The Diplomatic Insight July August 2009
Editorial ( The Diplomatic Insight July August 2009 )
After the end of Operation Rah-i-Rast, the people of Swat and adjoining areas who had been rendered homeless are happily homeward bound. There will be hard days ahead for them collecting pieces of a broken life. Mercifully the period of exile was only a summer-long but for those accustomed to the cool and serene environs of their valley, the days must have been torturously long under the hot tarpaulin roofs.
The terrorists are on the run and those that see no future for their kind of religion are surrendering to the authorities. Up north in the tribal belt the warlord Baitullah Mehsud has been killed and according to reports his near kins have been murdered by his followers on suspicion of espionage for the Americans. The Taliban force is obviously in disarray. Hopefully, this band of thugs would see reason and disintegrate with time.
The final showdown of the military operation fell around the time the nation was celebrating the 62nd anniversary of its Independence. The coincidence was an ominous reminder of our failings as a free people.
To be still in search of direction after six decades of existence is a calamitous thought in a fast-paced world. As a result, we are so far behind; that the task of catching up would require extraordinary effort and determination. Poverty, low literacy, and the dire absence of essential amenities for the larger section of the populace mock the rulers of a country that was blessed with an abundance of natural resources.
Then there are social issues such as rampant corruption, moral decline, and the absence of justice for the underdog. The structure of society suffers from a grave imbalance. Even when the economic problems have been surmounted the flawed core of societal ethics would continue to mar the development of a national ethos.
However, there are signs all is not lost yet. The rejection of the Taliban obscurantist philosophy, the struggle of the civil society for the restoration of an independent judiciary, and the ouster of dictatorship through the force of the ballot are gleaners of hope.
The national agenda was clearly defined by the Quaid when he told the first constituent Assembly of Pakistan on 11 August 1947 that If we want to make this great State of Pakistan happy and prosperous we should wholly and solely concentrate on the well-being of the people, and especially of the masses and the poor…”
Perhaps he was warning the nation against forces of rigidity and intolerance when he said in the same address: “you are free- you are free to go to your temples mosques or any other place of worship in this state of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion, caste, or creed that has nothing to do with the business of the state… in due course of time Hindus will cease to be Hindus and Muslims will cease to be Muslims- not in a religious sense for that is the personal faith of an individual- but in a political sense as citizens of one state.”
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