Quaid
and Advani
By Pervaiz Alvi
US
Pakistan is a Muslim country with
97% of its population professing to the universal
Islamic faith. Therefore there is nothing wrong
with her people wanting to name their country
as ‘Islamic Republic of Pakistan’.
It is the will of her people, an acknowledgement
of a fact, and expression of their national identity.
Pakistan is an important Muslim country with a
definite role to play in the Islamic world and
world politics at large. This is a reality whether
Mrs. Sidhwa and her friends like it or not. In
her writings she has time and again refused to
accept that the world is made of nations and that
there must be borders between countries in order
to maintain their national sovereignty and integrity.
National boundaries between countries are not
‘false barriers created by politicians for
purposes of their own’ as she puts it. Pakistan
and India are two separate and independent countries
with two distinct cultures. It is one thing to
write novels of make believe worlds and another
to come down to the realities of the real world
we all live in. Considering the overall political
and economic deprivation of its people, creation
of Pakistan was a necessity for peace in South
Asia. It was a natural result of intra-nations
dynamics. It is unfortunate that India is still
an enemy country of Pakistan with hostile intentions
towards its neighbors. She has 75% of its armed
forces concentrated on Pakistan’s borders.
India has attacked and threatened to do so many
times, and remains a constant threat to the very
existence of Pakistan as a country.
Mrs. Sidhwa is naive and historically wrong when
she says that ‘People of the Subcontinent
have seldom fought wars except to defend themselves’.
The history of South Asia is cluttered with wars
large and small. Nations fought other nations
and built empires on the top of dead bodies in
the process. She also refuses to acknowledge the
existence of The Islamic Civilization and refers
to it as Arabian Civilization instead. Arabs were
mere desert nomads with no civilization of their
own to boast till the advent of Islam. The historical
achievements she refers to belong to all Muslims
and not just the Arabs.
What is needed today in Pakistan and the rest
of the Muslim world is tolerance and respect for
other religions and cultures for peace and harmony.
They must grant and protect equal civil rights
of the minorities within their own borders so
that the minorities are not threatened and therefore
do not think and consider these boundaries as
‘false barriers’.
Muslims while maintaining their Islamic identity
must be fair, understanding and respectful towards
non-Muslims worldwide. These are the true teachings
of Islam and not the hatred and bigotries they
may harbor towards others.
Mr. Jinnah, the father of the nation had respect
for the civil rights of all citizens of Pakistan
irrespective of their religions. In that sense
he was a true secularist. Mr. Advani on the other
hand is neither a ‘menacing tiger’
nor a ‘neighborly lamb’. He is a Hindu
nationalist politician with Muslim blood on his
hands. He is a ‘demolition man’ with
no respect for the minorities, their civil rights
and places of worship. No one is fooled by his
media about-face. The names of Jinnah and Advani
cannot appear together except while demonstrating
the contrast between the two.
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