Pakistan under its Ethnic Shadows

I think there is a sense of nationhood in pakistan. The ethnicities are important, but people do understand that Pakistan is their country and nation. The recent earthquake is an open example. The outpouring of grief and unity of the nation took many by surprise. People were united in their efforts to help their fellow countrymen in this hour of need. It is also wrong to compare pakistan with America. Each country has its history and background. The very idea of country and nationhood is always present in the minds and hearts of people, since 1947.

The harmony among different provinces is not as a threat as some suggest. To compare pakistan with Yogoslavia is not correct. It is true that Punjab is the dominent group in pakistan, but that does not make the punjabi people and the Pak army hostile to other provinces. Punjab has no designs for greater punjab. It is all myth. You also have to find reasons to point a fault in landlords of other provinces. They have deprived the people of their provinces of basic rights. It is not Punjab, but the feudal lords who are harming the provinces.

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Tauheed:

``ahmedzai #142 you are too kind with your appreciation. ``

:-)

``Trabbi??? ``

Never heard of this one before, but I have been on junkies, will do it again.

Harimau,

I agree with your analysis..

ISI & the jihadi`s
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/EK27Df03.html

Ref Mantolives #124

[At partition .. my dear friend... the Auranzeb loving, burqah-imposing, bearded Mullahs like Maulana Madni were in cahoots with the Congress Party.

Those supporting the Pakistan movement(the so called tntists) were not Islamists... but were aligarh modernists, ex-congressites, socialists like iftikharuddin, Faiz , a leading legal mindsof the muslims, barristers, and the sufies. And ofcourse they were led by the only politician in india to be called the Best Ambassador of Hindu Muslim Unity...

These are the facts of History ... denying them only strengthens those you want to defeat.]

Yet, it was the Islamic modernists who lost! Their victory was a tactical one and they got Pakistan. It didn`t take 3 years before the modernists and progressives lost to the mullahs.

The mullahs of India couldn`t quote the Koran to stop land redistribution from the zamindars to the farmers. The Hindu sannyasis stayed in their caves in the Himalayas meditating and stayed out of politics, letting India straighten out the mess created by the British.

The slogan ``Islam is in Danger`` was/is powerful enough to stop the Army as well as the socialists in Pakistan.

[Yes Let us call a spade a spade.]

No; let us call it a bloody shovel.

tahmed32:

~~the simple fact is: if you want a third world country to develop, job number one is to get government out of the way. welcome foreign investors, and accept the fact that along with foreign investments will come a mellowing of nationalist fervor inside the country. and this will be replaced by a sharpening of business fervor.
this is the simple lesson that nationalist third world politicians seem to have such trouble understanding~~

I think that third world politicians are the bane of third world people. I think that they wish to protece their corrupt comfortable status and use all sorts of ``anti imperialism`` rhetoric to this end, aided and abetted by Marxists, leftists and statists in the west.

The simple fact is that for over forty years after indeprendence India was an economic basket case. In the twelve years since the reforms started India`s economy has picked up, wealth is being created, people are coming out of poverty.

I read an article by a British professor about how India`s consensual politics means that reform is not coming fast enough, that we need to do more in regard of opening up of the economy. But that will come with time. There is an absolute consensus in India on its future path and the need to engage with the global economy and capital. (Except for the commies, but they are miniscule and irelevant)

The future is the free market. It will lessen poverty and unleash the entrpeneurialism lying latent in the Indian people.

Just look at how Indians succeed in business whenever they go abroad. In England, Canada, Africa, the USA, they are like the new Jews. In India the system screws the entrepeneur before he even starts. Or at least it used to. God Willing, more reforms will take place and India can concentrate on the important things...creating jobs, wealth and growing businesses. This will have the natural corrollary of bolstering pluralism. No successful economy can exist in the absence of cosmopolitaism and tolerance and equality of opportunity. This will be the biggest brake and preventative to the rise of obscuratanism and communalism in the long run.

ahmedzai #142 you are too kind with your appreciation.

as for indian cars i guess they are getting better now per the article rsridhar posted.

incidentally, if you really want to try your hand with a certified piece of junk, try the east german Trabbi. this was a masterpiece of nationalized industry, and a big joke in germany after that country reunified. i saw a tiny trabbi once sitting in the middle of big shiny west german cars that had quality and class written all over them (porsches, mercedes, bmw) in stuttgart, germany, and the shabby, rundown trabbi looked pathetic indeed.

i dont think they have too many Trabbis around anymore (i didnt see any last year when i was there which was in march/april last year i think.). presumably their owners exchanged them for real cars.

What happened in Khandahar Dec 99

http://www.frontlineonnet.com/fl2024/stories/20031205003003400.htm

Tauheed:

Your points on website information on Musharraf`s drive, nationalization and Indian car industry expressed through various posts have been noted and appreciated.

Your commentry on an Indian car experience was impressive. I will be looking forward to trying my hands on one in the near future.

Btw, does any body know if Indian cars have made it to the USA?

re:#140 by ballukhan
You are right about that my friend. I do not have much idea what is going on in Indian Auto industry right now. I have visited India a few times in the last several years and seen other cars come into picture. But, the fact that India has actually started manufacturing a car (Indica) from ``level zero`` is a big surprise. I must say i am very pleased.
Sridhar

Maruti!!! Twelve years!!! MAn, you guys have no idea about Indian Auto industry now.

re:#135 by tahmed32
Thanks for your post.
My own impression of Indian cars is not a good one. That is why i asked you when you had ridden an Indian car last. The best i have seen of Indian cars (about 12 years ago when i was employed in India) was Maruti,which is not a real compliment. So, i too am surprised (pleasantly so) to see India make so much headway in the Auto manufacturing.
Sridhar

#113 by His Excellency

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This assumption [China will support Pakistan] was proven wrong when Zhu Rhongji and Chief of PLA asked Musharraf to withdraw NLI/Jehadi elements and instead pursue the diplomatic route. This was the biggest shock to Musharraf.
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The army can blame no one but itself for the boo-boo. It had purposely kept its civilian bosses in the dark about its plans in Kargil even as Nawaz Sharif and Vajpayee were taking a ground-breaking peace initiative in Lahore and in front of the Pakistan Minar.

The army had deliberately cut itself from political inputs that would have screamed at it, ``Look before you jump``.

It was not just naivety on the part of the military but a deliberate course of action to prevent political inputs from interfering with its Kargil fantasies. After all, it had already received political feedback when General Pervez Musharraf presented the plan earlier to Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. When Bhutto pointedly asked Musharraf what would happen after the Pakistanis take control of the peaks, Musharraf is reported to have indignantly retorted, ``I don`t understand your question, ma`am``!! Well, he was so taken up by the Prussian complex of the Pak military, that he was determined not to let Benazir stand in the way of his ``brilliant plan`` for the army of ``martial races``.

Musharraf had received feedback from a political channel (Benazir). He had so disliked the feedback that when he finally decided to put the plan into action, he decided to keep the Prime Minister (Nawaz Sharif) in the dark about his Kargil plans.

So General Pervez Musharraf has no one but himself to blame for not knowing how China was going to react in the wake of the Kargil invasion.

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Musharraf had assumed that since Nawaz had already okayed the Kargil plan months ago, the entire political leadership will stand by the operation. This didn`t happen. Deprived of political support within Pakistan, Kargil became Musharraf`s personal project.
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If General Musharraf were honest, he would have thanked Nawaz Sharif for extricating Pakistan`s military from the hole it had dug for itself in Kargil.

It was the military`s arrogance that led to the situation. It had purposely kept the civilian bosses in the dark about the Kargil adventure it was planning even as Nawaz Sharif and Musharraf were engaged in peace talks in Lahore:

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Since Clinton had described Kashmir as a nuclear flashpoint, the assumption was that U.S. will immediately press for summit level talks between India and Pakistan to resolve this dispute. Instead, Clinton refused to discuss Kashmir will Nawaz Sharif until Pakistan withdrew the NLI/Jehadis.
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Once again, this was the military`s fault. The plan had been rebuffed by a Prime Minister earlier. But the army of ``martial-races``, led by its misplaced and ill-directed Prussian complex, was so determined to go ahead anyway that it made no attempt to try to analyze Benazir Bhutto`s feedback. When the invasion finally got launched, the political boss (Nawaz Sharif) was not in the loop. The Prime Minister was allowed to get into the loop only when it became apparent that the military needed all the help it could get to extricate itself from the hole it had dug for itself.

ballukhan #131 my post to rsridhar responds to your post as well i think: the indian car industry is picking up (as rsridhar points out), but this was clearly not the case UNTIL the government gave up on its traditional protectionist policy.

the simple fact is: if you want a third world country to develop, job number one is to get government out of the way. welcome foreign investors, and accept the fact that along with foreign investments will come a mellowing of nationalist fervor inside the country. and this will be replaced by a sharpening of business fervor.

this is the simple lesson that nationalist third world politicians seem to have such trouble understanding.

ahmedzai #134

on protectionism. agreed that time bound protectionism could possibly work. this of course is the ``infant industry argument`` that was popular in the 1950s. Trouble is, as experience showed with the infant industry argument. that some infants refuse to grow up. :-)

on export rebates: you are quite right. in fact last september i remember my brother telling me that export rebates had been lifted on oriental rugs exports e.g.. the current economic team that musharaff has pulled together (particularly finance minister and state bank governor) are very sound professionals indeed and have done much to strengthen pakistan`s economy in my view.

on musharaff: i must say his recent madrassah reform initiatives (which were recently posted on the pakistan embassy websites) seem to make a lot of sense - rather than destroying them, he is harnessing them by introducing nonreligious subjects in the syllabus. also adding funds so they can get proper lab and computing equipment. thus, IF he can pull it off, he would in one stroke have changed madrassahs from being a major problem for pakistan (and indeed the world) and into a major part of the solution to the problem of illiteracy. so my prayers are for his initiative to succeed. but time will tell...