It is quite frustrating to know that despite having a relatively stable governance right across the border from you, my country has pretty much the same problems as yours (well technically I am not right now, across the border from you.. but I was at one point of time).

someone here commented about the futility of writing articles in a foreign tongue that only a small minority can understand and identify with. I do not completely agree.. I think activism is a necessary tool against short-sighted, self-serving politics and it can manifest itself in lots of ways. People like us (I dare make a sweeping generalisation), who think alike, and have similar hopes and dreams of peace for our countries and families, also need reassurance that we are not alone. That there are more like us out there, and no matter how bad the situation might be, there is hope.

So yes, blogs and articles, however small their target audience might be, do make a difference. And I look forward to more like this from you!

cheers

manu

I am wondering if this is how he had wooed Benazir.

More importantly, is this the kind of diplomacy we will be seeing now?

SIGH indeed!

Bhaijan,
Thank you for your insightful words, as always. Yes, that’s what our government should be doing, but the problem again is that the arbab-e-ikhtyar don’t give a damn. They are more busy wishing they could hug ‘gorgeous’ ladies. *sighs*

We all know we must do something, that the time is now for action, that the masses must take control (as anarchist as that sounds), but no one seems to know just what it is that needs doing.

Perhaps, each of us needs to sit down and set down just what it is that each of us can do in our own capacity, which come to think of it is as vague as everything else. I can sit and hope and a fat lot of good that will do.

I know what is wrong. Bombing our own people is wrong. Gunships firing away into our own people is wrong. The people killed in the bomb blasts were mostly if not all Pakistanis and Muslims. The people our army is having to kill are also all Muslims and mostly Pakistanis. Muslims and Pakistanis dying at the hands of Muslims and Pakistanis is wrong. Muslims and Pakistanis dying is wrong. People dying is wrong. And all this death hoisted upon us by an amalgamation of multiple foreign agenda.

First and foremost, this death, this killing must stop. And we need to figure out how to do that. How can each of us in his or her own capacity help stop this senseless killing of our people on both sides of this conflict?

Naive I may sound, but the start must be for Pakistan to pull out of this disastrous war with immediate effect. Tell the Americans and the NATO off. What can they do to us that we are constantly being threatened with? What really have they been able to do to Iran, or even North Korea for that matter? And they do not even need either of those two, nor is any of them a nuclear power. What on earth are we so afraid of? The last thing a crumbling wall street’s America can risk is expanding any of its wars.

Stand up to them and tell them off – it is all very well being allies for mutual benefit, but when one of the allies is bleeding to death because of the alliance, the other allies are called parasites. Pakistan has fought this forbidden war at a prohibitive cost. And she has fought this war with herself. I fail to understand this suicidal alliance and the benefit to be had from killing ourselves.

The Government of Pakistan must sit down with all Pakistanis, those who have been bombed by the army, and those who have been bombed in retaliation, admit the glaring horrendous blunders, and apologise. I do not care if it is Zardari, or Gilani, or Shareef or Kyani who does this – but peace must be made internally, before we indulge in the luxury of external wars.

That will be the first step on the long journey towards peace and healing our own wounds.

My heart bleeds for the victims of these suicide bomb blasts in our cities, and it bleeds just the same for the Pakistanis killed and wronged in the North of the country. Make no mistake, they are all Pakistanis and they are being killed.

The Government of Pakistan must be reminded that at the height of insurgency in occupied Kashmir, our enemy across the border has not resorted to gunship sorties on Kashmiris. How on earth can anyone even begin to justify our operations in the North???

Prolly cause them folks with the bombs are closest to us! :S

@Saadat

baraa bad scene hai!

Mahwash,
I’ll be checking out that theory. And yes, that horrible end is where we are heading, unless we put an end to it. Again, the problem is how.

Hira,
I wish I knew. Probably it has something to do with the emotions — the jazbatiyat — that runs in our Pakistani blood and makes us shoot our both feet at once.

Then i learnt that Kuwait had provided the US the airbases to bomb Iraq. I also learned that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was just as willing. For some reason uptil yesterday i had hoped it had been Israel- i don’t know why.
I then also realised that other than Iran, almost all front-line Muslim states are pro American policies.If not pro-policies, at least they won’t tick off the US by refusing them anything.

So now i’m left with just one question. Why is Pakistan the primary target of the fundamentalists, other than the US and EU? Why isn’t the same happening in other countries?

That’s the inevitable end I’m fearing. No matter how badly KarachiKhatmal wants it to be untrue, it really is where we’re heading.

Might I explain the theory of the “Power Elite” by sociologist C. Wright Mills? I suggest you look it up. Masses are at the bottom of the barrel. And the ones on top are military head honchos, policy-makers and the opinion-leaders. People like you me, regardless of our income (mostly, anyway) rank on the bottom, a place where even hearing aids would have trouble doing their duty.

“We can bring an end to the feelings of injustice and deprivation so prevalent across our country”

That was spoken like a true idealist, a true elitist. What does your dad do?

You think that by writing on a blog that someone literate enough to write a blog has hosted on an internet site, written in the language of the elite, can stop women from prostitution, children from being sold and Zardari from becoming President?

Blogging and voicing of opinions is an incredibly important tool for change, and I’m all for it. But problems like poverty and illiteracy don’t go away by talking about it amongst ourselves (sad but true), and they will certainly not be alleviated by all of us wishing that they do.. no matter how really really really really hard we close our eyes. Sorry, that just isn’t happening.

If you want to stop sounding nihilist talk about the future of Pakistan and how it can be better, and what changes should be there. But don’t sit there and glorify poverty and expect things to change just because people with 25k-plus income can TALK about it.