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

[taraprakash]

Dear Aman and all. I would just like to clarify what I said in an earlier 
mail. One would give the benefit of the doubt to the batsman as long as 
there were doubts. I think it is baseless and irresponsible to give a state 
clean chit just because it sounds progressive and broad minded to do so. I 
wouldn't object if you were to say that even India has links with Jihadi 
elements which Pakistan claims India uses to destabilize Pakistan. But I 
will definitely not agree with the claim that Pakistani state has no nexus 
with jihadi elements which have unfurling Pakistani flag on Red fort as 
their stated aim.
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Aman Sethi" <aman.am at gmail.com>
To: "sarai list" <reader-list at sarai.net>
Sent: Monday, January 05, 2009 5:05 PM
Subject: [Reader-list] Myths,Mangoes and ordered houses - re: 10 myths about 
pakistan


> 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
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