Tuesday, April 13, 2010

The Kyrgyzstan Model?

Are we [in Pakistan] heading towards an anarchy? Or are we just in the middle of one? Lets have a look:
  1. Army is already busy in an almost full scale war in the traditionally safe and secure western border areas (talking of the border tribal belt itself). Much worse they are fighting within the borders. The insurgents/miscreants are after all the citizens of Pakistan and the "collateral damage" kills our own innocent people and ruins the country's infrastructure. When the army men lay their lives, it weakens our own army and the thought of killing a Muslim brother demoralizes our men (especially in lower ranks), who are motivated by the concept of 'Jihad'. Not to mention the issues of IDPs and the hatred that is bred by such operations in the hearts of local population. Military operation might have been inevitable but we are yet to see its required outcome and pacification of the local population (our brethren) for whatever material and emotional damages they suffered. 
  2. Those tribal areas in which our own army is not engaged, the ever notorious US drones are operating and killing the ones spared by the ground forces. Just goes on to add insult to injury. 
  3. Move a little up north in the same region and we have a new kind of upheaval. There are people who are out to prove Shakespeare wrong, "Whats in a name". Ask someone living in Hazara [division] and he/she will tell you, its all about the name. Rest of their province is celebrating the change of name [of their province] from NWFP to Khyber-Pakhtoonkhwa. 
  4. Then lets take into account the cities of Peshawar, Rawalpindi, Lahore and few others at the same time. Here the bravadoes, from those areas mentioned in the first paragraph, equipped with twisted religious interpretations and lots of explosives go for bombing sprees that kill security forces men and the innocent civilians alike. 
  5. Then we have a local version of IRA .. which we call BLA (Balochistan Liberation Army)
  6. To add further spice we have an acute shortage of electricity. On one hand it is ruining the business, industry, employment opportunities, peace of mind and smooth running of daily lives, on the other hand it is tarnishing the image of government and deeming it as a failed entity. Thirdly it has also brought the angry common people on the streets. 
  7. Things were already quite "smooth" when our "beloved" neighbor also jumped in to "lend a hand". They are blocking the waters of our rivers by building .. DAM[N]s. Resultantly we are having a short fall of irrigation water as well. It also aggravates the power crisis.
  8. Soon we are going to have a new wave of inflation when a proposed 15% VAT on products across the board and 6% rise in electricity prices comes into effect. The streets will be filled with protesters again. I mean those streets that were spared by an insurgency, bomb blast, celebration/protest for/against the name of a province, bomb blast, protest against shortage of essentials (other than oxygen), bomb blast, protest just for the heck for it, bomb .......
In above paragraphs I have listed some of the most major and mostly internal problems that come to the mind of an ordinary Pakistani. Not to mention the more deeper and complex issues at the national and foreign fronts. Now if we consider the uprising in Kyrgyzstan it was mainly due to rise in heating and electricity tariff, coupled with usual ills of corruption and nepotism. Whereas is Pakistan we have multiple issues. Issues that are much more complex, deeper and grave. Hence we can safely conclude that Pakistan is NOT heading towards a Kyrgyzstan-like uprising. Being a nation of creative, sovereign, original and independent people we'll do something in our own right. (باقی الله خیر ہی کرے - آمین )

4 comments:

  1. Stating the obvious is not always harmless.

    Imagine your house is on fire. Everyone is scared and worried but you are shouting out *facts*. "This is fire". "Fires are dangerous". "Fires have killed thousands of people in the history" .. and stuff like that. I am sure you get the point.

    Starting with Geo all the way down to the newly born TV channels and media pundits of our country have done just that; because it sells. It has caused panic, which has caused anxiety. Messages that our country is at the verge of collapsing are being given out on a daily basis. The recurrence of these messages has converted us into a mob .. from a nation. If it keeps happening, we will turn into merciless zombies.

    Your post is a clear misuse of the sub keh do day ;) You owe me a positive post on this blog and a few thousand bucks.

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  2. I just add my thoughts to it:

    And on top of it we are against/divided on the ideology of Pakistan, divided on why it was
    created at all.
    One level up we do not even bother if we do acts that are clearly against the orders of our
    Creator, Who gifted this homeland to us on shab-e-qadar.

    But the hope is not lost as yet. We still do have time and the opportunity to repent and
    correct. However, once it is closed (may that not happen) our duas might also not get
    listened to.

    Am I ready to repent and turn to Allah not fearing the consequences it might be shown to
    me by our enemy rather trusting in Allah Who can do anything; literally anything?

    We see a live example in our neighbourhood where the coalition forces state that there
    are only 20,000 talibs but to tackle them they are having to deploy more than a 100,000
    troops of their own, at least 3 times to this the Afghan army and more forces, the
    machinery, the jets, the technology ... all this just to defeat 20,000 human beings having
    no comparable arms, no open grounds, no external support... and after having all this in
    place they say they can not defeat them @#$

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  3. @Aqeel: Creating panic will not help .. agreed but ignoring realities won't help either. It is time for all of us to wake up and DO something. Practically do anything that we can. However this post is specifically addressed to the rulers and politicians of the country.
    As a matter of fact I have already forwarded my thoughts to the politicians of PTI, PML(Q) and PPP (via email). I plan to contact politicians of PML-N, MQM, ANP and JI too. Plus the members of assembly. How easy/difficult it is to get the emails of politicians and how many of the emails bounce back will be the topic of another blog post :)

    (I'll try to write a positive post as you said however those bucks might be difficult in these troubled times :p)

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  4. I think few factual corrections;

    Afghan Border always was troublesome at least since late 1970s and even before as the country on the other side was always unsettled.

    Pashtun / Hazara divide is historical but never recognised. So the trouble in Abbotabad etc has much deeper roots. This is ANP (Pashtuns) and PPP playing dirty to the core and the consequences are what they intended.

    Miscreants / insurgents were given free hand and still are given too much leeway. Taking over a part of country and declaring their own administration unheard of in civilized world except in Pakistan where every Imam in every Mosque is ready to wage Jihad against Pakistan its just that there aren't enough namazis.

    Army still has no direction i.e. Taliban or America? or its waiting for English Generals to take over the Command.

    Nation still undecided; a government of bearded head choppers or educated and experienced professionals who know their jobs.

    By the way all mix and match (religon and professionals) claims are either political diversions or failures and Allama Iqbal was wrong on all counts.

    But dig this there are more than sufficent bearded head choppers available to take over Pakistan and everyone's lives but there are no educated people in Pakistan.

    For me I know people around the world, israeli jews and indian hindus included and I am comfortable and confident. But I dread the day when there will be an illeterate, bearded, danda weilding, pillar of piety, keeper of faith Imam standing on the road and auditing the length of my pants.

    Aurangzeb

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