Opinion

O’ Pakistanis: If Only You Realized
By Zaheer Jan
Bedminster, New Jersey

There is an unrelenting drum beat of hysteria from the US media that constantly pours out against Pakistan. If we Americans had any sense of shame or loyalty, we would humble ourselves on our bended knees in supplication to the people of this tiny, impoverished nation to whom the US nay, all democracies of the world, owe their vaunted liberty. This impoverished country, has stood as a bulwark against Soviet expansion from the time it came into existence. How easily, the self-serving mendicants of the US media forget. How feckless! How easily we wish to sweep the facts of history under the rug.
1947 is not that long ago when Pakistan came into being and has since served as a buffer against the Soviet designs on India and a warm water port. India, at that time, was roiling with communist cells; its leadership, headed by Jawaharlal Nehru and its first governor general, Lord Louis Mountbatten, were all socialist. Some Indian cabinet ministers, like V. Krishna Menon were even communist. Afghanistan, Pakistan's neighbor in the West was under the Soviet sphere of influence and provided safe haven to the so-called 'Frontier Gandhi', Sardar Abdul Ghaffar Khan, head of the infamous communist Para-military brigade, the Red shirts of the Frontier Province. Had it not been for Pakistan, India would have been a part of the Soviet Empire. And, the face of the world would have been one of a global gulag.
Indian leadership has served India and the Indian nation only. And, why not? Indians, for too long had been dominated by foreigners. It was time that they came into their own and showed the world the stuff they were made of. Indian leaders believed in socialism. They befriended the Soviet Union, however only to build their armaments capabilities, not to mortgage their sovereignty.
Pakistani leadership on the other hand, from the time of Pakistan's nascence till today, has served the US and the West, subserviently. In the early 1980’s this tiny country gambled its all and in so doing humbled one of the mightiest powers of its time: India's friend the Soviet Union. While doing so, Pakistanis got only a little material support from its so-called ally, the US. We gave it paltry sums of money, some armament and a lot of, 'ra, ra, ra". Saudi Arabia, our surrogate, wanting to grind its own axe, pumped into Pakistan billion of dollars for proselytizing Wahabism, NOT Islam, to mass produce and roll out 'Mujahedin' from the assembly lines of madrassas. We loved this holy alliance.
The young men of Pakistan, with more emotions than brains, egged on by the demagogue Zia-ul-Haq, dictator of Pakistan, got fired up to blow the Godless Russians out Afghanistan. Oh! How we loved these Mujahedin. They suited our scheme. General Haig, President Reagan's national security adviser, on a trip to Pakistan was warned by my friend Jamil Nishter, President and CEO of ADB in these words, "General don't desert us once we have routed the Russians”. “Americans are known for their fickleness”. “If you are fickle with us, these very people, who are happily laying down their lives for the Americans, for liberty and for freedom, will come back to haunt all and become a nightmare to be reckoned with". Desert the Pakistanis? That we did. No remorse, no recompense. We just walked away. And, as we well know: “There are never any free lunches”!
With what face can we blame the Pakistanis for developing the atom bomb? We have treated its people like cheap whores. Anytime that country has been in dire straits, we have let it down. Yet, its people have remained faithful to us. When a door needed to be opened to China and Henry Kissinger wanted an entrée to Chairman Mao, Pakistan's good offices were sought and willingly and happily provided. Walking away on Pakistan, after the Afghan war, was the last straw. We talk of open market policies and all that good stuff, yet we have always supported and sided with socialist/communist India against Pakistan. India's defense pact and main trading partner and defense needs supplier has always been and still is Russia, and it has always stood by its friend. Have we stood by Pakistan?
Our leaders are always paying obeisance to the leaders and people of Israel. We are forever being barraged with the mantra that Israel is our staunchest ally. And yes! it is. Well! for thirty five million dollars of our tax payers' dollars flowing every day into Israel's coffers, no questions asked; the best military equipment that anyone in the world can possess being provided without demur, Israel had better be our best and staunchest ally. Yet, how many Israelis have lost their lives fighting for our causes or our enemies?
Maybe the problem is with Pakistanis, if only they realized. Maybe it is the unqualified support Pakistanis always provide to other Muslim countries of the world that causes our hysteria. From its very genesis Pakistan has wanted to be a part of the so-called Muslim Ummah - whatever that may be. Why so, that is an enigma? For it’s part the so-called Ummah has never wanted any part of Pakistan or its people. Nasser of Egypt had no time for it. He idolized Nehru and was the best friend of Indira Gandhi, India's Prime Minister. Then again, Pakistanis made a shameful spectacle of themselves demonstrating against our invasion of Iraq to rid the country of Saddam Hussain. How short their memory How could they forget that this tyrant not too long ago was fomenting revolution in the Baluchistan province of Pakistan. Also, Pakistanis were prepared to shed their blood to the last Pakistani when we dropped bombs on Afghanistan for harboring Ben Laden. How short their memory! Afghanistan and its leaders forever provided refuge and a platform to Ghaffar Khan and his son, both avowed enemies of Pakistan. Too, Saudis to this day call Pakistanis 'Miskeen' the poor ones and treat them with disdain. Why do the Pakistanis have this ridiculous hankering for being a part of the backward leaning and uncivilized Muslim world that treats its women as second class citizens and abhors coming into the twenty-first century? Is it that Pakistani leaders suffer from an overarching inferiority complex? May be it is this complex that made Dr. Qadeer Khan to pass on atomic secrets to Libya and Iran? Why pass on your intellectual property to people who do not care for you? Just because they call themselves Muslims? Is that reason enough?
O’ Pakistanis if you only realized! You are the smartest and the most ingenious people in the entire Muslim world - engineers, nuclear scientists, bankers, scholars, Nobel Laureates, doctors, surgeons, actuaries, you name it. If only you knew. You don’t need anyone. You have accomplished everything on your own. Maybe that is why the West is paranoid about you.
Only if you get the smarts to stop avowing the so-called "Islamic cause". This cause does not exist except as a figment in your mind. Using good pragmatic sense you should start tailoring your foreign policy strictly to suit your self-interest - what is good for Pakistan is good for Pakistanis should be your mantra. Stop being the hand maiden of the US and the West. Take a cue from India. This country is friends with every Islamic country in the world, and the world at large. No one in the world will be your friend unless you learn to be your own. You stood on your own feet and built the A-bomb, through your own grit and without anyone's help. Even the Israelis needed a nudge and a lot of money from the US. India had all the support it could use, from the Soviets. Make Pakistan, like you made the 'Islamic bomb' that is the name given by the West to your A-bomb. Do not make it an 'Islamic bomb'. It is an A-bomb and it shows what a creative nation of people you are. Remember, in today's world it is not the nation with the biggest stockpile of A-bombs that is the strongest, rather it is the nation with the strongest economy and foreign reserve; a nation that cares for all its citizens, that is the strongest. Make Pakistan one of those nations. Stop abusing your women. Stop talking about castes. Islam forbids both. Your best friend amongst the nations of the world has been China. China's founding leaders never came running to London or Washington for help. Nay they did not even go to Moscow, the Mecca of communists, to seek the soviets’ help. Yet they changed a nation dubbed ' a nation of opium eaters' into a great nation. Be just, learn, seek, improve, as the Prophet taught and helped create the greatest civilization that human history has ever known.
It is time you started calling yourselves Pakistanis first and anything else afterwards. Wake up to the fact that the so-called Muslim brethrens, elsewhere in the so-called Islamic world, have no time for you or have anything to offer except petro-dollars. Dollars they did not even earn from hard labor like you do. These brethrens have the temerity to look down on you. Have no time for them. Stop being everybody's mercenary. It is time you saw the light of day, took pride in your own achievements. It is time you started looking the Arabs and other oil rich nations in the eye. It is you who brought technological advances to these backward people not otherwise. It is time you stopped hating Israelis. They have done no harm to you. It is time you started mending fences with India. Don’t forget that your roots too are from the same lovely soil of the Indo-Gangetic plains. Stop feeling threatened by India. You can match it wicket for wicket, A-bomb for A-bomb or for that matter anything else. The great thing is that you have accomplished a lot, all done by yourself, in spite of the world.
Stop cow towing to sycophants loving leaders like Benazir Bhutto or Nawaz Sharif. They pay ONLY lip service to democracy. Neither has any time for it. O’ PAKISTANIS you have started, under President Musharraf, on the road to the great future that is rightfully yours, don't let anyone nix it, realize it.

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