jrjrao wrote:Folks, before we find and misinterpret some words or two, or a column or two, in order to dump on Ms. Marvi Sirmed, pl. consider what courage it took to publish this op-ed in a Pakistani newspaper just 30 days ago:
Shelve the old music please —Marvi Sirmed
Our state-defined interest remains that of saving our borders from an ‘enemy’ that has never attacked us, a country we have attacked three times in 63 years, an economy that is too big for us to compete with under the present circumstances and a people we have waged proxy wars against.
India matters. India gives the US jobs and a market. India has emerged as a responsible nation that is not causing trouble in the world, not even in Pakistan. At least that is the perception India has created for itself. India has emerged as a stable, viable and trustworthy partner that has no underlying agenda of destroying the US or the west or of its own ideological expansion. Despite having a Muslim population now equalling the entire population of Pakistan, India could never be traced as the source of Islamic terrorism.
India conducted a nuclear test much before us but what makes it more acceptable is its constant efforts to improve its human development indicators, its serious commitment to non-proliferation, its democratic mechanism of checks and balances, accountability of its defence sector that to-date remains subservient to its people’s will through their representatives. Most of all, India stands out because of its commitment to pluralism, its recognition of new opportunities to improve relations with world powers due to economic considerations, its renewed focus on internal development, less prickly attitude to the outside world and responsible nuclear behaviour that comes from its complete refusal to impose its own system on the entire world.
Before the readers dismiss it as a eulogy of India, please consider what havoc we have played with our own people, our own country by not doing what India has been doing. And today, India remains much more respected and trusted than us when not even our closest allies are ready to trust us, including our ‘Muslim brothers’. Even if the central focus of our existence is to tackle India (really?), should we not re-assess our policies urgently?
Sir,
Marvi is not alone. There are quiet a number of them.
A Rehman, M Ziauddin, Zahid Husain, Nazir Leghari, Husain Naqi, Sadaf Arshad, Attaul Musawar, Amir Mahmood, Siddique Baloch, Tariq Chaudhry, Tahir Rathore, Khalid Farooqi, Ayaz Khan, Raza Rumi, Shahzada Zulfiqar, Nusrat Javed, Sirmed Manzoor, Agha Nasir, Iftikhar Ahmad, Babar Ayaz, Shamim Shahid, Saleem Shahid, Dr Jabbar Khattak, Ghazi Salahuddin, Mujahid Barelvi, Irfana Mallah, Jehangeer Aslam, GN Mughal, Ghulam Nabi Chandio, Syed Mumtaz Shah, Lala Asad, Khalid Khokar, Fayyaz Naich, Amer Sindhu, Anjum Rasheed, Khalid Chaudhry, Shoaib Adil, Saida Fazal, Munno Bhai, Ibrahim Shirwani, Asma Shirazi, Afzal Khan, Mustansar Javed, Rana Qaisar, Shamsul Islam Naz, Khushnood Ali Khan, Mehmal Sarfraz, Khaled Ahmed, Allama Sadiq Azhar and Imtiaz Alam.