IMHO,
The history section should have two sections. One that acts like a referance or a resource. It should have a panel of contributors with differant areas of interest. I would like to cover ancient history and all the way to 1947. We also need military, economic historians. This resource section should act like a referance library and as much as possible limit to facts although often in history this standard can be difficult to adhere to.
Then once we have built up a body of resource the History forum should open up like rest of the forums. However the resource threads should be kept locked from general members but they can evalute by opening threads below and having discussions.
I regard this as vital for Pakistan's future. We can have all the guns, armies and planes but our identity is so amorphous and weak. Because of this it is open to abuse. oOr people are lost as to who they are. We gave the world one of the earliest civilzations on earth along with Mesopotamian's and Egyptians. North West Europeans were still running around half naked like savages.
Yet, we the people of Pakistan the heirs of a land that only Egypt, Iraq or Greece can match, today are rootless and lost, running around trying to be something we never are going to be. The world laughs at us. The Indian's take jibes at us. The Arab's call us 'Miskeen'.
Like orphans or a man who does not know who are his parents our people run around finding their roots here and there and everywhere, in doing so getting mocked and laughed at by others. It's time we accepted the legacy of our forefathers. The Persian's do it, the Turks do it, the Arabs do it and we who have a history that puts the rest in shadow run around trying invent ourselves as others.
We alread have wrested our political freedom in 1947 but have we wrested the legacy of our land? I say we have not. We have allowed Indian's to rape the legacy of our land. One thing in all my conflicts with Indian's came up again and again. How could we have our land, our political freedom yet somehow they the indian's own the history of our land?
I was reminded of this lack of roots few weeks back. I went to Sparkhill area of Birmingham and as I drove throw the thickly populated Pakistani community along Stratford Rd there was mile after mile shops on both sides. Almost every type of shop was there. This was like Raja bazaar in Pindi.
Anyway it occured to me in one of the biggest Pakistani communities in UK that there is the 'f***' word. Your wondering what I mean? Well I saw names like "Apna Roti house", "Asian Cloth House", "Dhesi Food", "Indian sweets", "Muslim Money Exchange".
I though if I were a Japanese tourist I could have driven through one of the biggest Pakistani communities in UK and not figured out who they are? You go to an area where there is 100 Iranians, 100 Turks, 100 Indians, 100 Indonesians, 100 Slovakians, 100 Latvians, 100 Estonians and I gurantee you will see shops openly emblazoned "Latvian, Estonian, Turkish, Indian".
Have you ever seen Estonian, Latvians? I swear you would need to call FBI forensics or CSI investigators to figure out the Estonian from the Latvian. Yours truely has had some 'dealings' with both and all I can say is both are blonde, tall and talk with funny accents. If you put a gun on my head I on point of death I would not be able to fugure out who is Estonian and who is Latvian both countries probably have sub 4 mill people size of Lahore.
Yet driving through Stratford Rd a country of 180 million was lost and or subsumed into "Apna" which would mean we got pooled in a group of 1,300 mill, 180 mill, 150 mill. So "apana" was 1,600 million. Or even "Muslim" in which case it begged the question, Morrocan, Alegerian, Tunisian, Libyan, Egytian, Malian, Nigerian, Jordanian, dash, dash, dash, Indonesian?
So that begs the question why 4 million Estonians have greater external branding then 180 million Pakistani. Even Arabs. Take Jordanians or Syrians. What is the differance? Lines drwn in the desert with rulers by English? Kuwait or Saudia? Lines drawn by English rulers? Yet today watch how nationalistic Jordanians are.
Pakistan is the "f***" word because our own people don't want to use it. Go out wherever you are and I am sure what I said is pretty well reflected. "Apna, Dhesi, Asian, Muslim, and then maybe "Indian". Pakistan is now a mature country is in age. If you look at the UN we are now older than 70% of the countries there. 70% of the countries became independant in 1950s, 1960s and even 1970s. Malaysia became independat in 1957. Algeria 1963.Kuwait 1963.
It might not be too bad if our name "Pakistan" remained inconspicious and absent. No, Sir. No, No, Sir. A bomb goes off. Who done it? "Apna? Dhesi? Asian? Indian? Muslim? No, sir. It will be Pakistani. Terrorist? Pakistani, Women raped? Pakistani Sex grooming gangs? Pakistani Get the picture? Pakistan has become the "f" word. It is our fault.
BBC NEWS | INDEPTH | LONDON ATTACKS
I will conclude this in the next post.
