What Pakistanis want to say to Americans
Posted by Ethan Casey on October 28, 2009 · 2 Comments
Waking up this morning to learn of more than 80 people dead in a bomb attack on a market in Peshawar, the title of my new book, Overtaken By Events, never seemed more apt. All too apt. I can’t even remember all of the string of seven or eight violent events in Pakistan over the past few weeks – I should have written them down and kept a timeline.
What I’m trying to do, in my books and this blog, is to keep a longer-range and longer-term perspective on Pakistan, to look at the country, and listen to its people, with an attitude of human and personal sympathy, and to document events and impressions on the fly in a way that will be both relevant and helpful a year or two, or five or ten years, from now. I think I succeeded in that in my first book, Alive and Well in Pakistan.
I have to do my Urdu homework this morning before class, but I felt a need to post something. Here’s a powerful quote from my long March 2009 conversation with Ghazala Minallah, a woman in Islamabad who has been at the forefront of the lawyers’ movement for the past 2-3 years:
“What should I say to Americans who say, ‘Well, this is all very interesting, but what does it have to do with Osama bin Laden and the War on Terror and the fact that Pakistan is a naughty country?’”
“You can tell them that Osama bin Laden and all these other naughty people are playing havoc with us, more than they are with the Americans. We are at least as concerned about it, if not more so, than they are. And if they would only wake up and kindly pressurize their own government not to meddle in our affairs, and let us get on with it.
“And to look at it from the point of view of the people of Pakistan, for God’s sake. We want democracy over here. We do not want military rulers. We do not want terrorism. We want peace. We do not want mullahs ruling us either. The majority of this country, unlike what the West believes – they believe that the middle to lower class would not have a problem with maulvis. You just go out in the street, and you ask the people what they would think about maulvis ruling them. People may be religious, but that does not mean that they want maulvis ruling them. And they are sick to their teeth of terrorism. Because they’re the ones who are affected!”
My msg. to those Americans is simply to think and act realistically. Are you really sincere in bringing peace on our planet? Who brought Osama to this area? Who recruited, trained and equipped with stingers all these unemployed, illiterate mullahs (Taliban) to fight Russians out? Pakistan was a real ‘Naughty country’ who helped Americans to become the world’s only super power and collected all the muck while our comrade left all of us high and dry. The ‘War on Terror’ will be result oriented only when the only super Power works on the root causes of terrorism which is a reaction of state terrorism in different regions over the globe. One can write books on this episode, but let’s address presently only the brass tacks! Pakistan can at least clear the foreign ‘Terrorists’ out of the area if Americans “Do more” to stop supply of armament to these terrorists by ———, arrange declaration of Durand line as international border to enable Pakistan to declare FATA area as a settled province, fence the border with check points for separated families, with special visas to cross the border. In which case vested interests of some (Or all?) Stake holders will of course suffer.
For any rational approach to solve any problem, one analyses the root causes of the problem. Terrorism needs defining by UNO or USA (Under the prevailing scenario) and addressing the same sincerely, honestly and aggressively. Pakistan would love to see peace and only peace in the region so that it may concentrate on education, health care, infrastructural development etc., Regional peace would bring economic stability in the area, especially to Pakistan. We won’t need any aid if we only provide transit facility to our central Asian countries through Gawader port & develop our tourism sector. So our American brothers can safely judge how much important it is for us to remove these ‘terrorists ‘who are punishing us for our support to Americans to locate OSAMA BIN LADEN & his associates. We are fighting them out to best of our ability. They can be affectively destroyed if USA /NATO checks smuggling of armament/ammunition into Pakistan and also fence the border line between FATA and Afghanistan.