[Reader-list] Myths, Mangoes and ordered houses - re: 10 myths about pakistan

[Aman Sethi]

Dear All - particularly Javed, (who I thank for posting this text) and
Taraprakash and Yasir -for their thoughts,

This is in response to a conversation on the authenticity/
"insightfullness" of Mohammed Hanif's text that appeared in the Times
of India in the Times of India -and I have appended at the end of this
mail.

I think the reason I find Mohammed Hanif's text (appended below)
interesting is primarily because often when reading/learning about
another place - especially through the eyes of correspondents - it is
hard to imagine how anyone lives there at all. For weeks I have been
having conversation with friends about how pakistan appears to be
teetering on a brink of some sort - without really knowing that that
brink is - how deep the chasm is - is it in the chasm already - what
does it means to be in the chasm - or is there no brink, no teetering,
no nothing except to the grind of the everyday.

But fortunately, i have also been re-reading Slaughterhouse Five -
Kurt Vonnegut's book on the dresden fire-bombing in WWII where, after
describing the devastation of dresden as a moonscape utterly ravaged
by carpet bombs, he writes

"Billy's story ended very curiously in a suburb untouched by fire and
explosions. The guards and americans came at nightfall to an innn
which was open for business. There was candlelight. There were fires
in three fireplaces downstairs. There were empty tables ad chairs
waiting for anyone who might come, and empty beds with covers turned
down upstairs."

On reading texts like Slaughterhouse Five - or Sebal's incredible
Natural History of Destruction there is the tendency to abstract trite
observations like "ordinary people continue with their normal lives
even as the world collapses around them." I would argue that what
makes these texts interesting -and relevant - is that they remind us
that this IS normal life. This horror, this destruction, this
banality, this IS normal life. And Mohammed Hanif's text - (without
placing it in the same league) - again gives us a snapshot into the
normalcy of normal life in pakistan.

Reading the news on the series of bomb blasts in Delhi, Surat,
Bangalore and elsewhere through the fall of 2008 - one is tempted to
read the same spiral of chaos, the horror of implosion and the
embarrassment of "state failure" that Indians so happily foist upon
neighbouring countries. But as those living in India will readily
testify; it certainly doesnt seem so - no matter what the disaster, we
are firm in our belief that -like the batsman in cricket - the
endurance of the state should be given the benefit of doubt. Perhaps
we could accord others in the neighbourhood the same privileges.

The story of the americans and the innkeepers ends something like this :
"The Blind innkeeper said that the americans could sleep in his stable
that night, and he gave them soup and ersatz coffee and a little beer.
Then he came out to the stable to listen to them bedding down in the
straw.
"Good Night Americans," he said in German, "Sleep well."

best
a.

Ten myths about Pakistan
4 Jan 2009, 0032 hrs IST,
Mohammed Hanif

Living in Pakistan and reading about it in the Indian press can
sometimes be quite a disorienting experience: one wonders what place
on earth they're talking about? I wouldn't be surprised if an Indian
reader going through Pakistani papers has asked the same question in
recent days. Here are some common assumptions about Pakistan and its
citizens that I have come across in the Indian media...

Pakistan controls the jihadis: Or Pakistan's government controls the
jihadis. Or Pakistan Army controls the jihadis. Or ISI controls the
jihadis. Or some rogue elements from the ISI control the Jihadis.
Nobody knows the whole truth but increasingly it's the tail that wags
the dog. We must remember that the ISI-Jihadi alliance was a marriage
of convenience, which has broken down irrevocably. Pakistan army has
lost more soldiers at the hands of these jihadis than it ever did
fighting India.

Musharraf was in control, Zardari is not: Let's not forget that
General Musharraf seized power after he was fired from his job as the
army chief by an elected prime minister. Musharraf first appeased
jihadis, then bombed them, and then appeased them again. The country
he left behind has become a very dangerous place, above all for its
own citizens. There is a latent hankering in sections of the Indian
middle class for a strongman. Give Manmohan Singh a military uniform,
put all the armed forces under his direct command, make his word the
law of the land, and he too will go around thumping his chest saying
that it's his destiny to save India from Indians . Zardari will never
have the kind of control that Musharraf had. But Pakistanis do not
want another Musharraf.

Pakistan, which Pakistan? For a small country, Pakistan is very
diverse, not only ethnically but politically as well. General
Musharraf's government bombed Pashtuns in the north for being
Islamists and close to the Taliban and at the same time it bombed
Balochs in the South for NOT being Islamists and for subscribing to
some kind of retro-socialist, anti Taliban ethos. You have probably
heard the joke about other countries having armies but Pakistan's army
having a country. Nobody in Pakistan finds it funny.

Pakistan and its loose nukes: Pakistan's nuclear programme is under a
sophisticated command and control system, no more under threat than
India or Israel's nuclear assets are threatened by Hindu or Jewish
extremists. For a long time Pakistan's security establishment's other
strategic asset was jihadi organisations, which in the last couple of
years have become its biggest liability.

Pakistan is a failed state: If it is, then Pakistanis have not
noticed. Or they have lived in it for such a long time that they have
become used to its dysfunctional aspects. Trains are late but they
turn up, there are more VJs, DJs, theatre festivals, melas, and
fashion models than a failed state can accommodate. To borrow a phrase
from President Zardari, there are lots of non-state actors like Abdul
Sattar Edhi who provide emergency health services, orphanages and
shelters for sick animals.

It is a deeply religious country: Every half-decent election in this
country has proved otherwise. Religious parties have never won more
than a fraction of popular vote. Last year Pakistan witnessed the
largest civil rights movements in the history of this region. It was
spontaneous, secular and entirely peaceful. But since people weren't
raising anti-India or anti-America slogans, nobody outside Pakistan
took much notice.

All Pakistanis hate India: Three out of four provinces in Pakistan -
Sindh, Baluchistan, NWFP - have never had any popular anti-India
sentiment ever. Punjabis who did impose India as enemy-in-chief on
Pakistan are now more interested in selling potatoes to India than
destroying it. There is a new breed of al-Qaida inspired jihadis who
hate a woman walking on the streets of Karachi as much as they hate a
woman driving a car on the streets of Delhi. In fact there is not much
that they do not hate: they hate America, Denmark, China CDs, barbers,
DVDs , television, even football. Imran Khan recently said that these
jihadis will never attack a cricket match but nobody takes him
seriously.

Training camps: There are militant sanctuaries in the tribal areas of
Pakistan but definitely not in Muzaffarabad or Muridke, two favourite
targets for Indian journalists, probably because those are the cities
they have ever been allowed to visit. After all how much training do
you need if you are going to shoot at random civilians or blow
yourself up in a crowded bazaar? So if anyone thinks a few missiles
targeted at Muzaffarabad will teach anyone a lesson, they should
switch off their TV and try to locate it on the map.

RAW would never do what ISI does: Both the agencies have had a
brilliant record of creating mayhem in the neighbouring countries.
Both have a dismal record when it comes to protecting their own
people. There is a simple reason that ISI is a bigger, more notorious
brand name: It was CIA's franchise during the jihad against the
Soviets. And now it's busy doing jihad against those very jihadis.

Pakistan is poor, India is rich: Pakistanis visiting India till the
mid-eighties came back very smug. They told us about India's slums,
and that there was nothing to buy except handicrafts and saris. Then
Pakistanis could say with justifiable pride that nobody slept hungry
in their country. But now, not only do people sleep hungry in both the
countries, they also commit suicide because they see nothing but a
lifetime of hunger ahead. A debt-ridden farmer contemplating suicide
in Maharashtra and a mother who abandons her children in Karachi
because she can't feed them: this is what we have achieved in our
mutual desire to teach each other a lesson.

The writer is the author of 'A Case of Exploding Mangoes'

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Sunday_TOI/Ten_myths_about_Pakistan/articleshow/3932145.cms