The Reality
about the Future of Pakistan
By Pervaiz Alvi
US
Of late in many circles it has become fashionable
to predict the time of ultimate demise of the
state of Pakistan. In fact a whole cottage industry
has mushroomed around this sport.
Writers and sellers of books, electronic and print
news media, movie makers, small and large auditorium
speakers, retired or unemployed government functionaries
- all have joined in this senseless clamor. Even
the living room entertainers have picked up on
this theme. The topic is juicy enough and it draws
the audience and has thus developed a life of
its own.
In the forefront of this crowd are the ill-wishers
of Pakistan of various hues and degrees. First
and foremost are the Indian nationalists who have
never accepted the idea and the reality of Pakistan
as it deprived them from being the sole heirs
to the old British Raj. Then there are the Indian
Muslims who are in an unhappy state because the
creation of Pakistan has left them ‘state
less’. They would love to see a ‘soft’
border between India and Pakistan so that they
could traverse back and forth between the two
countries at their will.
Indian Muslim politicians want to be the middle-man
in India-Pakistan politics as that would give
them some political standing in their own circles.
And then there are the spineless, unethical and
opportunistic provincial, ethnic and tribal leaders
in Pakistan whose eyes gleam at the thought of
a separate Lilliputian state of their own. The
answer to these baseless noise makers has to come
from patriotic Pakistanis. They must have the
realization that the creation of a state of their
own is not the final answer to all their problems.
It never was. Even though our people have inhabited
this land for millenniums yet Pakistan is a new
country carved out of an empire. It is a modern
country put together by combining half a dozen
adjoining states. It is the best the Quaid and
his companions could salvage for us from the ruins
of the old Muslim Empire in the peculiar pre-Partition
circumstances.
The people of Pakistan have a common culture,
heritage, history, values and over riding common
language and lineage. Together they inhabit the
mountains, the plains and the valleys of the mighty
Indus. They are one nation with an inseparable
past, present and future. Now it is up to them
to make Pakistan a strong, viable and stable state.
It is up to us to shut the mouths of those busy
bodies writing the epitaph of our motherland.
We could do it by developing national cohesion
and unity of purpose.
God bless Pakistan.
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