Saturday, January 19, 2008

Who is really to blame, and more importantly what next! Part I

Musharraf, the President of Pakistan said on a recent ABC interview that Benazir had violated her agreement with him by coming to Pakistan early, and was partly responsible for her own death by allowing herself to be a target, as she exposed herself from the roof top of her vehicle.

He might be right in the literal sense, we all could see that had she not popped her head out of the vehicle she might still be alive, but that fact should not be that important. The real question is that, have we as a nation come to a point where leaders cannot come out of their vehicles to touch the people. Have we lost all notions of civility, justice and sanity.

You could keep passing the buck endlessly between the Government, Benazir herself, or the Pro-Taliban/Wahabi extremest elements, as to who is responsible for what transpired that day but ultimately the blame lies on no one but the people of Pakistan. There is no way out of the mess we are in unless WE ourselves do something about it. (details on this topic next week)

Stop expecting politians, AMERICAN Government, or GOD to do anything for you, because you yourself are either too apathetic or just too freakin synical to do anything yourself. These days it seems like there are only 2 types of Pakistanis left, at least here in the United States. The first kind are those who just don't give a fuck (pardon my language, but there is no other word in the English language that can capture the essensce of their reasoning other than f@#%). You will hear statements like "Pakistan is a failed State, it is hopeless" every time you talk to them. Its like they have nothing else to say. In their minds there can be nothing positive done, they will bore you with the 2 instances in their life where they were treated like shit in Pakistan and how everything is so hunky dory in their half a million dollar house in the suburbs here in the US.

The 2nd type of Pakistanis are the very learned and well read ones. They would have read everything on Pakistan's history, and follow the current well known academics who write books on the country. You would assume that there would be a better word to describe how these folk feel about the nation, but I'm sorry to disappoint you, they also really don't give a F@#$%, and I'll explain to you why I say that. You will here the same "Pakistan is a failed State" mantra from them like the type 1 Pakistanis. These are people who are mostly very self-centered, yes they have a desire and quest for knowledge, but it is unfortunately never to do something positive. It is in most cases to make them feel good about themselves, and give them bragging rights in a social gathering about how well informed they are on the topic of Pakistan.

You might have sensed my love for such people, but it doesn't come without reason. WHOP DEE DOO after dozens of books on Pakistan you came to the conclusion that Pakistan is a failed State(which I don't completely agree with, just for the record) . So what if you after hundreds of years of research recognized a BAD APPLE when you tasted one. What the hell does that realisation do for anyone in Pakistan? NOTHING!!! but it sure as hell pleases your ego in a sick and twisted way I guess. You realised that Pakistan is not doing that well, hell, an 8 year old in a remote district of Pakistan could have told you that and he didn't even have to read all them books to figure that out.

The REAL question is, what are YOU planning on doing about it. Cause if you arn't planning on doing anything, then my dear your knowledge is, I'm sorry to tell you FUTILE, and I'm sure because of the excellent vocabulary that you developed by reading the books you will know what that means.

So I hope and pray that this stupid blog entry has inspired all those who don't know shit to learn something about Pakistan before coming up with their wonderful assumptions, and all those who KNOW shit to please take the next step and try to do something about it. Do not sit around and wait for a Messaih to come, or Divine intervetion, cause let me be honest here, God doesn't have time for free loaders like us.

Stay tuned for next week's blog on the problem of growing extremism and its devastating consequences in Pakistan.....

As always I would love feedback as long as its positive and full of praise. (Hey, don't hate me for wanting only praise, after all I am a Pakistani, so I have to fall within my Type 1 or Type 2 definition).

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