Chak Bamu
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Pretty enigmatic, but I know what you mean.
Whats Holding Pakistan Together?
- Thread starter fatman17
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Pretty enigmatic, but I know what you mean.
I agree patience is a virtue but here its taking longer than most people. Perhaps it will take so long for you to tell that people will decide not to be Pakistanis anymore.. then when you do want to tell, you will have no Pakistanis to tell it to. That will be really disappointing for you.
I pray thee.. do tell.
livingdead
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common culture/tradition, pak army, fear of India. Genarally people(of all countrie) want to stick together unless there is certain reason not to.
VCheng
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That basic problem with the author's train of thought is that an Army can exist only with the backing of its nation if it is to do its job of defending the country. If there is no common religion, democracy or a sense of nationhood binding a nation together, an Army can only serve to occupy a country, never hold it together.
And all occupations come to an end.
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In my opinion this is another one of those long list of articles where the author's own prejudices & preconceived notions are superimposed on to his analysis, if it can be called that !
I believe Pakistan is held together by the quartet of 'Muslim Identity', 'Geographical Continuity', 'the People' & yes 'the Army' & not in any order.
The Muslim Identity is indeed the glue that binds us together even with the sectarian & ethnic over & undertones that show their ugly head every now & then but I can't imagine how violence in the name of an 'identity' whether it be of an ethnic, linguistic or even a religious nature validates or invalidates a Nation's existence or its continued future especially in the backdrop of the '71 War !
If violent blood shed where brother butchers a brother over what either believes in, whatever that belief maybe, is where the validity or the invalidity of an Identity is found then perhaps all the wonderful & exalted notions that gave birth to the United States of America were nullified the day the American Civil War started ? Perhaps in the midst of it the very 'Right to Exist' or the 'Right to Continued Existence' was lost ? And perhaps towards the end of the War when hundreds of thousands had died the notion of a 'Union of the People' had long disintegrated into nothingness for the Union was, after all, held together not by the Will of the People, at least not 'All of the People' but through the deaths of countless many of them !
Why then did this 'Identity' not find itself at the receiving end of every opinionated person's ravishing critique as the Pakistani Identity which is exemplified by Muslim Identity, did after '71 ?
Because we lost & they won ? What difference does the ability or the inability of good Generalship & sound War Planning has on the validity or the invalidity of a Socio-Political theory ?
Its mind boggling how few of us think things through & instead of deconstructing things to get to their bare bones we keep on formulating & proselytizing opinions based on things that aren't even skin-deep !
In fact look at it from another angle 'if the notion of a Nation created to safeguard the rights of certain individuals' is invalidated when some 'individuals from amongst them rise up & take arms' butchering their 'fellow individuals' on the pretense of their understanding of what the 'notion' was then every example of civil unrest or disturbance in the History of any Nation ought to invalidate its Existence there & then !
Take the example of a few self avowed Democratic Socialists States who formulated the Ideology of Democratic Socialism when their respective Country's were conceived it should follow then that every instance of Poverty Reduction targets being missed, abuse of Civil Rights, influx of cut-throat Capitalism within their Societies & Economies & similar failures would've invalidated their Earlier Premise & hence their Right to Exist !
Similarly every State that today forms the former Soviet Bloc or is a former Colony of the Colonial Powers & gained their freedom, their right to exist, on the notions of Economic, Social or Political (Democratic) Emancipation would have their Right to Exist or whatever notion they defined their National Identity by completely invalidated every single time some unfortunate truth about their dilapidated economies, their less then optimal treatment of their own people by themselves or the lack of social evolution within their societies where oppression in its many forms is shunned not proliferated or when their Governments of the People, by the People & for the People turn out to be Governments of the Bureaucrats, by the Politicians & for the Elite !
But does it ? Are they invalidated when one of their aspirations about their State or when one of the reasons why they were Created remains unfulfilled or even contradicted or somewhat diplomatically 'qualified' ?
I can't imagine that they are for if they were more than half the countries on the face of the Earth have no right to Exist & nothing holding them together but a Self-Contradictory Identity that has been busted many times over !
Maybe then whether a Country has the Right to Exist or Not is not a measure of any Identity but simply that they do exist & that provides enough Justification as it is !
Likewise whether a Country is held together by a said Identity or not is not really a measure of anything but the simple fact that the People want it so & despite the many Contradictory things that may or may not have happened in its past or present the People still want it so !
I think thats pretty much the essence of this discussion - Pakistan's Identity is not Islam because of some justification that is to be sought in the annals of Political Science even though from a purely 'rational' point of view there is enough there to justify it many times over but it is Islam because the People of Pakistan want is as such & when they stop doing that no amount of Justification of how an Identity - whatever that identity maybe - is going to stop Pakistan's demise & prevent its disintegration !
Such is the case with all countries & all identities....all of them !
But I truly believe that the Muslim Identity still reigns supreme & in the mind's eye of the average Pakistani it still provides him an overarching sense of Nationhood which does not, in his Opinion, contradict the notion of a Nation-State & never once raises the question of 'Are you a Pakistani First or a Muslim' because for him in many ways 'Pakistan is Islam & Islam is Pakistan' & why ? Because he chooses to believe that !
That is precisely why a Pukhtoon or a Sindhi or even a Baluch despite having severe...severe reservations about the size & the political clout of Punjab doesn't talk about breaking away from Pakistan because he still is emotionally vested with the idea, even if the idea has been tarnished : We are One Nation because we are Muslims ! Likewise a Punjabi despite being driven nuts often a times with the incessant 'Punjab Khaa Giyaaa - Punjab has Gobbled up Everything' isn't partial to breaking away from Pakistan because hes equally if not slightly more (owing to being in the Majority) vested in the aforementioned idea !
But this is not a call for religious fanaticism, for the average Pakistan despite being jealously guarding of his beliefs & having a deep sense of being 'Right' is remarkably inclined towards 'Live & Let Live' & not a fanatic !
The most prominent barometer for that are the Elections - Neither the Ethno-Nationalistic nor the Religious Parties have ever managed to get more than a handful of seats in any Elections !
Secondly I think that Geographical Continuity is one of the reasons holding Pakistan together because just look at our Provinces - the interdependence is immense !
Punjab & KPK are nothing without Sindh & Baluchistan because they are our life blood in terms of providing access to the Seas !
Likewise Sindh & Baluchistan are nothing because most of their imports are sourced from Punjab & KPK provides fresh sources of Water that keep the country going !
In addition to that if these 4 Provinces are, to borrow a word from some Ethno-Nationalists, our Tareekhiii-Watan (Ancestral Homelands) then the centuries upon centuries of popular interaction has made these bonds of interaction & interdependency exponentially more profound !
Take two examples :
(i) There are more Baluch living outside of Baluchistan in Sindh, Punjab & KPK than they are the ones who are living in Baluchistan !
(ii) The Province of Punjab has a higher number of Non-Ethnic Punjabis living in it than the entire Populations of KPK & Baluchistan Combined & a little less than the entire Population of Sindh !
Thirdly it is 'the People' who are holding this Nation together because despite the many Trojan Horses within our ranks there are countless millions of those Pakistanis who still fervently bleed Green & White !
And the power that this Union of People commands is ever underestimated in Pakistan & amongst the circles of those Cafeteria Critics who parrot little more than rhetoric in their articles or talk shows !
The Average Man on the Street is angry, hes disgusted, his back has been bent from too many hours worked for a pittance & curses everything from his Life to his Leaders !
But it is this 'Anger....this Frustrations' that provides greater insight to us about what holds Pakistan together than anything else for it is not 'Indifference' or 'Abandonment' - They are angry because they care....because it matters to them what becomes of their country & of their society !
I can't explain this one properly....you just have to see it in their eyes & listen to it from their talks when even a trash collector that I saw the other day with torn clothes & a nauseous smell about him found a tattered old Pakistani Flag that must've been torn by the wind from someone's terrace - a remnant of the 14th August festivities I suppose & he still had the sense & the empathy despite his condition & his poverty to pick that flag up & tie it properly & respectfully to the inner branch of the nearest tree the way some of those superstitious folks do at Sufi Shrines !
And lastly it is indeed 'the Army' that keeps Pakistan together for despite the many things that one may say about how it should've acted thus instead of acting thus in a myriad situations; it characterizes in many ways the very best of Pakistan - an Army with a strong sense of its Muslims Identity that is above the poisons of Provincialism, Ethno-Linguistic Nationalism & Sectarianism !
An Army where a Baluch, a Sindhi, a Pukhtoon & a Punjabi along with the dozens upon dozens of ethnicities or linguistic groups that inhabit Pakistan are proud to serve together in the defense of their Motherland !
An Army where a Sunni, a Shia & the many sects within these sects go about believing what they believe in without Sectarianism tarnishing their sense of camaraderie !
An Army where even Non-Muslims serve without malice or ill-will or discrimination of any kind !
An Army of Patriots who, arguably, may not always make the best of choices but where neither the Jawan who lost all his limbs to an IED Blast nor the one who's body shall never be found for it is buried in some chasm in Siachin, fights neither for Politics nor for Dollars nor for a Plot of Land but only for his Motherland - His Pakistan !
@Icarus @Oscar @niaz @niaz @Pakistanisage @Aamna14 @Chak Bamu @Irfan Baloch @DESERT FIGHTER @Spring Onion @LoveIcon @chauvunist @TaimiKhan @Xeric @blain2 @notorious_eagle @Aeronaut - When I start I can't stop !
I can't believe I made so many typos & grammatical mistakes the first time over hence the EDIT !
I believe Pakistan is held together by the quartet of 'Muslim Identity', 'Geographical Continuity', 'the People' & yes 'the Army' & not in any order.
The Muslim Identity is indeed the glue that binds us together even with the sectarian & ethnic over & undertones that show their ugly head every now & then but I can't imagine how violence in the name of an 'identity' whether it be of an ethnic, linguistic or even a religious nature validates or invalidates a Nation's existence or its continued future especially in the backdrop of the '71 War !
If violent blood shed where brother butchers a brother over what either believes in, whatever that belief maybe, is where the validity or the invalidity of an Identity is found then perhaps all the wonderful & exalted notions that gave birth to the United States of America were nullified the day the American Civil War started ? Perhaps in the midst of it the very 'Right to Exist' or the 'Right to Continued Existence' was lost ? And perhaps towards the end of the War when hundreds of thousands had died the notion of a 'Union of the People' had long disintegrated into nothingness for the Union was, after all, held together not by the Will of the People, at least not 'All of the People' but through the deaths of countless many of them !
Why then did this 'Identity' not find itself at the receiving end of every opinionated person's ravishing critique as the Pakistani Identity which is exemplified by Muslim Identity, did after '71 ?
Because we lost & they won ? What difference does the ability or the inability of good Generalship & sound War Planning has on the validity or the invalidity of a Socio-Political theory ?
Its mind boggling how few of us think things through & instead of deconstructing things to get to their bare bones we keep on formulating & proselytizing opinions based on things that aren't even skin-deep !
In fact look at it from another angle 'if the notion of a Nation created to safeguard the rights of certain individuals' is invalidated when some 'individuals from amongst them rise up & take arms' butchering their 'fellow individuals' on the pretense of their understanding of what the 'notion' was then every example of civil unrest or disturbance in the History of any Nation ought to invalidate its Existence there & then !
Take the example of a few self avowed Democratic Socialists States who formulated the Ideology of Democratic Socialism when their respective Country's were conceived it should follow then that every instance of Poverty Reduction targets being missed, abuse of Civil Rights, influx of cut-throat Capitalism within their Societies & Economies & similar failures would've invalidated their Earlier Premise & hence their Right to Exist !
Similarly every State that today forms the former Soviet Bloc or is a former Colony of the Colonial Powers & gained their freedom, their right to exist, on the notions of Economic, Social or Political (Democratic) Emancipation would have their Right to Exist or whatever notion they defined their National Identity by completely invalidated every single time some unfortunate truth about their dilapidated economies, their less then optimal treatment of their own people by themselves or the lack of social evolution within their societies where oppression in its many forms is shunned not proliferated or when their Governments of the People, by the People & for the People turn out to be Governments of the Bureaucrats, by the Politicians & for the Elite !
But does it ? Are they invalidated when one of their aspirations about their State or when one of the reasons why they were Created remains unfulfilled or even contradicted or somewhat diplomatically 'qualified' ?
I can't imagine that they are for if they were more than half the countries on the face of the Earth have no right to Exist & nothing holding them together but a Self-Contradictory Identity that has been busted many times over !
Maybe then whether a Country has the Right to Exist or Not is not a measure of any Identity but simply that they do exist & that provides enough Justification as it is !
Likewise whether a Country is held together by a said Identity or not is not really a measure of anything but the simple fact that the People want it so & despite the many Contradictory things that may or may not have happened in its past or present the People still want it so !
I think thats pretty much the essence of this discussion - Pakistan's Identity is not Islam because of some justification that is to be sought in the annals of Political Science even though from a purely 'rational' point of view there is enough there to justify it many times over but it is Islam because the People of Pakistan want is as such & when they stop doing that no amount of Justification of how an Identity - whatever that identity maybe - is going to stop Pakistan's demise & prevent its disintegration !
Such is the case with all countries & all identities....all of them !
But I truly believe that the Muslim Identity still reigns supreme & in the mind's eye of the average Pakistani it still provides him an overarching sense of Nationhood which does not, in his Opinion, contradict the notion of a Nation-State & never once raises the question of 'Are you a Pakistani First or a Muslim' because for him in many ways 'Pakistan is Islam & Islam is Pakistan' & why ? Because he chooses to believe that !
That is precisely why a Pukhtoon or a Sindhi or even a Baluch despite having severe...severe reservations about the size & the political clout of Punjab doesn't talk about breaking away from Pakistan because he still is emotionally vested with the idea, even if the idea has been tarnished : We are One Nation because we are Muslims ! Likewise a Punjabi despite being driven nuts often a times with the incessant 'Punjab Khaa Giyaaa - Punjab has Gobbled up Everything' isn't partial to breaking away from Pakistan because hes equally if not slightly more (owing to being in the Majority) vested in the aforementioned idea !
But this is not a call for religious fanaticism, for the average Pakistan despite being jealously guarding of his beliefs & having a deep sense of being 'Right' is remarkably inclined towards 'Live & Let Live' & not a fanatic !
The most prominent barometer for that are the Elections - Neither the Ethno-Nationalistic nor the Religious Parties have ever managed to get more than a handful of seats in any Elections !
Secondly I think that Geographical Continuity is one of the reasons holding Pakistan together because just look at our Provinces - the interdependence is immense !
Punjab & KPK are nothing without Sindh & Baluchistan because they are our life blood in terms of providing access to the Seas !
Likewise Sindh & Baluchistan are nothing because most of their imports are sourced from Punjab & KPK provides fresh sources of Water that keep the country going !
In addition to that if these 4 Provinces are, to borrow a word from some Ethno-Nationalists, our Tareekhiii-Watan (Ancestral Homelands) then the centuries upon centuries of popular interaction has made these bonds of interaction & interdependency exponentially more profound !
Take two examples :
(i) There are more Baluch living outside of Baluchistan in Sindh, Punjab & KPK than they are the ones who are living in Baluchistan !
(ii) The Province of Punjab has a higher number of Non-Ethnic Punjabis living in it than the entire Populations of KPK & Baluchistan Combined & a little less than the entire Population of Sindh !
Thirdly it is 'the People' who are holding this Nation together because despite the many Trojan Horses within our ranks there are countless millions of those Pakistanis who still fervently bleed Green & White !
And the power that this Union of People commands is ever underestimated in Pakistan & amongst the circles of those Cafeteria Critics who parrot little more than rhetoric in their articles or talk shows !
The Average Man on the Street is angry, hes disgusted, his back has been bent from too many hours worked for a pittance & curses everything from his Life to his Leaders !
But it is this 'Anger....this Frustrations' that provides greater insight to us about what holds Pakistan together than anything else for it is not 'Indifference' or 'Abandonment' - They are angry because they care....because it matters to them what becomes of their country & of their society !
I can't explain this one properly....you just have to see it in their eyes & listen to it from their talks when even a trash collector that I saw the other day with torn clothes & a nauseous smell about him found a tattered old Pakistani Flag that must've been torn by the wind from someone's terrace - a remnant of the 14th August festivities I suppose & he still had the sense & the empathy despite his condition & his poverty to pick that flag up & tie it properly & respectfully to the inner branch of the nearest tree the way some of those superstitious folks do at Sufi Shrines !
And lastly it is indeed 'the Army' that keeps Pakistan together for despite the many things that one may say about how it should've acted thus instead of acting thus in a myriad situations; it characterizes in many ways the very best of Pakistan - an Army with a strong sense of its Muslims Identity that is above the poisons of Provincialism, Ethno-Linguistic Nationalism & Sectarianism !
An Army where a Baluch, a Sindhi, a Pukhtoon & a Punjabi along with the dozens upon dozens of ethnicities or linguistic groups that inhabit Pakistan are proud to serve together in the defense of their Motherland !
An Army where a Sunni, a Shia & the many sects within these sects go about believing what they believe in without Sectarianism tarnishing their sense of camaraderie !
An Army where even Non-Muslims serve without malice or ill-will or discrimination of any kind !
An Army of Patriots who, arguably, may not always make the best of choices but where neither the Jawan who lost all his limbs to an IED Blast nor the one who's body shall never be found for it is buried in some chasm in Siachin, fights neither for Politics nor for Dollars nor for a Plot of Land but only for his Motherland - His Pakistan !
@Icarus @Oscar @niaz @niaz @Pakistanisage @Aamna14 @Chak Bamu @Irfan Baloch @DESERT FIGHTER @Spring Onion @LoveIcon @chauvunist @TaimiKhan @Xeric @blain2 @notorious_eagle @Aeronaut - When I start I can't stop !
I can't believe I made so many typos & grammatical mistakes the first time over hence the EDIT !
Last edited:
Chak Bamu
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No need. You know it already... or at least can guess. Hard to put in words, especially on PDF.
Shabaz Sharif
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Completly agreed bro, great exemples there.
Shabaz Sharif
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Fear of India is least of our concerns, most of our history is about how to take full Kashmir back instead half we got in 1948. I doubt Pakistanis were in fear of India when they occupied Kargil 16 years ago. No Pakistani loss sleep over India's invasion, but we most keep minimum defence to protect our selfs just in case which is normal.
I am not advocating anything I am merely saying someone's personal habits or his views dont make him a less Pakistani than you and me and simply refuting someone's point of view only because he drinks is absurd. As far as breaking Pakistani laws, show me where its implemented first those responsible for implementing laws are the first one to break, police using unregistered cars, Najam Sethi drinking openly with a bottle in his hand, I see no laws and if there was there should have been an FIR against police and Najam Sethi would be in prison. Laws are only for the poor and I dont think Ayaz Amir is poor.
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- Blames military for E.Pakistan
- Thinks that military is holding Pakistan together
VCheng
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What I said above explains the OP's points that you have just mentioned.
Kompromat
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- Sir, Ayaz Amir is like an old man who can't see without his prescription glasses. We are one of the oldest living cultures on earth, we have took famines, earthquakes, invasions, occupations, droughts, floods, epidemics and 'survived it all'. I would like Ayaz Amir to go and look into the S.Asian history and tell me when was the last time, our people were engaged in 'anarchy' as a culture?
- 2ndly, Ayaz Amir belongs to a generation that 'lived through' the traumatic period of 1971 and its aftermath. This generation was scarred and lost self respect and confidence. We belong to a generation where we inherited a nuclear power, a thriving marketplace and a post Soviet Union Pakistan . Though its unstable, yes its insecure and all that, though our generation looks at itself as 'Pakistanis'. Please try and make a Pakistani teenager denounce his Pakistaniat for something else, you'll get furious looks in return.
He is conveniently disregarding the nationalist fervor my generation feels towards our country. Just because Ayaz Amir is way too ignorant to understand how us young Pakistanis feel about our country, doesn't mean that the Pakistani nationalist identity hasn't emerged. Its here, though Mr Ayaz Amir is a bit too stupid to understand it as he doesn't belong to our generation. The Generation our ancestors have been waiting for is 'here' and i find Ayaz Amir's comments deeply offensive.
VCheng
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There is a huge difference in survival of a culture and survival of a State.
To take your example, Pakistan's existence as a State has been only for 65-odd years compared to the thousands of years of cultural history, and therefore is only a small fraction of it. There is no doubt that the culture can outlast the State of Pakistan for hundreds and hundreds of years to come, but then that poses a problem for "nationalism" that is predicated on the State surviving as a political entity too.
Are you equally sure that the State will survive just as you are sure that the culture will survive, given the histories?
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