Little Khaki Fables

Salim Bhai,

(If we can`t do that, then I suggest we look for the last surviving Mirza or Timuri to at least give us the legitimacy of government - who knows there may be some Baburs, Akbars, and Shah Jahans sleeping in a roundabout somewhere in Karachi. )

The descendants of the great Moghuls work as maidservants, rickshaw pullers etc. in streets of Old Delhi while children of Tipu do the same in Kolkata- or so I have heard. You can find your rulers there. OTOH, children of those who colloborated with the Brits- the Scindias, Wadiars for eg are rulers of the new India. Such is life.

Regards

Hassan Nasir {``When many people like me denounce the military for its intervening role or demand a bit better performance and nobler character from the top brass, it is not due to our ignorance of misdeeds of civilians or some sort of colour-blindness. In Pakistan as in Iraq, it is a pretty reasonable as well as a fully legitimate demand to ask for a better standard out of the self-righteous conquering forces than those they throw out declaring them wanton sinners.``}

Hassan Sahib,
A very well-written and considerably earnest effort in trying to correlate two totally unrelated events into a hodge-podge of blame, self-criticism, and irrelevant conclusions. The only thing that the two situations have in common is tragedy. The closest Iraq has come to democracy is its geographical position in being approximately 1200 miles from India and approximately 100 miles or so from Israel. Pakistanis, on the other hand, should be ashamed of themselves. Blaming the US or the Pakistani military for either problem is like yelling at the firemen for the inferno and not considering our bad habit of smoking next to the gasoline.

From the days of Mesopotamians, Hammurabi, Nebuchadnezzar, Babylonians, Assyrians, Persians, Cyrus, Darius, Greeks, Alexander, Sassanids, Arabs, Abbasids, Mongols, Il-Khans, Safavids, Ottomans, British, and King Faisal to the demise of Kassem, Aref, Al-Bakr, and Sadman Houston, the Iraqis have known one bloody despot after another. The poor people have seen nothing but blood, cruelty, wholesale executions, revenge, and tribal, religious, ethnic, and sectarian violence - almost without any break. The American invasion, like the first Gulf War, is definitely neither for democracy nor for world peace - it`s merely a successful effort in eliminating the most credible threat to Israel at that time. No wonder that Iran is next in line. The Jewish right-wing neo-cons, with their Christian Evangelist allies, set a goal, created the opportunity. The threat to Israel has been vastly diminished and the hell with what happens to anybody else - that is the perspective of these global ``strategists.`` Eventually, after many thousands of American and Iraqi deaths and billions of dollars, things will solve themselves.

Pakistan is a totally different tragedy. Each coup d`etat and military rule was preceded by stupid actions by the ``democratically-elected`` autocrats of the day. Pakistan started off as a semi-democratic state under the ``firm`` leadership of Mr. Jinnah. Sikander Mirza getting slapped by Ayub Khan and ending up in the UK running a hotel, Bhutto getting overthrown by a fundo bozo and getting invited to a necktie party, and Nawaz Sharif performing a long long Umrah are all sadly comical manifestations of a people unable to rule themselves. The prospect of a Pakistani C-in-C having to land at Ahmedabad, India instead of Karachi is at best a first-class banana republic thriller. Mushy had to take over Pakistan because Nawaz Sharif had illusions of becoming Napoleon. Compare that to the ``emergency`` saga in India when Indira Gandhi, despite her brilliant victory in East Pakistan, could not engineer autocracy. She was eventually discredited and thrown out of office by a responsible electorate. The same thing happened to the BJP recently. The Indian military did not have to intervene once in the long 60 years of the Indian experience with democracy.

One thing is clear. Muslims have established that the only form of government that they have implemented successfully is hereditary dynastic monarchy. After the failure of the initial Caliphate of the ``Khulfa-e-Rashideen,`` the Umayyads in Syria, Abbasids, Fatimids, Umayyads in Spain, Seljuks, Delhi Sultans, Ottomans, Mughals, Safavids, and now the Saudis have provided the only stability for their citizens. These dynasties fared pretty well, as long as we had a succession of young, capable, and conscientious leaders. Unfortunately, it would take only one or two bad apples to bring the entire structure to ruin. The problem was always the lack of self-correcting institutions, unbelievable selfishness, lack of reform, rigidity, intolerance, and lack of vision. Whether in Iraq or in Pakistan, Muslims need to build democratic institutions, install democracy, practice democracy, and witness several transfers of power, before we can attempt to blame India, Israel, Britain, or the US for suppressing freedom. If we can`t do that, then I suggest we look for the last surviving Mirza or Timuri to at least give us the legitimacy of government - who knows there may be some Baburs, Akbars, and Shah Jahans sleeping in a roundabout somewhere in Karachi.

#9 by Urstruly on March 26, 2006 1:34pm PT
Re: # 6

{``I will pay your taxi fare plus 20 bucks if you take taxi from lorali to dera bugti or from wana down to dumma dolla and you have to promise that if someone asks you on your way, you tell them that you are a Punjabi.``}

Urstruly Sahib,
Now and then you come up with some real gems. This was funny and witty. :)

#14 wrong. go back and do your homework.

Friends, who have a bizarre penchant of dragging India in every discussion no matter how irrelevant it may be or how stupid it may look like, particularly whenever one dares to speak about the ill deeds of Pak army against the very country they are bloody well hired/supposed to defend, I have to tell them that we Pakistanis are in acute need of cleaning our own home before hurling abuses around.
Let me quote the closing paragraphs of an op-ed piece appearing in the leading mainstream Pakistani daily.

“Overt respect for the Constitution, law and political probity was of utmost importance that General Musharraf must have demonstrated on March 23. That was possible to some extent by staying away from the political rally organised by turncoats and political opportunists. It was a great miss for the serving army chief to address political rally on that day.
$$$Poignancy was added to it when on that same day the ruling Congress party chief in India Sonia Gandhi gave up her parliamentary seat amid allegations that she wrongfully held an office of profit that she was forbidden by an obscure law.
Early this month General Musharraf talking to senior journalists in Rawalpindi said, ``we are not in competition with India. They are going in a different direction and we are going in a different directions``.
When on March 23 Sonia resigned the parliamentary seat because, ``principles of probity and my inner conscience require that I resign my post in the parliament``, I agonised about the direction we were going.$$$”

http://www.jang.com.pk/thenews/mar2006-daily/28-03-2006/oped/o5.htm

#17 by ahmadzai

[I agree with Faisal. The writer is a retard or a paid writer by fundoo Indoos, an aspect that Chowk participant viz. Ijaz had suggested while posting a message on his iLog after quite sometime.]

In case you didn`t know, even your military is paid by fundoo Indoos to keep ordinary Pakis subjugated. We even paid them to lose all the wars they fought against us.

Seriously, you guys are so deluded, even an Ostrich (you know, the one with its head buried in sand) comes out smelling of roses when compared to you.

One of the best articles indeed about khakis in recent days.
Superb comparisons, sound analysis.
Hats off to Chowk for publishing it.
Bravo Mr Nasir.

I agree with Faisal. The writer is a retard or a paid writer by fundoo Indoos, an aspect that Chowk participant viz. Ijaz had suggested while posting a message on his iLog after quite sometime.

The topic of the article is such an exaggeration that it reduces any value in the body to zilch.

Pakistan`s military has Pakistani men and women working in it who are related to Pakistani civil men and women. It is as simple as this. The most vocal opponent of President Musharraf - Qazi, BB and Nawaz have their kith and kin working in the military.

Pakistani military can at best be compared with Turkish military. In Turkey, even though the military is not directly involved in the Government, no democratically elected Government dare move away from the founding principles as guarded possessively now by military.

A lot of the neo-conservatives are actually Jewish not evangelist Christian. Some of them like Wolfowitz, Perle, Abrams, Kristol were influenced by the University of Chicago professor Leo Strauss.

Dear Sanjay

The per capita growth that you have quoted is possibly on a real basis, what you need to do is to calculate it on a nominal basis i.e without adjusting for inflation. If real per capita income growth is 6% and inflation is around 11% the nominal income growth would be (1+ 0.06)* (1.11)- 1 i.e. close to 17-18%. Maybe Manto will be able to answer whether the Pakistani real income levels have grown in the last 3-4 years or not.

Regards

#13

No. I dont think that the per capita income of Pakistan has gone up in proportion to the price increase. If I am not mistaken ,the prices have gone up on an average 10-15% per year but the per capita income has gone by 5-6%. I dont have the figures right now.

But in any case the rate of inflation in Pakistan is 11%(compared to 5% in India) and the growth rate of both the countries is roughly equal 6-7% average.

Dear Sanjay,

The prices of essential commodities in nominal terms may have gone up very sharply in the last four years but the other part of the equation is that has the nominal per capita income also gone up at least proportionately. In case it has, there is no cause for worry.

Regards

I remember that in 2002(when I got a PC and the internet) that while chatting with Pakistanis on Yahoo Messenger, I used to ask the prices of essential commodities like Milk, Sugar, Petrol, Rice, Wheat,Mutton, Chicken etc. in Pakistan. The prices they used to tell me then, when converted into Indian Rupees, were either roughly the same or a bit lower/higher. That is, in 2002, the prices of essential commodities in Pakistan were either same as that of India or a bit lower/higher.

In 2006, the prices of Sugar, Milk, Mutton, Chicken, Petrol etc. in Pakistan are a shock. They are now much much higher than in India so much so that there is no comparison at all.

It only means that in the last four years, either India has gone up tremendously or Pakistan has gone down in the same breadth. Living in India, I can tell that though India has grown in the last four years but it not something stupendous particularly in the field of essential commodities.

The only conclusion can be that Pakistan under Military Rule has failed completely as far as prices of essential commodities are concerned.

There is one difference between Pakistan and Iraq. If the US was to withdraw from Iraq, the govt there would collapse like a pack of cards. However Mush would continue to remain in power even without US support as he did between Oct 12-1999 to 9/11.

Regards

liberace: you`re searching for the wrong hassan.. ``Hassan N Chandhar``

The author`s name is ``Hassan Nasir``

Re: # 6

I will pay your taxi fare plus 20 bucks if you take taxi from lorali to dera bugti or from wana down to dumma dolla and you have to promise that if someone asks you on your way, you tell them that you are a Punjabi.