While this rather cheap publicity campaigning against certain parties and people and for certain people that we’re seeing recently in the form of documentaries and paid posters and protests in many cities, particularly Rawalpindi, is deplorable and saddening, regardless of its source from within the military, I can at least confidently say that no one is buying it. Not even most of the army.
This wasn’t showed or displayed in all military schools or campuses, as PK said, in fact many commandants of military campuses/colleges/schools have been forcing apolitical-ness in their campuses even harder since this recent polarization occurred because they understand the harm it causes to training, I’ve seen it first hand.
I’ve only heard of the instance in Nowshera, where most of the YOs being shown this propaganda laughed it off. I’m aware there is a very negative opinion on the army these days, some of it (when directed towards the right people) is for good reason., we also have to remember that most of the people joining the army are still doing it for a stable job and not for the ideology attached to it, they are people just like you and me, and our success (and ultimately the way to fix the issues within the army, which are but one small part of the larger issues with Pakistani state and politics) is going to be to educate our youth enough that when they join the army they stick to the truth and are not convinced by propaganda like this. Perhaps this wave has already started given how riled up the public is? This same public will be making up the current and next batch of cadets in the military you know.
At the same time, we have to make sense of just why such a distrust festered within the army for these certain sections and people in politics. My point being, wether their corruption was hidden or simply not there, what made it so that all these people that not more than 2-3 years ago people considered heroes and protectors turned into villains? Are literally all of them just hating and destroying the country blindly? If they are really after money and power did they not have much more of it when they were respected and the economy wasn’t in shambles? So why are they seemingly orchestrating the countries “downfall”? It would have taken several decades of long term planning to install so many people at so many senior positions into such a big force that they’d suddenly get so bold as to start running the country so badly in such a painfully obvious form of martial law. Where did we go wrong?
There are certain sections of truth in their concerns too, yes, their way of going about it is very wrong, but this whole divide in our nation didn’t come from one side of the wall, there were issues that were wrongly addressed and handled on both sides, and until we identify and adress both, teach it to the next generation, and guard it from propaganda and influence until this generation gets to power to fix something with a neutral understanding of the countries problems. We’re not going anywhere.
But this is a very big simplification of things anyways. Bottom line is the documentary is still stupid, it’s a little too petty to be coming out of what was once so professional, like so many things feel about the army to so many these days.
