Three Myths About Pakistan
Written by Staff Writer
Three common myths about Pakistan
Pakistan is a Islamic country : Every and any half-decent elections in Pakistan have proved otherwise. Religious parties have never won more than 15% of popular vote in a reasonably fair elections
Even with the help of Musharraf's widespread rigging the religious parties were not able to get a simple majority. That is not to say Islam does not exist, it does to the extent a religion exists in any developing country with its own prejudices and biases. However it doesn't mean that all Pakistanis are Islamic bigots. The North West Frontier, however, is another story where very orthodox flavor of Islam is preached due to variety of reasons. Then again,hash lands seldom produce mellow cultures.
Pakistan is a Den of all Terrorism in the World : Yes there are terrorist in Pakistan and more so in NWFP but the country is certainly not a den. First of all Pakistan is not a monolith. Three out of four provinces in Pakistan - Sindh, Baluchistan and NWFP have at some point their own movement for succession from Pakistan. Then there is a big problem of feudalism in the country side and throw in a medieval neighbor and a military dictatorship and all these invariably creates fertile breeding grounds for terrorists. However these factors alone would not create such a big terrorist infrastructure as many countries also have similar situations without being labeled as terrorist's den. Two factors contribute to this that no other country have in tandem: First, Pakistan was a client state of America's jihad against Soviets. The know how imparted by America and money by Saudis still exists and is used by various state and non-state actors for their quassi agenda now that Soviets are no longer here. Second, right from its very creation, the psyche of the nation has been affected by a sort of inferiority complex from its big brother India. Whereas it was perceived, by her own people, to be better than India, it has lagged India in almost all sectors. As a result not all its decisions (like defense spending) are for the well being of its citizenry but on one up-manship with India.
Pakistan is One Step Away from Failure : Pakistan is a nation with huge amount of diversity and some regrettable decisions on part of its government which sometimes results in some of the actors trying to pull out of the union. I cannot think of a single nation which was colonized, has boundaries demarcated by a colonial bureaucrat and does not face similar pressures. Yet the failure of government in land reforms and rooting out feudalism is glaring and has made sure that Pakistan is always on a precipice of a modern statehood but never quite there. At same time the urban Pakistan has more fashion models, music singers, Sufism, theatre festivals, melas and cricket than a failed state can accommodate.
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