Sweet or sour, statements are something like a cocktail of fair or foul practices. But such catchy phrases or ideas leave a profound impact on the psyche of people.
The statement by one of the honorable American think tank Bruce Riedel that Pakistan has become one of the `most dangerous places in the world’ will prove a costly illusion to the Muslim community, in general and Pakistani Diaspora in particular. Besides, indicting Pakistan on a number of accounts, such as a country with track record of abetting nuclear proliferation, waging wars with its neighbor, hosting terrorists, and running drug business, he even termed Pakistan as birthplace of whole group of terrorist organizations, ultimately linked to the Pakistan intelligence service and to the Pakistan military. His concluding remarks “these are conspiracies within conspiracies within conspiracies” demand a close scrutiny and reality check, to lay bare the facts before the readers. His statement about the complex political scenario currently prevailing in the country cannot be denied, but the resultant situation, is outcome of many factors, to which Pakistan alone cannot be blamed for. Each subject, Mr. Riedel raised, has its own history that cannot be summed up to clear the doubts of the international community, in so short span of time. Pakistan has been target of international conspiracies, time and again, but to divulge the realities, by its leaders, would have posed more threats, than serving any good purpose. On the contrary, our ability to say yes to most of the calls, by our coalition partners was never appreciated or paid with the kind tokens by the foreign media managers. But whenever things went wrong, in their calculations, as consequences of such moves, Pakistan became the victim of wide publicity and US or European lobbies started picking holes in its policies. It may not be wrong to say that there may be a few countries in the world, so pliable, as Pakistan is. If India carries out its nuclear tests, no hullabaloo is created and the dust of international acerbity, kicked up, after a few condemnation statements, settles after sometime. But in Pakistan’s case, whatever it does for its safety, or as its deterrence against Indian expansionism, it goes with a big bang as `Islamic bomb’. ISI did whatever its masters wished it to do but it always remains in the news for displaying double standards. The issue often raised about ISI element’s involvement, in violating the agreed agenda is more a myth than reality. As far, Pakistan’s capability to fight counter-terrorism wars is concerned, the same can be partially acknowledged but time has taught many new things to our military and the leadership, to confront challenges, one after the other. By design or by default, the situation, which our young generation might face would be stigma of Jihadis – a symbol of hate or terror. The Americans and the European fully know what Pakistanis did or doing and what all this tiny community in US/Europe is contributing to make their lives so comfortable. Against the ground realities, Mr. Riedel’s statement does not fit well. Will some one peel off his logic and carry out reality-check with his open eyes, to set the things right? At the same time one should not be disillusioned with certain other realities may termed as referred pain – a medical terminology used when the patient complains about the pain that actually shoots due to any other disease of other organ. A practical manifestation of such misconstrued concept is the definition of terrorism in the modern lexicons. In the same manner, Pakistani people throw out their feeler, when they are mistreated, when painted in the wrong color or shades. They complain, why those criminals who kill another fellow-being, out of their religious grudge are treated as Taliban, terrorist or extremists, whereas this is centuries old common human nature all over the world. They also argue that Muslims, who turn violent, after the murder of their mother, wife, children or any other close relative by the anti-terrorist squads or during the drone attack are dubbed, treated and targeted as Taliban/al-Qaeda operatives or Extremists? Although their reaction is a natural phenomenon being a defender, guardian or savior of their families or part of social set-up? Every society is curious mix of people of different shades and opinion. In any society, there are nationalists HR activists, patriots, criminals, fifth columnists and political parasites, yet collective condemnation or labeling a nation as Jihadis or Taliban is not rational, as no one can guess what ratio of its population is exactly assessing its government actions as right or wrong. Most of the people in Pakistan lament that they have become more or less hostage of certain disinformation lobbies of generally Western origin, who fabricate or project the individuals’ un-Islamic immoral and inhuman acts as whole nation’s collective mindset, faith or strategy to which they so vehemently and categorically condemn, disapprove and disagree. The media reflection of Pakistani society, in most of the Western world, is generally considered biased, distorted and devoid of reality. Except few pockets in the border belt area, neither its 99% population supports Jihadi outlook, nor they want to be wary, is never highlighted. Let anybody come and visit the whole of Pakistan to see with their own eyes, he will find every citizen peace-loving, law-abiding, god-fearing and badly smitten with poverty - but full of complaints against the poor governance and highhandedness of powerful Mafias be they feudal community or ruling political hierarchy or the pressure groups. The impression about Pakistani people, generally reflecting Pakistanis as supporters of Jihadis or anti-American/Europeans is not true. Granted the current spree of drone attacks has created a wave of anxiety and resentment against Bush legacy, but people fully know what role the USA played to save, support and bail out Pakistan from a chain of crisis during the last six decades. Despite reservations, one will have to acknowledge that Americans felt the pulse of our nation with great sympathy and in all probability will continue to support us in future as well. But it is beyond anybody’s guess, how Mr. Riedel went to the extent of visualizing Pakistan, a place that is most dangerous heart of this planet? Many American, European and Eastern were heard quoting that Pakistani Diaspora has been found, one of the best community, due to their humility, hard-work, loyalty, discipline, law-abiding and morally sound that has virtually helped them to earn great respect. True or false, my claims can be verified by all those, who either are living or had spent reasonable time here. What hot and cold is being blown about Pakistanis as extremists, Jahidis or terrorists or militants is an attempt to pull the rabbit out of hat either with certain vest interests, malfunctioning of some other government institutions or seeing the things from wrong perspectives.
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