Politics is an art of impossible. You have reproduced a post of Sept 19th, 2001, since than a lot of water has passed under the bridges. On 19th of Sept here on these pages you will find reports suggestive of taking Pakistan out with Afghanistan, as both are equally extremist and in corrective beyond repairs. Going by history of Islamic nation, precedent false pride and arrogance of Islamic Ummah demanded that he should have acted like Saddam or Ottoman Empire in the First world war or I can go on for pages, Islamic history is littered with wrong choices. Losing opportunity is art best practised all across from one end to the other. Denial of democracy is also a very much a phenomenon that is very dear to the heart of 1.4 billion Muslims across. Now with these engrained strong man systems, wrong should have come out of him and my nation, the expectation was natural and global. I got several messages from my long time friends telling me, Iqbal we fear the future of Pakistan.
Pakistan and Afghanistan were commonly expected to be handed down the same ‘dose’ of daisy cutters ala Carte with same ferocity. At that moment, Pakistan needed to side with justice as matter of fact. But Islamic history says it otherwise; from Arafat to Sultan Abdul Hameed the ‘garland of shoes is gladly’ accepted in name of Allah.
Contrary to global expectation he very carefully played to the people by telling them that at the moment lets protect our cardinal interests, by setting up priorities he dissociated with a stroke of political genius the baggage of Afghanistan and Talebin as foreign subjects, irrelevant to the survival. Politics demand such great elements of brinkmanship; much as this guy is abhorred the fact is he performed an unthinkable act by carrying the nation to discard its historical junk of siding with Muslim nation in the world across. This junk is not limited to post 1947 Pakistan it is a part of the 18th century India and early 20th century India.
I think that what was demanded than, once the extremist Islamic forces were decimated in Afghanistan and the whole façade of Jihad came rolling down, the very people who were domestically demonstrating against Pakistani policy of joining the US to eliminate Talebin realized that how wrong they were. The priorities of the nation on 19th Sept was to avoid being a target of indiscriminate bombing and rightly so, I strongly believe that Talebin had held a total sway and control over Pakistani society through its extremist mouth organs. It came out good the four priorities help mobilized silent majority to support the President and hundreds of thousands of prediction made by NYT, IHT and self styled pundits of the world had to swallow their tall claims, he survived and delivered. US used Pakistani bases and carried out thousands of sorties and missions from our bases, from our waters and from our space. The slogan that Pakistan is the fort of Islam was put to rest, the concept that Islam came first and than Pakistan, changed completely the dynamics of our power structure are now adopting a new course that it is Pakistan first, and we are no way custodian of Islam.
Historical distortion by minnows who have no idea of our history makes me sad, to say the problem is Pakistan is travesty of highest order the problem is our history, our believes, Mahatma Gandhi and Maulana Azad in 1919-1924 led the Khalifat movement that led to biggest riots in Indian for restoration of Ottoman rule in Turkey and restoration of Turkey borders to pre World War 1 borders. Azad a congressman Mullah prodded 18000 Muslim families; they were uprooted from their society and migrated to Afghanistan for waging a jihad to restore Ottoman Empire. Very few of them ever returned like today’s Mullah Sufi who encouraged 15000 Pakistani for a sad sag of death and disaster, Azad a liberal man and later on a staunch opponent of Muslim League and President of the congress in 1940’s conducted himself with same style when it came to that Pan- Islamism. As converts of Islam the Muslims of this area have always been at the heart of the thinking that they are ‘God appointed cannon fodder of global Islam’ that kind of thinking is rooted in out region on both side of the borders. The manifestation of Islamic extremism was also rooted in Ottoman Turkey. The pan- Islamic concept is very deeply rooted and has long tentacles in our society, Ata Turk broke the shackles and freed his country from those well seated believes. The folding up of the Ottoman empire that threatened Vienna until late 17th century, if you agree a great feat of 20th century.
It is this kind of history and mind set that the President of my country faced and it was due to past disasters that most predicted that he would be dead meat. Very few like me believed that it is question of educating the masses, we did that, we defeated the extremist mullahs, lot stock AND barrel.
Yes the priorities seem to be out context and look jingoist if you present them the way you have. Read them in context of thousand of Muslim demonstrating in the streets of Lahore and Karachi demanding head of the President, I think the very nature of grand underlying politics played by him outplayed the greatest of mandarins. Some context is required and I would request you to revisit his entire political brinkmanship and also read with interest what the so-called press experts what they were saying, he would not survive, Pakistan is basket case.
I don’t think those priorities are same now, it is about rebuilding and a deterrent, all self respecting nations should have a minimum self respecting deterrent, in 1990, I learned it hard way when overnight a dictator from across took my life away from me. I learned that NATIONAL WEAKNESS IS A CURSE and a retrained strength is an attribute.
I think we have done well for ourselves, we need to look to our sub-continent and grow together and that is the best thing we can do to each other. Some nice egg on the face of enemy of my nation, we came out nice and clean and we came out peaceful. The people who committed the heinous crime of attacking Indian parliament are being arrested, the support groups are being tackled and the Mullah is on the run, that Pakistan if I had been most optimistic, I could have dreamt in next 10 years but not on 17th of Jan 2002. We have now embarked on writing a new page, cutting our ties from our unwanted and unneeded role of guardian of Islam rather within three months we have achieved now unprecedented voice of woman in our future parliament. Bottom line is more important than political speeches, the change of course is historic and we the children of lesser God in our region can see it coming big and nice, we also take pride that we are taking the fight and fighting this war from the front, we want liberation of minds and we shall achieve it.
85 seats for women and technocrats in the parliament,(they had none in the previous parliament), extremist elements being barred to contest the election unless one is a graduate, these decisions are receiving overwhelming support of the nation, we are finally feeling free, join us to say ‘Pakistanis we wish you good luck, you guys have finally cut the chains, welcome to the new world. Our priority is to shun extremism, to promote harmony and try to see that we settle our disputes with India asap on peaceful basis, we shall achieve it. This is change of course for us, this is a new journey towards better and for people like me seeing my country flourish and seeing the priorities of education, woman equality and rights of minorities being restore as an act that is unique within Islamic world, the catalyst has come, how can now Saudi tell their woman that they don’t no have the right to drive when they will see poor improvised Pakistan has 65 woman by matter of right in their national parliament. From 11th of Sept no other Muslim country has done as much as we have. US allies like Egypt, Saudi and others have just been quiet, they have muzzled streets, we the ‘children of dictators’ were out being reported as demonstrating violently and being reported world over as next revolution brewing like that of Khomeinis.
I was an island of stability since September 11 as I reported that we as nation will come out of it nice and good and I take pride in that. The demonstrations did nothing, ISI is muzzled, the President is safe and no coup ever came, it was rather another General who delivered that constitutional reform package which our Mullahs and semi educated politicians would have never agreed to send to the parliament.
I feel surprised that I have a list of 182 articles in such reputable papers as New York Times, IHT, Washington Post, stories carried by global media suggesting that Pakistan is dead meat and that Musharaff would not come out of this crisis. None of those authors are ever told that guys you have been so of the mark. The reason being very simple, distance from history is a killer, that inflicts massively Western Society who are so judgemental about issues in our part of the world. And this is a cancer that breeds distances and creates arrogance and sets off a process of perpetual decline that never halts. The very strength of my nation is that we are so critical of ourselves. We had thousands of articles denouncing Musharraf which was not reflective of the wishes of the nation, and hundreds of articles from people like me who stated that this is the right stance, this was Pakistan's chance of break through.
All that open debate, all those demonstrations where no massive force was ever used to quell those demonstrations, to promote the credentials of pluralism in our society. Take any Arab or Muslim nation, they cannot do that, their dictators will gas them out. Our ability to do that is our biggest strength. Our ability to do that is very much Un Russia like, Un Chinese like and very much in line with British democratic traditions where tabloid self flaggation is an art.
The points was that those very demonstrations that we had, failed to impress on our opponents that if we can disagree so much in our dictator ship how good can be our democracy? No one bothered to ask that why articles and speech so openly critical of the President are not being censored in local press, the demonstration and freedom of expression in my country is million time better than many a democracies where I have my other homes. I still live as Iqbal Latif, I can still be posted on Iqbal Latif, Islamabad only, and my views are well know, people tell me Ike your nation is a dictatorship, when was the last time these very people have condemned (like I do) the scum’s like extremists in their backyard under the garb of democracy? This is the question now I pose!! I would rather live in dictatorship where I can see my faults and correct them than to live in democracy where extremist rule is the rule of majority. |
