The Paradox of Pakistan

Last night I turned on the TV as its quite been a part routine to watch the TV for some time before going to bed . The audacious Waqar Zaka of The Musik with his show "Living on the Edge" was doing his best to prove that Pakistani youth is as intrepid as anyone else in the world could be, and youngsters of Pakistan were busy in providing Mr. Zaka with astonishing and mind-boggling dares to make his statements. I watched the program for few minutes before taking the remote in my hands to change the channel. The next channel in the row was Aag TV on which a young, appealing and petite VJ Fuse was running her show in which she was taking requests of the songs from her viewers and playing them on her show. The program was giving the image that Pakistan is free-thinking and progressive with pop music is the sensation of the youth.

Just after few minutes, I took the remote again and changed the channel. The next channel on which I stopped was Geo News. The images running on this channel were completely different from the images on the two channels I just watched few minutes ago. The whole world was upside down. The Pakistan on Geo News was completely different from the Pakistan I just observed on The Musik or on the Aag. The news of five blasts outside a theater in Lahore was on air which was followed by a special report on the recent ban on the attending of schools by the female students issued by the insurgent militants in Swat valley. It was whole different story.

In just few minutes, I witnessed two Pakistans. One which is very progressive and enlightened where the youngsters are ready to go to any extent to show the world that they are as good as anybody else in the world, and the other which is very fragile and unstable, packed with and insurgencies and confusion among the citizens. The paradox of Pakistan was all evident.

I had a hard time when I thought about the situation. Which is the correct depiction of Pakistan? What Pakistan should I believe on? The Pakistan depicted on The Musik and on the Agg, or the Pakistan shown on the Geo News.

After careful thinking I concluded that the Pakistan depicted on The Musik or on Agg is only represented the top one percent of the country living in the Defense Housing Authorities or in the Cantonment areas. The real Pakistan was that shown on Geo News. The unstable, fragile, filled with militant insurgencies and an angry population which is facing a daily death from the extreme inflation and a feeling of insecurity is the real Pakistan.

The real Pakistan is right in front of me, but the question here is that why the real Pakistan is like that. Why Pakistan is unstable? Why militancy is deepening its root in this Pakistan? Why the citizens are seeing the worst inflation and economic uncertainty? Why we are at this corner of the history where the world is questioning our survival?

I have many answers to these questions. I believe every Pakistani with a proper mindset has the answers to the above mentioned questions. The question giving me a real trouble is that where is the action from our side to tackle this situation.

Please Bring the Old Swat Back!

My visit to Swat valley in the summer of 1999 is one of most cherished reminiscences of my childhood. I was just 12 years old when I took the trip with my parents from the scorching heat of Multan to the chilly hills of Swat Valley. We spent almost an entire week in the valley, and stayed at PTDC motels in Kalam and Malam Jabba Ski Resort. Although the weather and the young age did not allow me to enjoy the pleasures of skiing at the resort, catching a trout out from the ice cold water of Swat River was memorable fun. In fact, it was the only successful fishing experience of my life. When I look back to the Swat I visited a decade ago and the Swat of today, only a feeling of deep grievance takes me over.

Today Swat is the bolt hole of Taliban insurgency in Pakistan. It is like a state within a state. Few so called clerics, led by a 33 years old, Maulana Fazlullah, used FM radio to spread their influence and took over the state machinery. Fazlullah, also known as radio mullah, raised an army and formed a Taliban's Shura which implements his radical and politicized agenda in the valley. The situation is aggravating on day to day basis.

In November 2007, Pakistani security forces began its operation against the insurgents in Swat and by December they declared that the area has been cleaned by militants as they were on the run in the valley after the defeat. Soon after that the militants resurged and Swat was again in the hands of the Swati Talibans. The military operations against the militants has been continued since then with many halts in between. But the security forces operations represent a failure as the militant uprising is on its peak today.

The major victims of violent uprising of the Taliban's are the people of Swat. Swati people, consisting of Pashtun, Kohistani, Gujjar and Dardic ethnicities, are generally moderates. They used to send their daughters to school for education and mostly depended upon revenue from tourism industry for their livelihood. The Talibans destroyed the schools in the valley and stopped the parents from sending their daughters to the schools. Recently, the Shura issued the decree that women are not allowed to shop in the markets of the valley. Today, men buy all the stuff for the household as the Swati people have no other option than to obey the orders of the militants. People are now striped of their income as the businesses in the region are ruined with the destruction of the tourism industry.

Today, more and more people are adopting to obey the militant militants' so called government in the valley. "Most people in Swat are becoming regular listeners of the FM radio channel run by the Maulana Fazlullah-led Swati Taliban as they want to know about new threats or decrees issued by the militants," reported The News on January 5^th. Telling about why the Swatis are listening to the FM broadcast of the Taliban, a person qouted the following to The News anonymously , "to survive in Taliban-ruled Swat, we need to know about decisions being made by the Taliban Shura."

Along with Fazlullah, his student, Shah Duran is also using a nighttime broadcast on FM radio to spread the message of militant regime. He is known for using harsher language than Fazlullah when he speaks at the Radio. "On December 28, he claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing that killed 44 people, all civilians except two policemen and a government employee, at a polling station in Shalbandai village in Buner district. On another occasion, he proudly announced that Taliban had killed a female dancer, Shabana, in Mingora. Recently, he announced that anyone in Swat found using the new coins carrying Benazir Bhutto's image would be punished," reports Rahimullah Yusufzai for The News.

All these facts about Swat leave me in a bewildered state of mind filled with many unanswered questions. A person on FM radio is announcing that he was responsible for the murder of 44 people and the government is unable to catch him. Daily, in the evening, the terrorists go on air through FM radio and the government is unable to block their broadcast. The lives of the people of Swat is like an hell now and the government is issuing only statements.

I am also puzzled because I do not know what is the solution of this problem as military operations in the past have not worked out and the option of dialogue with the rogue militants seems to be impractical. But I want the people sitting in the corridors of power in the Capital to solve this issue.

I want to go back to the "Switzerland of Pakistan" again to refresh the cheerful trip of my childhood. I want the old Swat back.

Faislabad Roits: Energy Crisis Should be Solved Quickly

It was the first day of the year 2009 and the city of Faisalabad, one of the Pakistan’s main industrial center, was on fire. Vehicles were burning, private and public property was being ransacked, a bakery was torched and a leader's house from the governing party was being attacked. The people doing all this were very angry, and they were protesting strongly. They were not angry because their leader was assassinated. Neither they were protesting against a violent terrorist attack in their city. They were angry and protesting because they were one of the major victims of the current energy crisis in Pakistan. These poor laborers will be the first to lose their jobs when energy stricken textile mills in the city will be closed. They were taking all these violent actions because their only source of income is their job in the industrial sector, the sector which is on the brink of collapse because there is not electricity available required to run the factories. I believe the protestors were rightly protesting because the current government has not done anything of major impact to tackle the worst electricity shortage in the history of Pakistan.

It is not only the city of Faisalabad that is affected by this load shedding problem. In fact, almost every region of Pakistan is facing the same problem. Also, the effects are not limited to the industrial sector only. From small business to a common household everybody has been affected badly. And the worst thing is that the government has done nothing but issuing statements.

The current government has said that it has inherited this problem from the previous government which had done nothing in terms of increasing the production capacity of energy. In the summer the Minister of Water and Power Development, Raja Pervez Ashraf vowed numerous times that the electricity crisis would be solved quickly and by the end of the year there will be an improvement in this situation. But I believe nothing of that has happened in terms of improvement. In fact, the situation has aggravated. And now the current government does not have any lame excuse that it inherited this problem from the previous government because the time of eight months is more than enough to show the signs of improvement.

The electricity crisis is affecting the macroeconomy of Pakistan very badly. The government should stop making lame excuses and start working towards the improvement. To solve this an all of the above approach should be used. Government should exploit every means of power generation from coal to hydroelectricity.