“THE Lebanese Prime Minister was forced to cry before media because of weak defence capability of his country and no such thing would be allowed to happen with Pakistan.”

Ayaz Amir further continues:

This piece of wisdom comes from Pakistan’s air force chief, Air Chief Marshal Tanvir Mehmood Ahmed.

If had read this article a couple of weeks ago I would have been a little skeptical of the main premise. However, recently I came across the entry on Kargil war at Wikipedia. (2) Now I am not a great fan of this site – I always take its content with a grain of salt and for a good reason. (3) However if you get past the journalistic integrity and the scholarship debate, you find the article pretty damning evidence against the asinine and immature Pakistani foreign policy of abrasion and attrition against India. I just do not know what these guys were thinking when they started the Kargil war. The main point again, is that Pakistani army with its visions of grandeur always bites off more than it can swallow as Ayaz Amir has pointed out.

The reasons for miscalculating the playing field are numerous. I am going to concentrate on Pakistani attitudes that have lead to disasters time after time. First and perhaps foremost is the fact that Pakistanis never learned the art of diplomacy. Hence they also never learned what could be the consequences of faulty long-term diplomatic policies. The West perfected this skill over the past 2 to 3 centuries through constant warfare and internal strives. It can work wonders most of the times. However, work or not it is something you have to do. It is the common lingo of the countries and courtiers around the world. I recently listened to one of the “international” press conferences by General Pervaiz Musharraf. It was a sad sight. His choice of words was without much forethought, his attitude was smug and dismissive and his arguments were mostly loquacious – in short he had been ill coached by his policy advisors. He is however, probably better of the bunch. Does anybody remember Asif Zardari sitting with the Pakistani delegation in Japan a few years back?

Secondly, there is a pervasive sense among Muslims in general that if they unite then nothing is going to stop them from becoming the dominant philosophy of the world and somehow things are miraculously going to swing their way. This belief in miracles leads to shortcuts, which in turn lead to spotty performance – if at all. The strategy of plane bombings is a manifestation of this sort of thinking. These culturally alienated kids really think that they are going to make a dent in these enormous Western economies by flying a couple of planes into the buildings. I would argue that progress of any kind – whether personal or political is a painstakingly slow and laborious process. It is also very finely graded in a stepwise fashion. Pakistan’s past wars though mainly out of spite were founded on the hope that quick raids on the enemy would work.

Thirdly, Pakistan had always seen itself as a close Indian rival. When you talk to an average Pakistani he would tell you that the gap is widening but he has no clue how wide the gap has become over the years. In the West when people talk about India they talk about it and China in the same breath – as two emerging super powers. Pakistan on the other hand is seen as a breeding ground for trouble. However, by and large Pakistani hopes and ideas are still anachronistically placed in 1965 when the little brave state of Pakistan “defeated” India.

Much has been said about how and why these attitudinal biases came to being. I am not going to delve into that. However, one thing is clear: Pakistanis have to go back to the political drawing board and redo their long term foreign policy – not only to succeed but to avoid imminent calamities.

Notes
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1. See http://dawn.com/weekly/ayaz/20061108.htm

2. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kargil_War

3. For example see the concern about the fact that anybody can change the entries. http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/business/technology/15328352.htmThis makes the site prone to vandalism as noted in the article below:http://www.itnews.com.au/newsstory.aspx?CIaNID=36115&src=site-marq 

For most of us life is mostly a pendulum that swings between bad and worse. Recently it swung for the worst for the Kashmiris.
Whole villages were wiped out in a blink and life vanished as if it did not exist at all. We all have seen the heart wrenching photos of the victims in the media. One picture I remember is of a father holding his injured child. The lines on his face tell the story of a hard life. As if the quake and its horror were not enough, I heard somebody tell me about a woman who found the body of her child being eaten by animals after the quake. On an individual and personal level same old thoughts burst out of the closet again. In my existential angst I asked myself those “frivolous” questions that my teachers and parents had taught me not to waste time on. How could a loving God put so many villages to ruin, how does this calamity fit in the grand scheme of things, what could God gain from taking a child from his mother or a mother from her child, leaving the ones who are alive to languish in misery. If the idea of Intelligent Design is true then how come life, that defies the law of Entropy, could be thrown at the mercy of unruly rodents? This however, is just my anguish and helplessness speaking.

On a more collective level, people are going through similar torment presently. Those in the middle of the action are complaining of slow or non-existent governmental support. There is finger pointing; there are political agendas to cater to and old scores to settle. There are some that want to benefit materially from the skewed market forces this quake has created. However, we have to realize that these negative forces are nothing new – they have always cropped up in times like this. The important question is what as individuals and private citizens should we be doing to help this situation?

On the flip side, for the thousands of benumbed survivors all the mores, rules and laws are suspended for now. There is no luxury to reflect, philosophize or even complain about what just happened as they are scrambling for basic human needs. The survivors have lost something more precious than life itself – they have lost human dignity. Many have been literally stripped of the roofs above their heads and life has become a day-to-day struggle for the last morsel beneath the sputtering wings of rescue choppers; that is, if you are lucky enough to get even that much. For them it is going to be a lifelong effort of rebuilding and recovering.

(2)

Nietzsche once said, “That which does not kill us makes us stronger.” I firmly believe in the infinite resilience of human spirit. However, at this hour strength will only come through unity and personal sacrifice without any finger pointing. Human beings have exhibited some basic and common qualities throughout the ages. The beauty of these qualities is that they work regardless of your beliefs, ideologies and personal biases. In times like this courage, hope and compassion is our only recourse on a collective level. It was courage that won the day for the underdogs at every turn in history. It was the hope of finding the Promised Land that kept the Children of Israel going in the desert for forty years and it was the compassion that led the Insar in Medina to declare brotherhood with total strangers like the Muhajirun. On an individual note we need to ask ourselves two simple questions before we do anything – is my action going to help the situation in any way, shape or form? If not is it going to be harmful to our collective efforts? The time for indictment, incrimination and retribution can come later. Everybody needs to do his own soul searching and find his own answers to these questions. In the end I do strongly believe that eventually this phoenix will rise from its ashes.

 

One question that is still not clear to me is whether the government is not doing enough because it does not care (enough) or it is not doing enough because it cannot do any more than what it is doing right now because of its limited resources?

As a counterpoint I can quote the example of the US, who with all its resources has not been able to provide timely and adequate help to Kashmir, a region so critical to its war on terror. A very nice apologetic argument is made in a recent Newsweek article that gives some very plausible reasons for the tardiness shown by the US.

Given the facts explained in the Newsweek article it is not difficult to extrapolate and argue that the Pakistani government is stretched even thinner. I therefore, confess that it is the latter explanation that makes more sense to me. There are some acts that defy reason though. As mentioned in the article by Mr. Amir one of our crucial ministers spent 12 days in the US before getting back to Pakistan. However, as ignorant and far placed I am from the ground realities of the politics in Pakistan and the whole situation I cannot say anything with conviction.

I remember seeing the movie Thin Red Line a few years back. The theme was that every man fights his own war as was evidenced by the motley characters behaving in their own set ways and some even dying for their convictions. It is hard not to find parallels between the movie and the situation in Pakistan. I guess in the end it all boils down to one’s intentions and convictions.

The stakes keep getting higher for Pakistan with each passing moment. (1) As winter slowly creeps up the peaks of the mountains in Kashmir so does the number of deaths. (2) We as a nation face a dilemma that is an appendage of a bigger problem. On one hand is the plight of the stranded hundreds of thousands while on the other hand is the question of national pride and the open military flank in the region. External help is slow in coming (3) partly because the world does not care and partly because of our own attitudes of deep suspicion and resentment towards the rich nations in general (4) and out of spite for our arch-rivals in particular.

As the help slows to a trickle and the pledges look more and more like soap bubbles, Pakistanis have to decide – very soon, whether to swallow their pride while facing the inevitable or go-it-alone and risk further lives and misery. Some want to “Scream” while most seethe in silent rage. The unintended consequences of all of these options are anybody’s guess.

Some things are virtually certain though. The devastation is much more than what has been reported. Secondly, Pakistan dearly needs the support of rich nations and thirdly, and most crucially when the help comes it is more-or-less going to be on their terms. The hand that gives is always on top of the hand that takes.

Most of us have contributed to the relief effort in multiple ways but let us not become complacent. If you live in the US, now is the time to write to your congressman and senators clamoring for more than the token logistical support the US has provided so far. If you are in Pakistan, now is thetimeto stand united with the victims. Demand from your local and national authorities that the relief operations be run in the most efficient and fastest way possible to minimize human misery. Keep the pressure on at all levels of government so there is no let up. And whether we are in the US, Pakistan or any other country, let us use the media to prevent the World from forgetting. But Umair says all that and more, much more powerfully, please read on… Salman

Scream.

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