good stuff – great blog!…

After reading your posts I am DEEPLY saddened, that you are more preoccupied by what is Pakistan and what is Aghanistan — There are no such countries in the eyes of God — we are all JUST Muslims, and part of the same Ummah. I worked with Afghani refugees for a long time and I speak Dari but I am a Pakistani and was born and raised in Islamabad in a Pakistani family — but the Afghanis used to tell me they hate Pakistanis and that I am just an exception – But how could you hate your own brothers and sisters? It is MY Pakistani mothers and father who taught me to care for my Afghani brothers and sisters – no one else.

We can blame the “WEST” for our problems all we want — but at the end of the day, if we continue to think along the lines of our fictional nationalities, then we will go no where. WHo cares if NWFP is part of Afghanistan or Pakistan; how could ANYONE fight for a “nationality” which means nothing in the sight of God? We must all join hands and fight to better the condition of all our peoples. An Afghani is just as much my brother as a Pakistani, and I hope a day will come in Afghanistan, when they stop hating us for our government’s policies and recognize us as their brothers and sisters as well.

Lastly — on the authority of Abu Dawud, the Prophet of Allah (s.w.) said: “” …People should give up their pride in nations because this is a coal from the coals of hell-fire…”

Another one reported by Abu Dawud and Tirmidhi says: “Behold, Allah has removed from you the arrogance of the Time of Jahiliyyah (Ignorance) with its boast of ancestral/national glories… All people are the children of Adam, and Adam was created out of dust.”

In another instance – Bukhari and Muslim both report – the Prophet (s.w) was asked regarding “Nationalism” (‘asabiyah in Arabic) and he responded: “Leave it. It is Rotten.”

There is No Afghanistan and No Pakistan — there are no lines drawn on the world that we could see from the moon — they are all a figment of our imagination. What is true though is that we are all part of one nation — even if we carry different passports and speak different languages.

Well, whist talking about so called wrongdoings of our politicians, lets not forget following.

1. Paki economy is largely imports driven and hardly anything that qualifies as Made in Pakistan.

2. Our foreign exchange reserves are mainly due to alms doled out by America (we always stand before them with begging bowl), remittances from Gulf employed. Earning from exports does not even constitute 20% of reserves (correct me if I am wrong)

3. A useless army, which eats defence budget and gets thrashing in every war and getting thrashed within country right now.

4. Horrible power supply, which no relgious leader is bothered about.

Any answers?

a candid opinion…u may use any sort of language and/or expression.
thanks

I’m sorry, but to construe the taliban as “people” is an enormous insult to everybody else. They are neither intelligent, nor islamic, nor human. No afghan with a blackberry or a penchant for kundera is strapping a bomb to himself!

I do agree there have been some wrongs perpetrated by musharraf, but i believe none of those occurred in the nwfp or afghanistan. the only place where musharraf slapped himself was with baluchistan, though even that is a highly sensitive issue.

btw, waziristan is now the “islamic emirate of waziristan”. catchy, kinda goes with the title “islamic emirate of afghanistan” that was envisioned by the taliban.

You do have observation. If Afghanis think NWFP their inherent right, does that matter? What about the people of NWFP themselves. If they want to be with Pakistan, they should have their say in the federation and Afghanis should stop whining about it. If people of NWFP wants to be with Afghanistan, why not let go if it democratically, instead of making the place difficult to live in.

But I do believe that every human being unless brainwashed religiously or otherwise, do have brains to think whats good for himself. I am sure, Afghanis have more grudges against Pakistan than just being unhappy about NWFP’s absorption in Pakistan. Moreover, even if you are right and this disdain has been there for ages, how come all that hatred is pouring out now with tens dying every day. I agree there had been instances before but it had been never like this where every week hunderds die.

There is definitely wrong being done by this governement and Musharraf is all responsible for it because his government is not a democratic government and its a one man’s rule.

the reason that disdain exists is because most afghans believe that the NWFP rightfully is a part of afghanistan. as a result, they’ve been fostering hate for far longer then either the soviet invasion and the following installation of the taliban by the pakistani govt or before the war on terror. hence, your correlation between afghanis hating us as a result of our association with the US is rather naive.

moreover, ask any pathan living in peshawar before the afghan refugee crisis and they’ll tell you of peshawar being a quiet, clean and hospitable place. now, peshawar’s got a substantial drug problem (which has been there since the afghan refugees started pouring in), not to mention how afghans own just about the whole of peshawar (in terms of real estate). this is not a diatribe against afghanis, but it really goes to show what they think of us when we’re harbouring an enormous of their population YET they feel the need to constantly hurl abuse (and far more dangerous things) at us.

you also talk of a misconception in relation to who suicide bombers are. correct me if i’m making a sweeping generalization here, but isn’t every suicide bomber in pakistan either part of the taliban or al-qaeda? or are lawyers just deciding now that maybe attaching some bombs to themselves will get the cjp back?

maybe some bellhop from serena decided to strap a bomb to himself and blow himself up infront of the mariott so that more people would look towards serena?

umar: you’re on the spot, somehow i knew there was something wrong about the sunni taliban making love to the hardline shiite iranis, but it was rather stupid of me to still go ahead with the statement.

And by the way, the Islamic extremists in Pakistan actually have been helping Baluchi rebels in Sistan-Baluchistan in Iran to attack Revolutionary Guards as well. So they are not just a threat to the stability of Pakistan.

There’s more to that than what meets the eye.