Scylla or Charybdis?

Odysseus and his men encountered problem of a lifetime, when they were sailing back home, and they had to pass through the Strait of Messina. In front of them was the narrowest point in the sea, like a bottleneck, with Scylla and Charybdis, the two sea monsters on the opposite sides. The two sides of the strait were within an arrow's range of each other, so close that sailors attempting to avoid Charybdis would pass too close to Scylla and vice versa.

Charybdis took form as a monstrous mouth and swallowed huge amounts of water three times a day before belching them back out again, creating whirlpools.

Scylla, on the other hand, was a grotesque sea monster, with six long necks equipped with grisly heads, each of which contained three rows of sharp teeth. Her body consisted of twelve canine legs and a cat's tail.

Odysseus had to take a decision, a decision which will decide the fate of all the men he was leading.

The Ship which is taking 170 Million Pakistanis, to God knows where, is facing the same problem that Odysseus and his men faced thousands of years ago. The only difference is that our Protagonist (if we have any) is not a Mythical Greek God with supernatural powers on his repertoire.

At one side of the strait, we have strange bearded people trying to implement strange version of Islam in a strange ways. They blow themselves up to kill anyone who fulfills below criteria:

• People wearing Police uniforms
• People wearing army uniforms
• People wearing civilian clothes in close proximity of anyone belonging to above two categories
• People having their own point of view about life, specially if it is different from strange bearded people
• People with food in their bellies and smile on their faces ( after all any fight, at the end, is between haves and have nots)
• Boys who want to shave and listen to music
• Girls who love school and shopping

The irony is that, these “spiritual� people were encouraged by “democratic� people to finish-off “socialist� people who wanted to invade “poor� people. Pakistan was caught up in the middle in this clash of ideologies because it had none of its own.

On the other side of the strait, we have, simply the whole world. Every damn problem of the world seems to be originating from Pakistan. From terrorist attacks in India to insurgency in Afghanistan, from nuclear proliferation to radicalization of Islam, every thing is “exported� by us; it’s strange that still our GDP is going down.

Although there were times when Rambo fought with Mujahedeen, when “Madrasas� were funded by CIA, when all the militants from Middle East were escorted to Pakistan by USAF, when Muslims were fighting for their freedom in Afghanistan not someone else's proxy war, when a dictator in Pakistan was nakedly supported by all the western democracies. But no one seems to remember that, especially in west. The same “civilized� world which forced Pakistan to prostitution in the days of “Cold War� now blame it for lack of innocence. Not only blame, they now want to punish it for having committed adultery.

Hitherto, our goal has been to avoid both monsters, but we have gotten ourselves in such a difficult position that we can’t even avoid one. We have been encouraging drone attacks on our western border but are obstinate to retaliate against any possible attack on our eastern border. We have been gifting “Jihadis� to America to be tried in Guantanamo but are adamant to keep them away from Indian courts. We cheated “Taliban� after a long love affair but we still expect them to be faithful.

If we want to sail through the strait, we have to take-on one of the two monsters, join one of the two sides and face one of the two outcomes. Before that, we have to find our Odysseus.

Odysseus at the end took that decision. He chose Scylla over Charybdis. He couldn’t risk going near Charybdis which would certainly have sucked the whole ship. Scylla devoured six of his men alive but the ship sailed home.