Facts or Fiction Coming out of Pakistan: You Decide
(I)
By Ajazz Saadutt
Los Angles, CA
I would like to express my profound gratitude to Mr Pervaiz Lodhie for providing illuminating facts and spotlighting the progress made during the time of former President Musharraf in your issue of August 22.
His report presents what is called ‘the glass is half full’ picture.
The world has fallen victim to the nefarious designs of racists, extremists, and terrorists employed by the so-called democratic countries to terrorize and increase the level of ignorance of their own populations and to malign 99.99 % of good Muslims by using disinformation and misinformation about Islam.
Muslims are always talking about Dawah about Islam.
What Mr Lodhie has done is that he has given Dawah about Pakistan.
What we need to do, in addition to giving dawah about Islam, is to invite and give dawah about Pakistan and what the Muslims are doing to make this world a better place for all.
Pervaiz Lodhie, thank you for reducing the ignorance level of Muslims, Pakistanis and Americans.
(II)
By Sofia B. Elahi
MB BS, CCFP, FAAFP
Ontario, Canada
I read Pervaiz Lodhie's commentary in Pakistan Link in which he used an impressive list of statistics to support the nine years of dictatorship. Perhaps the writer felt that he would persuade your readership that some good has come of the current instability and rampant terrorism we now witness in Pakistan. While I can't comment on the source of his statistics, we can all agree that the nine years of such supposedly impressive achievements would not implode in a matter of months.
The simple reality is that the former dictatorship's policies promoted a culture of consumerism and borrowing without building on the fundamentals of the Pakistani economy. That billions of foreign aid flowed into Pakistan while abject poverty increased only fuels the anger of many common Pakistanis. How can anyone speak of economic triumphs or growth when a common man in Pakistan has difficulty providing for his family?
Do we really need to remind ourselves about the manner and methods used for data collection and analysis in Pakistan? The media in North America speak of spin and fudging figures but at least Western nations start off with a reasonable appreciation of numbers. Successive Pakistani governments speak of impressive statistics which mean nothing until the average Pakistani can hold his or her head high to say that real growth and development has taken place. Certainly this has not been the case for the last nine years.
Please save your statistics and numbers for those who can be fooled more easily.
