Pakistan: The battle against despondency
Islamabad, June 28 (ANI): How the story changes in one year! Last summer, when Ms Nirupama Rao was in Islamabad for the foreign secretary-level talks with her counterpart Salman Bashir, the Pakistani capital was bustling with activity. Within a few days, Indian Foreign Minister S.M.Krishna and Home Minister Chidamabaram too arrived in Islamabad and held talks with their Pakistani counterparts, attended the SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) meet. Things were looking up for a country supposedly on the 'descent to chaos'. Hotels were bustling with activity, shops were full of merchandise and fashionable people were going about their business. All signs that said things were not on the verge of collapse or a slide. But, in one year, things have changed. This June, when the Indian foreign secretary landed in Islamabad to prepare the groundwork for the next steps in the India-Pakistan peace process, the country had been declared as the most dangerous place on earth by every known South Asian commentator. Despair over a desperate situation has become the national sentiment. The May 2nd Abbottabad swoop and the finding of Osama in its suburbia, was the final assault on the country's sense of sovereignty or, whatever was left of it, after the sustained drone attacks by an ally. Islamabad itself is a place where hope has been crushed and despondency has set in. The storytellers of Pakistan don't know how to tell their country's story. As noted columnist Mosharraf Zaidi says, it is not the manner of telling that is to fault. "It is the story itself. Pakistan doesn't have a very compelling one. The facts on the ground are failing Pakistan. Until the story doesn't change, it cannot be told well." Scholars, academics, columnists, politicians, all speak of hopelessness and decay. Column after column competes with television shows that paint a picture of gloom and pessimism. Pakistani political analysts, taking their cue from western publications, are hammering away at the government, military and the ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence) for making their country into a pariah nation. It is almost frightening to hear social activist Marvi Sirmed say, " Kuch nahi raha, ab agar marna hii hai to phir kuch keh key marenge, Salman Taseer ki tarah." (There is nothing left now, if one has to die, then it is better to die by raising one's voice like Salman Taseer). She is referring to the former governor of Punjab who was assassinated by his security guard, for his opposition to the blasphemy law. Noted journalist Saleem Shehzad's gruesome murder a few weeks ago is blamed on the notorious intelligence agencies. It is an open secret that Shehzad was getting on the nerves of 'important' people with his writings. However, most columnists wrote that nobody would ever know who killed him, just as the killers of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto remain faceless and free. Babur Sattar, a lawyer, writes, "If the past is any guide, we will neither discover verifiable facts about his murder, nor will his killers be brought to justice." When Sattar wrote about the need for military reforms, he was 'invited' to the ISI headquarters and threatened. Sattar writes, "In what is hard to describe accurately, I felt an eerie sense of anxiety and a need to protect my back. Not from the Taliban or terror groups but from the same security apparatus that is mandated by law to protect and defend my constitutional right to life, liberty and physical security." Ayaz Amir, Member of the National Assembly told this reporter that the situation in Pakistan is not what it used to be. People are not accepting what they are being told. They read international opinions and reports about their country on the Internet. They question held beliefs. Now, they want to know why Pakistan cannot drop enmity against India and be part of the success story that is sweeping across the rest of South Asia. These voices, he said, are feeble but they must be encouraged, else the radicals will bellow from mosques with theirs. Former foreign minister S.M.Qureshi says the time is ripe for India and Pakistan to shed the slow and tardy peace process and take some giant leaps forward. He tells this reporter that the people of Pakistan need to see some gestures from the bigger country i.e. India. Any gesture that would show to them that India is not just going through the motions because of international prodding. Rafiq, a salesman in a boutique selling women's outfits, says: "My grandfather came from Bombay during partition. One day, I hope to go there. Do salesmen make more money there? Do they get to see film stars? We have no electricity here for hours on end, do you have power-cuts there?" The poor have similar problems everywhere. But in some countries, there is a little bit more of hope. Grotesque suicide bombings, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of innocents on the one hand, to the Abbottabad and Mehran Airbase fiascos on the other, the narrative in Islamabad is of a losing battle against despair and hopelessness. It is a dangerous quagmire to be in. By Smita Prakash (ANI)
