put forward a single good reason for their ideology of hate. Their only reason, if at all it can be elevated to the status of reason for the sake of debate, is that these countries are secretly working towards dividing Pakistan. One wishes they had enough wit to move a step further and think with a cold mind as to why they would want to divide the Islamic Republic.

This paranoia is the consequence of the wrong foreign policy of the Islamic Republic over the past 60 years. It believes that if Pakistan-based groups (Lashkar-e-Tayyaba and company) can work for the disintegration of India, the latter cannot be expected to have goodwill for the Islamic Republic. One hopes we do not forget the mayhem in Mumbai involving Ajmal Kasab and his links to our republic. This is just one example from hundreds in which the Islamic Republic has demonstrated its intention to bleed India. Do we expect baskets of mangos from India in return? We must be kidding!

Afghanistan has been bled by our republic for a very long time. We have never let the Afghans focus on building their state and realise their dreams of economic prosperity. And we continue to do so even today. Do we expect exotic Afghan rugs from Kabul in return?

We are probably the only country to have declared our enmity to Israel. Let us forget about Iran because we are not Iran. To this day, the Pakistani passport can take you everywhere (in theory) except Israel. Our so-called ghairat brigade nurtures more hatred against Israel than HAMAS does. And we know who pulls the strings of this brigade. Do we expect the arrival of financial experts from Israel to correct our bankrupt economy?

Our most unreasonable hatred is our hatred of the US. We apply the logic, which says, “The friend of my enemy is my enemy.” The US, being a friend of Afghanistan, India and Israel — our perceived enemies — is our enemy. Therefore, rather than adjusting ourselves to the chessboard of global politics, we are vainly involved in a struggle to change the rules of chess. We want the world to play according to our rules. Our rules are the following:

1) The world should leave Afghanistan and hand it over to us. Thanks ‘strategic depth’!

2) The US should denounce its friendship with India and Israel.

3) We should be allowed everything we want from India. We want Srinagar and Delhi if possible!

4) The world should continue giving us dollars, or else we will commit suicide attacks with nuclear jackets around our waist, thus destroying ourselves and all others around us.

None of our demands are going to be entertained. These are dreams. And one wishes dreams could help realities. We either have to be powerful enough to force the world into accepting our demands (dreams), or we have to play global chess according to international rules. Since 1947, we have mindlessly striven to force our rules down the throat of the world. The end result is talk about the prospects of the disintegration of the Islamic Republic. It actually disintegrated once. Please stop hatemongering and try to put your house in order. I promise, the world will be helping.

Postscript: The preposterous belief of our policymakers that we defeated one superpower (the USSR) and we will defeat the remaining one has to be changed. This is going to sink the remaining part of the Islamic Republic.

The writer belongs to Waziristan and can be reached at ilyasakbarkhan@gmail.com