The Post Mortem: Never Say Die
Understanding Pakistan Project Team October 7th, 2007
Guest Post: By Ayaz Amir
Published in Dawn.com (October 5, 2007)
“Be patient now, my soul; thou hast endured much worse than this.” –– Odysseus
UNTIL now I never truly grasped the meaning of the Lawrence College motto, ‘Never give in’. When the sky is bright and the heavens are smiling these words mean nothing. They mean something when one is down and out, flattened by circumstances, the last shreds of hope leaving one’s heart.
Then to be able to hold up one’s head and look into the distance with firm eyes is the true test of manliness (or womanliness for that matter). Our circumstances are not promising. Indeed, the entire nation seems depressed. Abandoned to fools and knaves, sold to the United States and therefore not our own masters.
But other countries have undergone much worse. If Vietnam be too distant a memory, there are countries in Africa which have suffered genocide. Afghanistan next door has been destroyed by decades of strife and war. In Iraq hundreds of thousands have died since the American invasion. Millions have been uprooted from their homes. Truly, few hells are worse than those paved with American good intentions.
The Yanks mean well by us too. God help us. About the next army chief, Gen Kiani, it is being said that the Yanks are quite happy to work with him. What a certificate of commendation. Our problem, or at least one of our problems, is the Yank connection. And here we are putting new buckles on it and giving it a fresh coat of paint.
Anyway, what if the high hopes of this just-gone-by summer of discontent appear to have been dashed to the ground? What if the corridors of power remain packed with the same self-serving circus performers? What if the changes armchair revolutionists dreamed of have not come to pass? Progress has still been made and anyone who says we are where we were has not got the measure of things.
The citadels of power stand shaken by the events of this spring and summer. The army has felt the heat too, some of its confidence ebbing away. Is the chastening of authority, never before challenged in this manner, a small achievement?
Unfortunately most of our history, particularly that relating to the conduct of military operations, remains shrouded in mystery, since none of the actual details is made public. Consequently, even those like myself who possess some knowledge of the actual events need to piece these together with educated speculations to fill in the gaps. Today, 40 years after this war, the true story remains untold.
If there is an address, an exact location for the rift tearing Pakistan apart, and possibly the world, it is a spot 17 miles (28 kilometers) west of Islamabad called the Margalla Pass. Here, at a limestone cliff in the middle of Pakistan, the mountainous west meets the Indus River Valley, and two ancient, and very different, civilizations collide. To the southeast, unfurled to the horizon, lie the fertile lowlands of the Indian subcontinent, realm of peasant farmers on steamy plots of land, bright with colors and the splash of serendipitous gods. To the west and north stretch the harsh, windswept mountains of Central Asia, land of herders and raiders on horseback, where man fears one God and takes no prisoners.
Concerns over Islamic extremism, extensive in the West even before this month’s terrorist attacks in London, are shared to a considerable degree by the publics in several predominantly Muslim nations surveyed. Nearly three-quarters of Moroccans and roughly half of those in Pakistan, Turkey and Indonesia see Islamic extremism as a threat to their countries. At the same time, most Muslim publics are expressing less support for terrorism than in the past. Confidence in Osama bin Laden has declined markedly in some countries and fewer believe suicide bombings that target civilians are justified in the defense of Islam.
In non-Muslim countries, fears of Islamic extremism are closely associated with worries about Muslim minorities. Western publics believe that Muslims in their countries want to remain distinct from society, rather than adopt their nation’s customs and way of life. Moreover, there is a widespread perception in countries with significant Muslim minorities, including the U.S., that resident Muslims have a strong and growing sense of Islamic identity. For the most part, this development is viewed negatively, particularly in Western Europe. In France, Germany and the Netherlands, those who see a growing sense of Islamic identity among resident Muslims overwhelmingly say this is a bad thing.
Dr. Mahbubul Haq (figure-right)–an eminent development economist from Pakistan who is considered one of the founders of the Human Development Theory and who along with Nobel Laurette Amertya Sen of India created the Human Development Index–who was, most ironically, General Zia-ul-Haq’s Finance Minister (1982-84) is known to have said that twenty-two families controlled 66% of Pakistan’s total industrial assets, 70% of insurance, and 80% of all banking assets in Pakistan at the height of Ayub’s power. While these claims have remain unsubstantiated (Zaidi, 1999), there is little doubt that Pakistan experienced considerable concentration of wealth–by both legal and illegal means–in the 1960s and beyond. Rashid Amjad’s work on industrial concentration in Pakistan considerable evidence in his own research.
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