Basket Case/Reality Bites

[Vinod2070]

AM, I can only say that I don't think most Pakistanis think like you.

I do think that we need to move on and build a better future for coming generations irrespective of past hatreds.

About history, discussing about event we don't even know of is obviously futile. We can only discuss what we know of.

And there is the fundamental difference in the way we treat the pre-Islaimc history of our land.

For most of you, its only something you want to snatch from India and throw in the dust-bin. You deride the pre-existing civilization of the subcontinent that was always one of the most advances ones in the world. You call the diversity of the people to represent multiple nations, we call it multi colored flowers in a "Guldasta".

I can't agree with the "moving on" theory you espouse because just moving on can't cause the hatreds that is manifest on the part of those who have "moved on". They don't have to deride their previous selves all the time!

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

I am going to avoid Muse's size 12 boot and move on ...

A couple of years ago, on a WaPo blog, I had an interesting discussion with an American gentleman on the situation in FATA. This was before the accusations of 'do more' and 'perfidy' started flowing back and forth, and the situation in FATA was pretty stable, except for NATO across the border of course.

At the heart of the issue was the deployment of Pakistani forces to actively conduct operations in FATA. I argued against it, stating that we would be stirring a hornets nest and inviting suicide bombings ala Iraq in Pakistan (little knowing unfortunately how prescient my observation would turn out to be).

The gentleman's response I believe was also apt - sometimes societies have to go through the turmoil and ravages of war and civil strife to determine the direction of their evolution and what values and beliefs rise above the fray. In the US's case, this event was the Civil War.

I would hope that Pakistan does not have to go through such a cataclysmic event to 'find itself', but it seems that we continue to hide our heads in the sand and blindly point fingers everywhere, instead of owning up to our faults and responsibilities and dealing with them.

 

[Flintlock]

Like Neo, I have to disagree. This is another example of the thought process of some Indians that it is somehow solely the hostility with India that has led to Pakistan's economic mess. Perhaps some sadistic egoism in thinking that India bankrupted Pakistan and therefore indirectly defeated Pakistan - though you try and cleverly hide it by insisting that you won't claim that India is not to blame.

I will not try to justify the thought processes of Vinod here, but it personally never occurred to me (or any of my friends) that India can take "credit" for Pakistan's current situation.

The most widespread opinion is that Karma has caught up with Pakistan for having encouraged Islamic militancy and spread Islamist ideas.

Obviously, this would stem partly from the hostility with India, but you really cannot make the river of logic flow in the opposite direction.

Notice that on this count, (unlike the terrorism in Baluchistan) of lack of development and poor economic growth, Pakistanis hardly ever blame India. The criticism from Pakistanis has almost always focussed on Pakistani rulers for following short sighted and poor policies. Indians on the other hand are, ironically, foaming at the mouth to take credit for Pakistan's economic devastation. Its a very interesting phenomenon really.

Sure, many Indians are feeling pleased at the suffering of their adversary (its a very human thing to take pleasure in the pain of your enemy), but I really don't see any of them taking credit for it.

As I said, the general feeling is that Pakistan is paying for its sins, as I'm sure many Indian members have written on this forum before.

The ideological argument, as you paint it, is naught but bad speculation, of a subtle 'anti-Muslim' kind. We all know how much you loath the Islamic conquerors of South Asia, and you somehow try and weave into Pakistan's so called 'ideology' this thread of following the path of those ancient Islamic conquerors who sought to control/subjugate all of India or some such nonsense.

We wouldn't even be having this conversation if Pakistan's rulers had not followed a policy of Islamization and dissociation from India.

The fact is that the actions of Pakistan both within and outside their country is quite reminiscent of the Islamic conquerors of yore, and so is their rhetoric.

Who names their missiles after Islamic raiders?
Who used religious warriors to further their ends?

etc.

So you see, its not hard feed the sentiment on this side of the border.

In fact, Pakistan and its ideology has always been about betterment, even when Islamic fervor was at its height. Behind that fervor was the cause of creating a 'Utopian Islamic state' which directly implies 'betterment of the people'. The entire reson de etre of Pakistan was to establish a nation for a community and people who wished to exist and prosper outside of the other proposal of a super state - a super state in which they did not feel they would be guaranteed equality and a chance at 'betterment'.

Even the Islamic conquerors wanted to establish Islamic Utopia, whatever that is. Even Hitler wanted a strong Aryan Utopia.

The fact is that you cannot justify anything by saying "oh well, it was done for our betterment".

Most of the worst atrocities are committed in the desire for "betterment".

 

[muse]

I apprecimatate greatly - we have a tradition of criticism and critical review, let ideology comsume those who refuse to rexamine and instead revert to regurgitating ideas without merit.

Freedom Vs responsibility -- it applies here as it does elsewhere.

 

[Vinod2070]

I agree, time to get back to the topic.

But Muse, some of the diversions are actually not without merit. They provide an interesting angle to the whole topic.

 

[Flintlock]

I apprecimatate greatly - we have a tradition of criticism and critical review, let ideology comsume those who refuse to rexamine and instead revert to regurgitating ideas without merit.

Freedom Vs responsibility -- it applies here as it does elsewhere.

Muse, if you don't mind me asking - how far - how far are you willing to go while "rexamining"?

Would you be willing to desert the most basic and most essential of your assumptions, if your reasoning defeats them?

Those assumptions that make up your very identity, the very purpose of your investigations?

 

[muse]

Vinod, Assasino, Agnostic

In response to the comments and questions - especially Assasino's - I have posted a thread, "Prejudice and Policy" -- but below I will post something that we may wish to consider, I'm not suggesting that it's profound or earth shaking, but let it stay with a while as you consider the issue of reexamining notions we invest in:

An then lets please have somone answer our questions regarding reserves and economic policy(lack thereof)



Requiem for the dream?




By Rabel Akhund


“THERE was a man that started with the clothes on his back and ended up with diamond mines,” was Willy Loman’s motivational story for his sons Biff and Happy in Arthur Miller’s play Death of a Salesman.

Miller’s play is an acerbic account of the American Dream gone wrong. Here was a mercurial salesman who worked hard all his life on the road and was finally fired by a boss old enough to be his own son. All he was left with were delusions of grandeur, a whole host of missed opportunities and two sons who he wanted to make good all his mistakes and, of course, a supportive wife whose needs he had always neglected.

Ultimately, Willy realised that “after all the highways, and the trains, and the appointments, and the years, you end up worth more dead than alive” and he killed himself to give his son the benefit of his life insurance policy so that he could buy the land he wanted.

Of course, Miller himself lived the American Dream for a while when he was with Marilyn Monroe whom he married in 1956 but divorced five years later in 1961. However, what Death of a Salesman brought to American audiences was the realisation of how hollow the American Dream had become and who its greatest victims were.The most memorable visual images of the Great Depression are stock brokers throwing themselves off Wall Street buildings in desperation and the realisation that they had failed. But the real victims of the current financial crisis will not be the bankers or the lawyers of this world; they will be the Willy Lomans of this world. Willy Lomans of this world who cannot get small business loans to keep themselves afloat, Willy Lomans of this world who cannot refinance their home mortgages and face the risk of repossession.

Therefore, it is fair to ask if the current crisis in the financial services industry is a requiem for the American Dream?

Well, it depends. Which American Dream are we talking about?

There is the corrupt version of the American Dream which leads everyone to believe that they can achieve anything that they want, just or unjust. The other version of the American Dream, in its purest incarnation, is attributed to James Truslow Adams. In his 1931 book Epic of America, Adams wrote of the American Dream as “not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognised by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position.”

Such a dream is no bad thing. Such a dream is what we all want. This version of the American Dream was a reaction to the attitudes of the European aristocracy and upper classes of the early twentieth century which most migrants to America, at the time, were fleeing from. Today, this is not just the American Dream but a Universal Dream. It is incumbent upon each of us to make sure that this dream never dies. This is what we are striving for. All of us.

But it is the corrupt version of the American Dream that has mainly been propagated by the media and the advertising industry. All advertising is really advertising for success. Even in the Great Depression, Erwin, Wasey & Company, seeking to turn the wave of public sentiment, took out full-page advertisements in American newspapers in November 1929 that read, “All right, Mister! Now that the headache is over, Let’s Go To Work!” Although such advertisements took on a beleaguered look as the depression set in, they were championed by the titans of the advertising industry. Thus lived on the great American Dream, albeit in its corrupt form.

Towards the end of Death of a Salesman, there is a great line from Happy Loman that epitomises the American Dream. Although he was his father’s favourite, Biff Loman had realised that he wanted to pursue his own goals rather than live his father’s dream. He realised “what a ridiculous lie [his] whole life [had] been”.

It was Happy Loman who, after his father’s death, proclaimed that “I’m gonna show you and everybody else that Willy Loman did not die in vain. He had a good dream. It’s the only dream you can have — to come out number-one man.” The irony is that Willy Loman’s life had been lived in vain. He died an unhappy man, with wasted hopes and dreams, betrayed by the very system that he believed in and gave his whole life to.

So is the current financial crisis the end of the American Dream? Definitely not. To be number one is indeed a quintessential part of the American Dream. And rest assured that for every Willy Loman who falls, there will be a Happy Loman waiting to take over his father’s dream. For such is the power of dreams, American or not.

The writer is an international commercial lawyer


Just let this piece stay with you, let it settle on you - and then we can revist the issues once we have a chance to get into the substanc of this thread

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

Off topic posts copied over to the new thread created by Muse:

http://www.defence.pk/forums/strategic-geopolitical-issues/15417-policy-prejudice.html