Whats Holding Pakistan Together?

[Skies]

Baluchistan = California, Nevada, Arizona, Texas.
Shind = Florida, Georgia, Alabama.

NW - Gilgit = Washington state, Alaska
Islamabad = Montana, Michigan, Chicago.
Punjab = Virginia, Carolina, Washington DC.
Kashmir = ?


USA ......USP

 

[AUSTERLITZ]

A large and vibrant middle class.

 

[SQ8]

Baluchistan = California, Nevada, Arizona, Texas.
Shind = Florida, Georgia, Alabama.

NW - Gilgit = Washington state, Alaska
Islamabad = Montana, Michigan, Chicago.
Punjab = Virginia, Carolina, Washington DC.
Kashmir = ?

Perhaps smaller divisions.. GB = Nebraska, Hazara province= Montana..
Islamabad= Marlyland, District of Columbia
Punjab.. divided into North and South..Carolina
Sindh divided

And so on.

But it will not work simply because the reason to be united is still very fragile.

 

[SQ8]

A large and vibrant middle class.

And they care the least.

 

[Donatello]

Perhaps smaller divisions.. GB = Nebraska, Hazara province= Montana..
Islamabad= Marlyland, District of Columbia
Punjab.. divided into North and South..Carolina
Sindh divided

And so on.

But it will not work simply because the reason to be united is still very fragile.

Actually it would, as Pakistan's division on linguistic lines is now possible. We have so many people from so and so background, that creating new provinces is the need of the hour.

It is different in USA, even though they have 50 states, all those 50 states have a uniform ethnic culture today. We don't.

By creating new provinces we can give the local indigenous people more chance in politics and running their own affairs.

Like Split Balochistan up into Gwader/Lasbela , Kalat, Quetta etc areas.

 

[Devil Soul]

The people of Pakistan are the one holding Pakistan together...
Bcoz without them Pakistan wont exist...

 

[IND151]

Nice article.

Opinion
What's holding Pakistan together?
Islamabad diary

Ayaz Amir
Friday, February 14, 2014

Not Islam - this fiction was exploded in 1971, and continues to be exposed today in Balochistan. Far from being a uniting factor religion, and the uses to which it is being put, is proving to be the biggest divisive factor of all, Pakistanis killing each other in the name of sect and faith – a country created on the basis of religion floundering at the altar of religion, earnest Pakistanis forever engaged in the quest to discover what Allah’s commandments mean and what they do not.

Not democracy – which is proving to be a sham democracy, unable to sow the seeds of peace in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa or lessen the anger of the aggrieved Baloch, or prove a boon to Karachi, or have any kind of relevance for the down and out, the economically disadvantaged, who constitute the vast majority of the Pakistani population.

Not a common sense of nationhood – because that is something we have not managed to create, indeed the concept of nationhood never more fractured than it is today, partly because the institutions of statehood have become so dysfunctional, partly because of the march of primitive Islam, as exemplified by the Taliban, which is testing the capacities of the Pakistani state, and leading thoughtful Pakistanis to brood about the country’s future.

Holding Pakistan together, and this is a sad admission, is what pseudo-leftists like myself had trained ourselves to demonise, and with good reason because of its long list of follies: the Pakistan Army. The army we blamed, and rightly so, for many of Pakistan’s problems – East Pakistan, the cult of militarisation, the overweening power of the ISI, the unholy intervention in Afghanistan, ‘jihad’ in Kashmir, creating the god of national security and placing it at the top of the Pakistani pantheon.

But the wheel has come full circle. New realities have emerged, new dangers have arisen. The luxury of adventurism as in Afghanistan or Kashmir has gone. Pakistan is under threat and its survival is at stake and holding the gates is just one force: not Pakistani patriotism, not Pakistani nationalism – weak concepts yet to be given the shape of stone or iron – but the army.

For argument’s sake remove the army from the present equation and the national landscape becomes more unstable and more threatening, and the barbarians at the gates, many with their Trojan horses well within the gates, look that much taller.

But the army has a problem, in fact many problems. It is over-extended and chooses not to realise it. The only front relevant today, the only front which matters, is the western front where the Taliban danger looms. The eastern front with India is a phony front, a manufactured front, a front whose time is over, but for reasons rooted in the past the army’s attention, most of it, continues to be in that direction.

This is strange. The threat comes from the primitive Islamist dagger pointed at the army’s back. But the military mind continues to be obsessed by the east. Who will change this, who will undertake the army’s re-education? The shade of Clausewitz perhaps or Ares the god of war. No lesser agency will suffice because this seems to be a difficult proposition, the army stuck in its ways.

On the eastern front more than tanks and artillery what we need now are better water experts, who can read and understand the small print of the Indus Waters Treaty and argue Pakistan’s case before international tribunals. If we keep losing those arguments, as we have thus far, of what use tanks and artillery? They are not going to get us more discharges for the Neelum River or water the dry beds of the Ravi and the Sutlej. Tools of war we have deployed, to little effect. Times have changed. Tools of the mind, tools of the intellect, are what we need now. Or we are doomed if we remain faithful to the old doctrines.

The necessity of turning away from the old and discovering the new makes the continued patronage of such strategic dinosaurs as Hafiz Muhammad Saeed’s Jamaat-ud-Dawa and Maulana Masood Azhar’s Jaish-e-Muhammad all the more absurd and bizarre. These are old steeds of war which should now be put out to pasture. Their relevance, if ever there was any, is long over. The games they are good at can only damage us. So regarding these leftover pieces of ‘jihad’ the army and the ISI have to change their thinking or we lose the war on the western front which threatens Pakistan’s survival.

The war against primitive extremism has thus to begin not from the foothills of North Waziristan – this would be to get the whole picture wrong – but from the confines of Muridke and Bahawalpur and Muzaffarabad. Disengagement from here, from the fossilised remains of the Kashmir ‘jihad’, is a prerequisite for unity of aim and purpose in the west.

And there has to be a rethinking about Balochistan. Army meddling has been a disaster there, a replay of past Baloch follies. The army can’t hope to win back the Frontier, the western marches, by losing Balochistan to Baloch disaffection.

This is the challenge before the army command – the readiness to step out from the past and into the present.

I was struck by something I was reading the other night, an article on China in the New York Review of Books. This particular passage said that Hitler’s defeat in the Second World War had wiped out the arch-conservative, military-landowning class that had opposed German liberalism before the war. Then this mind-shattering sentence: “Thus, the disaster of Hitler eliminated forces that might have hindered a successful recreation of German society after the war.”

This was compared with China where the smashing of the old traditional order by Mao prepared the way for China’s modernisation. “Seen this way, Mao’s brutal interim was perhaps the essential, but paradoxical, precursor to China’s subsequent boom under Deng Xiaoping…” (NYRB Nov 21-Dec 4, 2013 – ‘Dreams of a Different China’ by Ian Johnson).

Turkey’s present-day rulers take justifiable pride in their economic achievements. These achievements and Turkey’s rise as a modern power would have been impossible without Mustafa Kemal’s revolution.

Ours is a hidebound, traditionalist society mired not so much in physical backwardness as in mental backwardness. Only a sick society living in the past would indulge in the kind of extended Shariah debates which seem to be one of our regular pastimes.

It took the greatest war in history to free Germany from its past. It took Mao’s “uncompromising nihilism” (this phrase also from that article) to break the shackles of the past and free China’s mind. What will it take to free the Pakistani mind, what nihilism of the soul and spirit before we arrive at the shores of liberation?

Maybe this war against primitivism which our sham democracy is trying to run away from is our historic opportunity to break away from the habits of the past, habits which have cost us so much and prevented us from becoming a nation, and forge a new beginning. But provided we don’t shirk this fight because without sacrifice and blood and toil there are no new beginnings.

Email: winlust@yahoo.com

The threat comes from the primitive Islamist dagger pointed at the army’s back. But the military mind continues to be obsessed by the east. Who will change this, who will undertake the army’s re-education? The shade of Clausewitz perhaps or Ares the god of war

Pak for decades has considered, up to an extent justifiable, India as its main threat, a threat which is bigger than all others.

A generation of PA officers have risen through ranks with this view and PA top brass, if I am right, still holds this view.

In addition having India as enemy has other advantages.

 

[IND151]

To get an objective view often one needs to detach himself & see things from a distance.

I do not wish to start an argument but when seen from a distance the following is visible;

Muslim Identity : I concede the point of enmity with India & role of the army which in my opinion is not a strong glue for a nation to bind itself with. However it ends there. Muslim identity is something that Pakistanis would like to believe is what is holding the nation together but ironically thats what is tearing it apart too . Had Islam not been exploited by Zia & his like, Pak may have remained a moderate muslim nation where the hardliners would not tear it apart from within as they do now. In my opinion religion alone cannot hold a nation together - there has to be more.

Indus River : To generic to comment upon. Seems straight from a brochure . Facts / events on the ground neither corroborate or substantiate this claim.

Zia brought AK culture in Pakistan. He is the one who is responsible for much of the damage Pak is suffering.

 

[DESERT FIGHTER]

Pakistani Nationalism is rising..

 

[Shabaz Sharif]

The perception was since Pakistan has atom bomb, India won't retaliate. Fear of India is the main reason that Army emerged as the most powerful institution in Pakistan often branded as "saviour of Pakistan". Even with this atom bomb, threat from India still haunts Pakistanis.

Yeah no, India army haunts Pakistanis is wet dreams of few Indians. Even our generals have rejected so called India threat. I doubt Pakistan would have nuked India in case they tried to take Pakistan Kashmir, after all Pakistan was aggressor in Kargil and world was with India but Pakistan still hold strategic locations captured in Kargil War.

 

[Armstrong]

Am I the only one who is frustrated every time Pakistan's Muslim Identity is given as the raison detre of Pakistan's Ultimate Demise ?

Have we lost all sense of Reason & of History ?

Nations aren't born & they don't die because of some Romanticized notion of an Identity; they do so because of one reason & one reason alone 'Governance' !

India is not kept together because of its 'Unity in Diversity' mantra nor America because of its proclamations of being 'the Land of the Free & the Home of the Brave' & neither is China because of their 'Unique rendition of Socialism' - They are kept together solely because of Governance & would drift apart because of Governance & Governance alone & no amount of romanticized pious sentiments would be able to stop that !

Pakistan's dilemma is not & never has been 'Ideology' for even when it comes to Pakistan that ideology has been conceived, abandoned, evolved & demonized many times over as it is; its hardly been monolithic throughout Pakistan's 65 year History & even at a Popular Level it has been & is defined by different people in different ways !

Pakistan will neither succeed nor be rendered a failed state because of the Ideology of Muslim Nationalism; it would be because of Good or Bad Governance - That & nothing else !

In fact if we deconstruct Pakistan's present problems in an unbiased manner without letting either our Secularists or Islamists leanings superimposing over it, its quite evident that none of Pakistan's current problems have anything to do with the validity or the invalidity of the Identity of Muslim Nationalism & yet everything to do with atrociously bad Governance !

Take the example of one of the major problem facing Pakistan today & let us contrast it with times in Pakistan's History when things were better....markedly better :
Religious Fanaticism !

In 'informal logic' one of the most elementary modes of determining whether a conclusion is valid or not is to look at the validity of its premises & then whether what is 'concluded' really does follow from those premises as asserted or not, therefore lets make good use of that for a change :

If the major premise here is that Sectarianism & Religious Fanaticism, even of other kinds, is rampant in Pakistan !

If the first minor premise is that Sectarianism & Religious Fanaticism is a product of pandering to a Muslim Identity !

If the second minor premise is that Pakistan is pandering to its Muslim Identity !

Then the conclusion must follow thus : Sectarianism & Religious Fanaticism is rampant in Pakistan because of it pandering to its Muslim Identity !
Now let us examine the validity or the invalidity of each & every one of those premises !

First the Major Premise then : Is Sectarianism & Religious Fanaticism rampant in Pakistan ?

There are Sectarian Killings & Religious Fanaticism here in Pakistan of that there can be no two opinions; but how does one define whether something is 'rampant' or not ?

If being 'rampant' is to imply that the Society is Sectarianized or Religiously Fanatical than how does one account for the following :

(a) By & Large there are no Shia Only or Sunni Only areas in Pakistan; no ghettos....no exclusive zones...no nothing of the sort !

Even the predominantly Shia Populated Areas are heavily populated by Sunnis & vice versa !

(b) Surely if Sectarianism & Religious Fanaticism had seeped through the Society than there would be some evidence of that in terms of Institutionalized Discrimination even at a Private Sector Level let alone at the Public Sector One but barring completely unsubstantiated hearsay of both the 'ayes' & the 'nays', I can't imagine where & when has there been something of the sort ?

(c) How is it that the Pakistan we see before us has Sectarian Killings & Religious Fanatics running about but the Pakistan of yesteryears did not ? The Muslim Identity - Its always been there even with its implied biases as far back as one can remember; then what changed ?

Maybe thats the question worth asking ?

Let us then look at the first minor premise : that Sectarianism & Religious Fanaticism is a product of pandering to a Muslim Identity !

If the Muslim Identity that has been the causation of Pakistan's conception is the reason why we've got a bunch of self-proclaimed Muslims running about slitting each other's throats on sectarian or other fanatical basis then how is it that country's like Iraq & Lebanon who've got nothing to do with an Islamic Identity in terms of their raison detre, are or were facing Sectarianism of the highest order ?

Surely if this was a product of a Muslim Identity gone horribly awry than Secular States like Iraq & Lebanon who's Existence had nothing to do with their Islamic Identity would've been spared this Sectarianism & yet they weren't - Why ?

Maybe thats a better a question ?

Thirdly, let us look at the second minor premise : that Pakistan is pandering to its Muslim Identity !

Is it ? Is it really ?

Are implied biases within the Constitutions of Countries or Controversial Laws what settle for an 'Identity' these days ?

If that were so how does one account for the presence of English Legal System forming the back-bone of Pakistan's Judicial System ?

Would that in some manner imply as if we're still British Indians or worse we're Englishmen from across the Seas just because we've got some Englishness to our Laws & our Constitution ?

Take the example of the United States of America once more & the premise of the presence of Controversial Laws providing Identification for a Nation, together & then consider two things :

(a) The United States of America, for all intents & purposes, is a County of Immigrants !

(b) According to Article II, Clause 5 of the Constitution of the United States of America only a 'natural-born citizen' of America can hold the office of the President of the United States of America.

What do you propose we extract from this somewhat 'controversial' law ?

Do we extract that the whole notion of the United States being sold as a Country of Immigrants is a Farce ?

Or do we extract some other meaning from it ? Perhaps that the United States of America is for born-Americans & born-Americas alone & that Immigrants in America are Second Class Citizens at least in the Presidential sense ?

Or do we simply realize that everything, even Equality, is Qualified !

And that the Pakistani Constitution's proclamation of only a Muslim holding the office of Presidency or the Prime Ministership of Pakistan, as controversial, as it maybe is as reflective of the country's Muslim Identity as the above are of that of the United States & no more or no less heinous or responsible for its success or failure than what is aforementioned !

In times like these I'm astounded at how our discourse takes us fluctuating from one 'ism' to the 'other' & from one 'ideology' to the 'other' where we try to situate the appraisal instead of appraising the situation so as to fit our 'ism' or our 'ideology' of choice onto the analysis !

What follows from that is perhaps the realization that the most pertinent questions to ask is not pitching one 'ism' against the 'other' nor fuming & frothing in our advocacy of our ideology of choice but rather :

What is common between Pakistan, Iraq & Lebanon ?
Was is it the raison detere of the State's Existence ?

Was it Institutional biases ?

Was it the Religiosity or the Secularity of the State ?

Was it the common glue that held the Nation together ?

I can't imagine if anyone would answer the above in the affirmative !

As I understand the common denominators between the trio were as follows :

(a) the Arab-Persian Rivalry picking up strength after the Iranian Revolution !

(b) giving Non-State Actors a space to exist on their Soils !

(c) a severe....severe lack of public trust in their Governments !

(d) the failure to check the many foreign funded Madrassas & Consulates/Cultural Centers popping up all over their Countries !

(e) And the presence of religious (sectarian) diversity in the Country !

Is any of the above truly related to an 'ideology' 's failure or success or do they purely fall within the domains of Law & Order & Public Trust - both of which are obtained or lost through Governance & Governance alone !

No amount of Trojan Horses can survive & no amount of Proxies of another's can thrive if you've got a Zero Tolerance Policy towards Law & Order from the beginning & the People trust you; which means Conspiracy Theories of every shape & size don't pop up after every Incident !

@Joe Shearer @Talon @Icarus @Oscar @niaz @niaz @Pakistanisage @Aamna14 @Chak Bamu @Irfan Baloch @DESERT FIGHTER @Spring Onion @LoveIcon @chauvunist @TaimiKhan @Xeric @blain2 @notorious_eagle @Aeronaut @Developereo - I suppose I've written a novella again !

 

[Sugarcane]

@Armstrong Butt Sahib - kis cheez par thesis likhi jaa rahay hain?

 

[INDIC]

Yeah no, India army haunts Pakistanis is wet dreams of few Indians. Even our generals have rejected so called India threat. I doubt Pakistan would have nuked India in case they tried to take Pakistan Kashmir, after all Pakistan was aggressor in Kargil and world was with India but Pakistan still hold strategic locations captured in Kargil War.

It goes both way first Pakistanis see India as an existential threat to Pakistan but secondly to reduce this feeling thinks Muslims ruled Hindus for a thousand years. Kargil was a blunder after a new found confidence after getting nuclear weapons, the same mistake Ayub Khan did during 1965 war. You must be aware of the reactions in Pakistan after they heard about the so called 'Cold start' doctrine.

 

[niaz]

@third eye

4. If one takes Islam out of the equation, then we are left with a diffuse geographic reality. River Indus would not suffice as a unifying force by itself. And diffused commonalities I alluded to in my earlier post would not overcome ethnicity issues. I may wish for a 'Greater Punjab', a Sindhi might wish for 'Sindhu Desh', a Baluch might strive to establish 'Greater Baluchistan', and a Pakhtoon might want to establish 'Greater Pakhtoonistan'. It would take a at least a century or more for Pakistani identity to supercede all others. And even then, in case you have noticed, Pakistan's borders are not defined by any unique geographic feature.

The point usually overlooked is that in the pre-partition days, about 20 -25% Muslim minority was living in the area that was overwhelmingly non-Muslim. After the partition and the resulting mass influx of Muslims into Pakistan and movement of non-Muslims out of the area; that threat disappeared. It only took one generation (about 25 years) for ethno-linguistic tendencies to gain momentum which broke Pakistan in two.

Islam is a no doubt binding force but remember I said that Islam alone cannot hold Pakistan together. Your conclusions are generally correct. However, even without taking Islam out of the equation; non- Baluchis have been singled from the busses and shot. There were language riots in Karachi and Hyderabad. There are already demands for ‘Sindhu Desh’ and independent Baluchistan and Seraiki province. Pakhtoonistan demand goes back to 1948.

Now that population consists of are more than 95% believers; bigotry, already present in society to a certain extent; is being exploited by the vested interests and even the difference between the sects and divisions within the sects are being exploited. Tragedy in Pakistan is precisely that Baluch is killing Punjabi because he wants to keep the land for Baluchis only whereas Punjabi is killing another Punjabi because the other one is a Shia. Pashtuns are killing other Pashtuns because US drones are killing Taliban leaders in North Waziristan.

I repeat, we are Muslims first, Punjabis, Baluchis, Pashtuns, Sindhis, Mohajirs second and Pakistanis last. To cap it all short-sighted leaders exploit the differences for political mileage. Therefore Ayaz Amir’s conclusions that Army is the only force that is holding Pakistan appears to correct.

 

[Chak Bamu]

to be fair there were also ******** like siachen, 1971 etc.....

You did not get the joke. Everybody knows that Armstrong has Kashmiri roots, and his post is by far the longest, most forceful and emotional.

That is a mystery, one thing that you cannot state and yet state? Are we talking a religious factor here.. some unforseen power of god?

Janay Do Bhai. You know what I mean. It is not such a mystery, really. Why discuss it at PDF?