AgNoStiC MuSliM
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- Jul 11, 2007
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Logic,
The gist of your post is essentially that India is right while Pakistan is wrong - it is a continuation of the narrow mindedness that prevents the two sides from seeking rapprochement. There is nothing substantially different in what you express from what P2BP would say -save that your POV is biased towards India. Almost every argument you make against Pakistan can be equally, and correctly, applied against India , and that is what you fail to see in your short sightedness that this desire to come out trumps in a childish morality contest (quite similar to the endless blame game of the Israelis and the Palestinians) leads nowhere.
You can choose isolated incidents and misrepresent them however you like, but it does not do away with the reality that the relationship between India and Pakistan has been doomed to animosity by events since their independence, mostly by virtue of the Kashmir Dispute (Junagadh, Munavadh?) - and this has determined our nation's history and policies. On this issue the debate is endless, and has been conducted too often to repeat, and inconclusive. Yet you conveniently ignore the impact of such issues on the policies of our nations to somehow substantiate your "hate" hypothesis.
East Pakistan was Indian intervention in the sovereign affairs of another nation with aim to destroy/damage it, the support for Pashtun separatism was interference in a sovereign nations affairs with aims to destroy/damage it, the withholding of Pakistan's share of assets after independence was interference in another nations affairs to destroy/damage it, the support for Baluch separatism was interference in another nations affairs with the intent to destroy/damage it.
Rattling of lists of grievances to tarnish the other side is an exercise that can be conducted by both with vigor - and is completely pointless. I was hopeful that you would turn out to be more rational and "logical" than to indulge in unilateral finger pointing, but you choose not to. If you are unwilling to recognize the harms committed by both nations on each other, there is nothing to be gained with further discourse on this issue. I will consider your "unilateral Hate" hypothesis flawed and unproven.
The rest of your post is more of a discourse about the compatibility of Religion with democracy and equality of rights, and while anyone can make grand statements about X and Y being incompatible, you fail to make any arguments in support of this particular contention of yours.
You do get it right that problems exist in every society - and as I pointed out, problems of inequity, inequality, discrimination and prejudice exist in both India and Pakistan equally for the most part (caste, ethnicity, biradri, race, social what have you...) despite the existence in India of a "Secular system" and per you a "secular education" (whatever that means - since Pakistani Math and Science textbooks don't attempt to substitute the Laws of Physics with Divine Instructions or influences either...). While the judiciary in Pakistan may not be free at this point, it is related to failure on our part to create a functioning system of government - which in turn returns the discussion to the circumstances and problems peculiar to Pakistan, which we are dealing with, and evolving as we do so. The press is freer than almost any other time in our history, despite the recent limited restrictions on some aspects of their reporting, but nothing that has limited their coverage of the issues that affect the majority of the citizenry (check out Aaj TV on line - criticism and highlighting of societal ills abounds). We have a robust and vocal civil society.
You mention "going back to the same place over and over again" - and once again I have to reiterate that this refers to only one facet of our evolution and development as a nation - there are only two "places" to choose from. One is the lasting democratic system we are attempting to create, and the other is autocracy. While we attempt to create the former, of course there will be failures, and the failures will take us back to an autocracy, what else do you expect to happen? You take failure in stride and keep trying - it is when you give up trying that you have failed - holds true for individuals and nations.
And now you have finally come to the crux of the issue - it isn't all that hooey about "secularism" or "secular education" - what defines a "fair and progressive" nation and society are its laws. Those laws can have their basis in Faith or not. On that count we had a brief period where one man imposed his draconian and intolerant vision on Pakistan (Zia and Hudood Laws). The support of the Pakistani nation for such atrocities can be gaged from the complete lack of support from the electorate for parties ideologically similar to Zia, which never (until the aberration in 2002 - which could be linked more to the US invasion of Afghanistan than any support for that particular ideology) gained more than a few percent of the vote, and are now projected to fail again. We have made tremendous progress on repealing the majority of those draconian laws, and will continue to do so as the nation evolves. That is how I would argue one can view the "successful evolution" of the Pakistani nation - a continuation of "positive change".
