The broken promises of Pakistan

Now a state being born is no small feat, but in the grand schemes of things these births and deaths happen without much fuss. Countries come and go, and so does their memory. There are countries that were deemed superpowers a century and a half ago, now they are not to be seen on the map – others were wished for, for centuries, and are now existing, just not where they were originally thought to be. Prussia and Poland are examples of this.

Pakistan is a modern construct that tried to unify a religious nationalism of Subcontinent into a nationhood. It was proclaimed as an inevitable freedom struggle both from a British colonial overlord, and a Hindu dominated society from which it sought separation from. A two-nation theory was coined, one which tried to tell that Punjabi Muslims have more in common with Bengali Muslims, than their ethnic counterparts of different faith.

A puppet show

Pakistan exists on the edge of two regional superpowers, archenemy India to east and the upcoming economic power China, latter a major diplomatic and financial ally. Its relevance has rarely been due to its own economic development, rather because of its geopolitical location regarding soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 or the American one in 2001.

The rivalry with India has although made itself a more important nuance as it managed to assemble nuclear warheads and successfully tested them in 1998. US could not ignore the uncertainty in the country and thus financed a whole brigade to safeguard these weapons.

Den frieste pressen i hele verden

I FORBINDELSE MED Nobelsprisutdelingen tenker jeg spesielt på journalister og pressen i Pakistan som opplever noen av de mest inngripende tiltak fra en regjering og dets alliert i hæren siden General Musharraf sin tid.

Det har alltid vært vanskelige kår i landet for fri presse, samtidig har landet fostret enormt modige og dyktige journalister. De har stått mot diktatorer på siden til demokratene, og de har stått mot sivile ledere på siden til den fri presse og folket.

The Khan method

You cannot govern a nation based on inspirational quotes. Your entire governing platform cannot be based on your merit as world champion within cricket decades ago – yet Prime Minister of Pakistan, Mr. Imran Khan does exactly that.

This deal with the Army is dubbed a hybrid-regime or setup, and is age old in Pakistani context. Whenever the powerful Army led establishment wants to steer from behind because direct coup has gone unpopular, it finds a civilian darling who is willing to get power by any means.

The Establishment undermines elected Governments, but has now become an intrinsic part of the setup. All parties that has been in power before have had a dealing of some sort, only to regret and fight back. Nawaz Sharif was a protégé back in late 80s, but that changed once he started resisting their share of the deal.

Hollow Khan

IMRAN KHAN’S GOVERNMENT has not surprised its critics who warned of its lofty promises and consequences of its debts to those who brought it to power. His is a government that is hollow and left to mere sloganeering and political vendetta – the rest is in the hands of the benefactors of the current power sharing deal.

It was easy for Imran Khan and his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) to find someone to point fingers at for every ill in the nation. But he could not break the electoral code and thus relied on Army to get hold of power in the 2018 election.

Sugar in the milk

SUBCONTINENT KNOWN FOR its thousands of deity’s, hundreds of nations and crores of castes and tribes, there seems all of the sudden not enough space for everyone. In the world’s biggest democracy, diversity has been the core to its identity – that is why it could dub itself incredible India in tourism ads and campaigns – no more.

There goes a story of Persian migrants who arrived following Arab conquest during the latter part of 7^th century and who sought refuge east of the river Indus. A local King, hearing the plea said that their lands were full – like the milk that had reached the brim of the pot. Upon hearing this, a Parsi elder sprinkled some sugar in the pot and said, we will not overflow the milk, just sweeten it.

Om forbudte sanger og tonedøve tilrop

DET ER IKKE få av dem som har sunget sine sanger om rettferdighet i Pakistan. Graver du dypt nok vil du finne menn og kvinner som har trosset makteliten gjennom direkte eller subtile forsøk. De samme har møtt motstand gjennom arrestasjoner eller mistenkelige bortføringer.

Siden 2008 har sivile regjert i Pakistan men hvor institusjoner hele tiden har vært i konflikt, noe som har gitt ustabile regjeringer og usikkerhet for om hvor maktfaktoren ligger. Regjeringer har måttet gå av på forholdsvis trivielle grunnlag, mens oppgjøret med tidligere diktator tydeligvis er vanskelig å gjennomføre.

En fabrikkert nasjonalisme

VERDENS STØRSTE DEMOKRATI gikk til urnene og leverte gjenvalg for den mest ytterliggående Regjering i sin tid som selvstendig nasjon. Både Regjeringen ledet av hindunasjonalisten Narendra Modi, og den splittende valgkampen har vist at Mohandas Gandhi’s tolerante og Jawaharlal Nehru’s sekulære republikk står på et tynt grunnlag.

India er ikke fremmed for sekteriske konflikter, eller at minoriteter ikke har lidd under hindu nasjonalistiske grupperinger, heller har det ikke vært fravær av politisk motivert vold mot minoriteter, eller at teokratiet og separatisme ikke har vært ønsket – det finnes mange eksempler på dette.

Chest beating

THERE ARE TWO types of chest beatings. One is for sorrow, proclaiming anger and despair, when a loved one dies, some tend to beat their chest in order to show that fate did them wrong – then there is another kind, one we are witnessing through politicians and news channels in the Indian subcontinent these days.

One terrorist attack resulted in a retaliation attack, which again led to another retaliation, and the result was the loss of at least one fighter jet, one pilot in custody, dozen civilians injured and several civilians killed in cross border firing.

Worse than cattle

THE RECENT MURDER of the 15-year-old Uzma Bibi, who was tortured over a period of eight months, and dumped into a drain in Lahore, has once again put to public the issue of domestic workers and their safekeeping.

Pakistan ranks among countries in the world where the prevalence of modern day slavery is high. According to Walk free foundation’s Global Slavery Index, Pakistan has about 3,2 million people living under conditions called modern slavery, that gives the country the rank of eight out of a total 167 countries.