Pakistan Story --- shedding light on the present from lessons of the past ...Part I

PAKISTAN: STORY 1: In the first of three special reports from Pakistan, a look the problems Pakistan is facing as a result of the 7 year war in neighbouring Afghanistan. There are now said to be 3 million Afghan refugees living in Pakistan; their presence seems to have exacerbated the tensions inside the country and there are also accusations that they are involved in drug-smuggling and gun-running. Intvws Unnamed refugee, Ayaz Amir (Columnist, Dawn Magazine), John Kirke (Planning Consultant), Said Azhar (Commissioner for Refugees), Alan Williams (Planning Consultant) & Unnamed Training Officer. McDONALD,TREVOR










PAKISTAN STORY 2: Intvw with President Zia Ul-Haq on challenge from Benazir Bhutto with her Pakistan Peoples Party which is becoming a strong opposition: He also comments on possible solution for Afghanistan as Pakistan is caught in the crossfire providing a home for Afghan refugeess, support Afghan guerrillas while maintaining diplomatic relations with Russia. MCDONALD,TREVOR







PAKISTAN STORY 3: In the final report from Pakistan a look at the future for for Benazir Bhutto as she meets some supporters who relatives were killed in a political demonstration: President Zia Ul- Haq has maintained that the Pakistan Peoples Party is a spent force: Intvws Benazir Bhutto, Ahmed Rashid (Observer Pakistan Correspondent), Mushahid Hussein (Editor 'Moslem'). McDONALD,TREVOR

Those Darn Muslims!

Those darn Muslims! They have over complicated life. Perfectly good countries on the verge of destruction in the name of some twisted ideology. Between the Communist Russians and the bastard Mullahs, who preach a twisted ideological view of Islam, which mind you are alien to the Prophetic ways. A whole nation was turned upside down. Afghanistan, particularly Kabul was considered the Paris of Asia. A culturally rich city, filled with music, dance, and life. Over night it was destroyed, for what? At whose expense, but the people of that land. The people were stripped of all their rights, stripped of their dignity and honor. Women and Men both made to conform to an extremely narrow interpretation of Islamic Shariah - which mind you is very much alive within Bay Area Mosques today, except it has been package very cleverly to make it appear western sounding, thus palatable to the vast majority who with folding hands will blindly listen to whats being preached from the pulpit.

The movie, Kite Runner, based upon Khaled Hosseini's novel provides a vivid snapshot of the pre Soviet/Taliban Afghanistan era, it essentially is a flip of the same coin.

The life depicted in pre Soviet Afghanistan, of a young boy Amir, or Amir Jan, as he was loving referred to as, and his friend, Hassan, which many years later he learns was actually his half brother, not just the servants boy.

Amir's early childhood reminds me a little of my own childhood. In the sense, I tended to keep to myself, was quite, didn't have many friends. Most of the time, when not at School, or with family, would spend time by myself, playing, constructing with lego, sand, clay, or playing with our Afghan (Pathan) servant boys Anwar and Ali.

This was the early 80's in Pakistan, US-USSR war was in full swing. While Pakistan, under the austere dictatorship of General Zia-ul-Haq, 'Marde-Momin Marde-Haq, Zia-ul-Haq, Zia-ul-Haq' were slogans I heard uttered by my mother and several of her WAF activists, was in every respect the United States instrument that pushed the Soviets out of Afghanistan. Not without the emergence of the Afghan Soldiers of God, or Mujahadeen, who later after the war became known as the Taliban.

It was later, after the Soviets where driven out that the Taliban, under the leadership of the ISI , and authority of the CIA, ruled Afghanistan until the 2nd Aghan War of the modern era.

However, this time it was a war between former allies, the Taliban/Al Qaeda on one side, and U.S/Pakistan on the other, under yet another dictator of Pakistan General Pervez Musharraf. A dictator, who unlike his predecessor General Zia was packaged by his overlords in Washington to appear like a liberal, and progressive ruler.

Amir Jan spent his early life in Afghanistan, and then later in the US, specifically right here in the backyard of the Silicon Wadi, Fremont where he, with is father Agha Sahib took refuge. Agha Sahib, not to forget, and from what could be gathered from the movie and the novel, was a sort of revolutionary personality in pre-Soviet Kabul. He spoke against Communism, while at the same time attacking the "bearded,  good for nothing Mullahs".

Life in the U.S. wasn't easy, as for many people who immigrate from wore torn countries. Amir, raised in a privileged household saw and experienced, unlike many of us professionals of the Silicon Wadi immense hardship. However, with their Afghan communities support they were able to overcome the extreme hardship Again, something I can personally relate to, or rather as a witness to of my families unfortunate times here in the US - much of which can be attributed to the volatile economic situation in Pakistan. Which, in many respects can be related to the events following the Soviet Afghanistan era, the influx of drugs and Afghan refugees, and emergence of the Kalashnikov culture.




Copyright C. Abdulrahman Rafiq

Afganistan Enters the Internet Age...

A little while back I was browsing through RabitaZone's sitemeter account. You can see site visits from all over the globe - from Australia to Europe, including the Middle East. All looks normal, however there was one country you don't see a whole lot to often - Afghanistan.

Until today, I was unaware that there are Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in this desolate land, let alone Web users.

Upon further investigation I found to my amazement, at the Afghanistan Ministry of Communication and Information Technology the following "somewhat surprising" statistics,

Statistics

The following statistic updates every after 3 months.
Last updated on 02, Oct 2007

Landline Phones:	39,608
GSM Subscribers:	32,85,332
CDMA Subscribers:	43,646
ISP Companies:	17
GSM Companies:	04

Who would have imagined, a nation such as Afghanistan would have 17 ISPs! This may seem like a small number, it however shows great promise for this nation - paving the way for innumerable entrepreneurial opportunities.

Copyright C. AbdulRahman Rafiq

Fwd: [pakeditor] Pakistan's Silent Majority Is Not to Be Feared - NYTIMES - THE GREAT GAME CONTINUES....

An Excellent piece by Mohsin Hamid. Indeed he is one the many Pakistanis who believed in Musharraf, but are now utterly disappointed. Many of us in the past went so far as to defend his policies claiming that finally Pakistan has gotten a leader who has put the best interest of the country before his/her own. Indeed this is what he portrayed when he first annexed the reigns of government from the "democratically" elected representative.

How naive could we have been, the writing was on the wall all around us. The pawns were being put in place, Musharraf but one of the many pawns in the Great Game played in recent years by imperialistic powers in South Asia and the greater Central Asian region.

So now whats next? Madam Pinky is it to be you, or who? Who will it be that convinces the powers that they are the next best thing for Pakistan, that they have the solution to regional stability? And so the Game continues - a Game it is indeed, a struggle for controlling a region that are considered "Emerging Markets" by some, or seen by others as a source of immense wealth, fueling economies around the world.

-ARR

[The article was initialed posted to pakeditor@yahoogroups.com]

Copyright (c) 2007 Abdulrahman Rafiq

Syed Asif Alam <asifalam@aopp.org> wrote:

To: editor@aopp.org
From: Syed Asif Alam <asifalam@aopp.org>
Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2007 16:07:29 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [pakeditor] Pakistan¢s Silent Majority Is Not to Be Fe
ared - NYTIMES

March 27, 2007

Op-Ed Contributor

Pakistan's Silent Majority Is Not to Be Feared

By MOHSIN HAMID

London

I WAS one of the few Pakistanis who actually voted for Gen. Pervez Musharraf in the rigged referendum of 2002. I recall walking into a polling station in Islamabad and not seeing any other voter. When I took the time required to read the convoluted ballot, I was accosted by a man who had the overbearing attitude of a soldier although he was in civilian clothes. He insisted that I hurry, which I refused to do. He then hovered close by, watching my every action, in complete defiance of electoral rules.

Despite this intimidation, I still voted in favor of the proposition that General Musharraf, who had seized power in a coup in 1999, should continue as Pakistan's president for five more years. I believed his rule had brought us much-needed stability, respite from the venal and self-serving elected politicians who had misgoverned Pakistan in the 1990s, and a more free and vibrant press than at any time in the country's history.

The outcome of the referendum — 98 percent support for General Musharraf from an astonishing 50 percent turnout — was so obviously false that even he felt compelled to disown the exercise.

Rigged elections rankle, of course. But since then, secular, liberal Pakistanis like myself have seen many benefits from General Musharraf's rule. My wife was an actress in "Jutt and Bond," a popular Pakistani sitcom about a Punjabi folk hero and a debonair British agent. Her show was on one of the many private television channels that have been permitted to operate in the country, featuring everything from local rock music to a talk show whose host is a transvestite.

My sister, a journalism lecturer in Lahore, loves to tell me about the enormous growth in recent years in university financing, academic salaries and undergraduate enrollment. And my father, now retired but for much of his career a professor of economics, says he has never seen such a dynamic and exciting time in Pakistani higher education.

But there have been significant problems under General Musharraf, too. Pakistan has grown increasingly divided between the relatively urban and prosperous regions that border India and the relatively rural, conservative and violent regions that border Afghanistan. The two mainstream political parties have historically bridged that divide and vastly outperformed religious extremists in free elections, but under General Musharraf they have been marginalized in a system that looks to one man for leadership.

What many of us hoped was that General Musharraf would build up the country's neglected institutions before eventually handing over power to a democratically elected successor. Those hopes were dealt a serious blow two weeks ago, when he suspended the chief justice of Pakistan's Supreme Court, Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry.

For General Musharraf, Justice Chaudhry had become a major irritant. He had opened investigations into government "disappearances" of suspects in the war on terrorism. He had blocked the showcase privatization of the national steel mill. He had, in other words, demonstrated that he would not do General Musharraf's bidding. With elections due later this year, and challenges to irregularities like the rigging that took place in 2002 likely to end up in the Supreme Court, an independent chief justice could jeopardize General Musharraf's continued rule.

Like many Pakistanis, I knew little about Justice Chaudhry except that he had a reputation for being honest, and that under his leadership, the Supreme Court had reduced its case backlog by 60 percent. His suspension seemed a throwback to the worst excesses of the government that General Musharraf's coup had replaced, and it galvanized protests by the nation's lawyers and opposition parties, including rallies of thousands in several of Pakistan's major cities yesterday.

More troubling still was the phone call I received recently from a friend who works for Geo, one of Pakistan's leading independent television channels. The government had placed enormous pressure on Geo to stop showing the demonstrations in support of Justice Chaudhry, and the channel had refused to comply. When my friend told me that policemen had broken into Geo's offices, smashed its equipment and beaten up the staff, I felt utterly betrayed by the man I had voted for.

Despite his subsequent apology for the Geo incident, General Musharraf now appears to be more concerned with perpetuating his rule than with furthering the cause of "enlightened moderation" that he had claimed to champion. He has never been particularly popular, but he is now estranging the liberals who previously supported his progressive ends if not his autocratic means. People like me are realizing that the short-term gains from even a well-intentioned dictator's policies can be easily reversed.

General Musharraf must recognize that his popularity is dwindling fast and that the need to move toward greater democracy is overwhelming. The idea that a president in an army uniform will be acceptable to Pakistanis after this year's elections is becoming more and more implausible.

The United States has provided enormous financial and political support to General Musharraf's government, but it has focused on his short-term performance in the war on terror. America must now take a long-term view and press General Musharraf to reverse his suspension of the chief justice and of Pakistan's press freedoms. He should be encouraged to see that he cannot cling to power forever.

Pakistan is both more complicated and less dangerous than America has been led to believe. General Musharraf has portrayed himself as America's last line of defense in an angry and dangerous land. In reality, the vast majority of Pakistanis want nothing to do with violence. When thousands of cricket fans from our archenemy, India, wandered about Pakistan unprotected for days in 2004, not one was abducted or killed. At my own wedding two years ago, a dozen Americans came, disregarding State Department warnings. They, too, spent their time in Pakistan without incident.

Yes, there are militants in Pakistan. But they are a small minority in a country with a population of 165 million. Religious extremists have never done well in elections when the mainstream parties have been allowed to compete fairly. Nor does the Pakistan Army appear to be in any great danger of falling into radical hands: by all accounts the commanders below General Musharraf broadly agree with his policies.

An exaggerated fear of Pakistan's people must not prevent America from realizing that Pakistanis are turning away from General Musharraf. By prolonging his rule, the general risks taking Pakistan backward and undermining much of the considerable good that he has been able to achieve. The time has come for him to begin thinking of a transition, and for Americans to realize that, scare stories notwithstanding, a more democratic Pakistan might be better not just for Pakistanis but for Americans as well.

Mohsin Hamid is the author of "Moth Smoke" and the forthcoming novel "The Reluctant Fundamentalist."

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