Yesterday I met a man who was a Pakistani but a member of the US army. It was the queerest experience. He introduced himself as being in the military, I simply assumed he was in the Pak Army but then he disclosed so proudly that he was a member of the US marine force. His father however was in the Pakistan Air Force. What hit me was how he proudly announced to be part of the Us Army and not Pakistan’s. At that moment I wanted to defend the Pakistani army, I wanted to say something to make him feel guilty and realize that he had chosen to be on the wrong side. However I just stayed quiet. He went on to say that Pakistan would take a “while” to be on its feet again. He referred “while” to a couple of hundred years. I still kept my quiet. To that he added that since it took America a “while” to be a “ a land of opportunities” so would be the case with any other country. By then there was a mass of emotions and feeling unleashed but I still kept my quiet. But now I am thinking and saying to myself that I should not be criticising him or blaming him for anything. He was right, after all we do tend to compare our success with the west they are the beacon holders for us. But what mostly everyone has given a deaf ear to is that it was the Pakistani Army which fought “America’s” war on its own land and territory. It is not so hard to shoot your enemy in war when you belong to the different country, different religion. The real courage is needed when you have to fight your own, and shoot a person belonging to your religion and your part of the territory. The Pakistani soldiers did that. All the post 9/11 shocks were not absorbed by the American land but Pakistani and they owe us if not anything else at least an acknowledgment of that.
What went wrong in Pakistan?
” I have travelled across the length and breath of India and I have not seen one person who is a beggar, who is a thief, such wealth. I have seen in this country such High moral values, people of such caliber,that i do not think we would ever conquer this country. Unless we break the very backbone of this nation, which is her spiritual and cultural heritage, and therefore I propose that we replace her old and ancient education system, her culture, for if the Indians think that all that is foreign and English is good and greater than their own.They will lose their self esteem, their native culture and they will become what we want them, a truly dominated nation.” – MACAULAY’S ADDRESS TO THE BRITISH PARLIAMENT 2 FEBRUARY 1835
I think that all that is happening in Pakistan now is just a carrying out of scheme, a scheme that was laid against this rich land 200 years ago. People of the subcontinent had been living together for hundreds of years than why did that biggest tragedy in the human history had to take place? What happened that the Muslims, Sikhs , Hindus who had been living together for so long could not continue living together? I fail to understand why now that we do have our separate country fail to achieve what we had planned to do? Why is Pakistan now not what the Quaid had wanted it be?
