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

[Aman Sethi]

Dear Taraprakash,
I have never denied the presence of militant groups in pakistan. That
there are "links" between armed groups and power centres in pakistan
is not something i am contesting - I think the interesting question is
the nature of these "links" and the nature of the state.

If I was to say the "Indian state" has connections with terror
organisations in kashmir - what would that mean? One would then ask -
okay - which organ of the state - so say we say the IB - or in the
case of Pakistan - the ISI - then once asks - okay, so does the
director of IB/ISI have direct contact with a militant commander?
Probably not - its probably a connection between mid-tier people on
both sides - from here on we start entering reasonably murky waters
-which get murkier as one tries to plumb its depths (sorry for the
mixed metaphor) ...
and Hanif's piece - gives an idea of the complications in drawing
straight lines between dots -that is all I am saying.
best
a.

On Tue, Jan 6, 2009 at 12:49 PM, taraprakash <taraprakash at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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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