Pakistan's Problems - "What Pakistan is - we are.... and vice versa"

The blame game is the easiest thing in the world. You did this, you are responsible, you are at fault, why dont you change - point fingers, blame shifting, accusations etc. etc.

Pakistan is only as good as the people who live in it, we cant constantly blame others for our collective problems because in a way, either directly or indirectly we have contributed to those situations. We either dont care or turn the other way or worst case scenario leave it all to the Almighty Creator (nothing wrong with that but it is the attitude here that is the issue). Listed below are some typical scenarios:

1.) The politicians that we blame are people who live and thrive amongst us, the same human beings with slightly different ambitions in life not to mention extreme stubbornness and shamelessness perhaps? These people are not from Mars you know...

2.) Another of our favorite pastimes - playing the blame game and our cricket expertise. We are a nation of 160 million Tony Greigs and Ian Chappells! Isnt that amazing? What we again forget here is that these cricketers are people chosen from amongst us - so if we are prone to issues they are not exactly infallible either? Common sense folks...

3.) Past mistakes come back to haunt us, things that we have been proud of like the Kashmir jihad (God know what that was all about), the Afghan campaign (you guys still proud of your meddling role?), the wars with India (tell me whos better off now) and a lot of similar hollow stuff. Charity begins at home and certainly not by attempting to play God on what we think is easy turf?

4.) We love to talk about who did wrong - Bhutto, Zardari, Zia, Altaf, Sharif Bros., Ayub, Yahya etc etc.... but what about ourselves? We accepted policies of a dictator simply because he appealed to our testosterone laden brains at a given point in time - now we reap the long-term benefits of the insurgency that we so carefully planted in various parts of Pakistan.

5.) The religious divide - I am not even going to talk about this in detail given the sensitive nature of the subject, lets just say that we are in deep sh_t on this particular one. Religion my friends, is big business in Pakistan and fills the coffers of many groups and factions. If you want to play with the laws of God, fine do that, just don't ignore his wrath then...

6.) We live in our own private shells, shells that we are willing to stay in at the cost of anyone or anything else. So we will generally ignore what happens outside that safe domain. So whatever happened to social responsibility and being good Muslims? Out of the window?

7.) We are in crisis and we need to emerge out of this fast. There are several who can make a difference but there has to be a start, a mini-revolution of sorts, not for any one person or party but for truth - the real situation out there that needs to be addressed...

And may we prosper, Insha Allah....

Aarami Army...?

A few days back saw this awesome promo on the MTV India site for "Official Aarami" classes with Abhishek Bachan. This is a beautiful play on the use of the word "Aarami" which if prefixed by a "h" will lead to a word called Haraami which literally means ba_tard in Urdu/Hindi (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=harami) as well as Arabic which translates to thief in that particular language. But of course the interesting one is the former which is an oft-repeated word and also extends to cover people who are evil and cunning! :)

Coming back to the original discussion I want to debate the role of the Pakistani Army in the affairs of the country - here you will probably find 2 schools of thought:

1.) Pro-Army school of thought statements:

The army has made Pakistan what it is today (and that is an achievment!!! :) )

If it were not for the army, India would have gobbled us....yeah right!!!

They are the defenders of the nation...

They are the guardians of our sacred borders

They make us walk with pride on this fertile land (fertile is interchangeable with bloody, cursed, vicious...etc)

They are the only sane institution in a country of cheats and liars....

Their aim is to make life better for all of us (life and death both, does it matter?)

They are Allah's Blessing to us (Allah = God for us Muslims)

Of course the pro-army school of thought is in the majority and have always have been that way, in fact at one point in time I reckon nearly 99.9% of all Pakistanis (not counting the RAW/Mossad agents) would fall under this group. With the passage of time this has started to reverse and we have seen people wake up to what they have done to this Pak-watan (sacred nation).

2.) Anti-Army school of thought PART 1 (these are the political p-r-o-n stars) statements:

The army takes its shares of the spoils leaving nothing for us

They are an institution and work as such...

They do have some good in mind for the country - whereas the politicians dont!

They are anti-democracy - to the politicians democracy is synonomous with bonded labour/serfdom and feudal mentalities..

They have deposed "democratic" governments several times...

3.) Anti-Army school of thought PART 2 statements (normal people/stupid AWAAM):

*Awaam refers to the general public but in Pakistan the context is slightly alarming, these are people who are present in huge numbers but have no say - rather like the worker ants/bees in a colony, the difference being that insects have a lot of positive community dynamics and self-respect for each other...

The army has bled the nation dry..

While we continue to invest in arms/ammunitions and defence programs, education and other basic services go for a hike...

The army lives like a separate set of people - they have their schools, houses, utility stores etc.

Their attitude is amazing - armed forces personnel believe as if they are above the law...

Who are they accountable to?

Successive military governments have ensured that their people are spread far and wide from cricket to industries....and see the state of affairs there?

Might is certainly right? So while the army continues to dominate we have a parallel army of political parties in perpetual conflict

We have had some amazing people from this noble institution - General Yahya Khan, Zia ul Haq (the father of our present troubles) and so on...

Anyways this is my perspective, the truth might differ but if it did can anyone explain the current shi_pile that we are in?

The Start....or Beginning of the End?

Starting a blog is easy, starting a relevant blog is difficult and at times impossible to maintain the quality of work.

I am an online person, ever since the start of the WWW (way back in the early and mid 90s), of course the Internet took its time coming to Pakistan and I remember 1997 as the starting point with ISPs having come into being and moving out of Telnet... :)

For me the internet opened up a world of possibilities - chat, entertainment and so on...not to mention academic research - the hoovers, adages (free version) and numerous other portals with the classical infoseeks, altavista, lycos, excite, hotmail, rocketmail and yahoooo.....

Now almost 12 years on, the role that the WWW plays in my and our lives has changed - for a country like Pakistan which has been at the mercy of the dogs (since inception) and people who are willing to take advantage of each other at the slightest opportunity.....the internet can help to make people more aware, understand and choose between right and wrong...

I am sure there is much more to the internet than p-r-o-n and this might take some time getting through to this audience but eventually it will.

I was initially calling my blog Pakistan's Political P-r-o-n (changed it later coz Google wudnt recognize it otherwise!!! :) ) because this is exactly what it is - we have a plethora of adults who are out to f__k each other and of course the people of Pakistan!!! This might sound stupid but it is a sad reality....

This is probably ranting on my part.....and all that I can do at this point in time, however I expect things to change given some time and effort, as long as we understand that we need to be in control and not these p-r-o-n stars....political and military players both...

To start off I am attaching an image of our illustrious President who represents what this country stands for at this point in time - _______________ (fill in the blanks please)!

It is only natural that Mr Asif Ali Zardari whose name starts off with A and ends with Z sums the A-Z of Paki politics.................