Pakistan is coming up with a bill of $ 35 billion for its efforts in the war on terror and a wish-list that includes a nuclear deal similar to the US-India agreement as it prepares to engage Washington in what officials from both sides say is the most comprehensive dialogue in their bilateral history.
pakistan is a Country ruled by spineless,shameless terror-minded army generals,with some puppet politicians as their masks.What they have in abundance is 'Jealous' and mind-blogging hatred against India.
But one thing you have to admit,pakistan leaders have a special talent for the art of 'begging'.
Hope,in future as well,they will continue to need this special talent..!
"Allah ke naam pe kuch dede baba..."
In this context,read below an article that appeared in the pak online portal dailytimes.com.pk.
Civilised life is well nigh impossible without interaction between human beings and it is this activity that accords them the status of social animals. The social part survives only as long as the relationship is that of equals and is in no way demeaning and degrading. Once dignity and self-respect is removed from the equation, the social disappears and only the animal remains. This is true for all relationships whether personal, communal, national or international.
Human relationships have to be governed by principles of mutual respect and dignity. Any divergence from these principles distorts them, making one a master and the other a slave, one an overlord and other a vassal. Dignity for the deprived comes at a cost because the world is divided between the arrogant haves and the needy have-nots.
The demeanour of our rulers and politicians during interaction with the West and Gulf rulers is incongruous to the intercourse of equals and is analogous to supplications of a slave-serf to the overlord. The politicians and rulers who are indebted to countries or their rulers cannot, I repeat cannot, resist even the most preposterous demands that compromise sovereignty of the state or dignity of the people.
The obsequious tone and tenor adopted by the rulers and politicians emboldens even the petty emissary to dictate and reprimand them. The countries that survive on arms, hand-outs, cheap oil and aid from other countries for their survival cannot possibly be defiant or discourteous to those on whose largesse they depend.
Our country’s relationship with the US has always been of gravest concern. The objections and opposition to the current status of relationship is vehement and vociferous. The common man, though occupied mainly in eking out a living, expresses his resentment and justifiably so because he neither benefits nor is supposed to benefit from it. It is the political class that benefits in the form of the NRO deals, kickbacks and grants; ironically it is they who whine and gripe the most about the loss of sovereignty when the drones carry out the extra-judicial killings of militants along with heavy collateral damage. This sheer hypocrisy is just to hoodwink the people.
The influential Forbes magazine dubbed the US envoy here as the “ambassador to Pakistan’s economy” because she considers herself well within her rights when she comments on cancellation of deals or lectures on how best we run our economy. She, it seems, is managing the country and why should she not? This country survives on dole from the US.
Holbrooke feels no compunction when acting as a spokesperson for the army and saying, “The army in Pakistan is not interested in politics.” He has been insensitive and tactless time and again but then ‘one who pays the piper calls the tune’, so who can fault him? During his January visit he was upset with the criticism by the politicians and the media. He arrogantly said that an “acknowledgement of the US role would help get more aid for Pakistan”.
To show courtesy to visitors is the right thing but there has to be some veneer of dignity in it. You cannot go down to the level where it hurts even your detractors. The presidents here visit the shikar-camp of the UAE president in Cholistan that seems more like a district commissioner visiting the governor’s camp. The Gulf sheiks, apart from having pet politicians and rulers here, are also famous for endangering the endangered Houbara bustards and exploiting child jockeys.
However it would be unfair to blame any single party for the sin of being too obsequious to the US, Gulf States or for that matter the IMF; all are equally culpable. All politicians, political parties and rulers here have had their own ‘patron- saints’ and their darbars where they pay homage; some being more promiscuous than others but the dividing line between them is very thin indeed.
Surely the rulers and politicians here can never be in the mould of Fidel Castro or Hugo Chavez but they could at least retain an outward show of dignity and self-respect and not try to outdo Mr Hamid Karzai who, instead of being ashamed, gloats at his puppet status. He told CNN: “The US administration has helped Afghanistan and if we are called puppets, or if I am called a puppet because we are grateful to the US, then let that be my nickname.”
The title of Ayub Khan’s book, Friends Not Masters stank of crass hypocrisy even then as U-2 planes flew from Peshawar until Nikita Khrushchev threatened to bomb the place. The claims now of being equal partners in the ‘war on terror’ are even more crassly hypocritical. The drone attacks are criticised when drones are flown from bases here with tacit consent of all.
The relationship always was and will remain that of ‘Masters, not friends’ for the foreseeable future because dignity comes at a price. It demands sacrifices. Those who cannot do without the foreign accounts, mansions, Armani suits, Patek Philippe watches and bullet-proof Mercedes cannot be expected to break the begging bowl. The rulers here stay in the Sultan of Brunei suite at Dorchester Hotel in London, which costs £ 6,500 per night, while here there are scuffles and fist fights outside the utility stores for sugar and flour.
Only under the leadership of an ascetic like sage and statesman, Ho Chi Minh, could the Vietnamese achieve what they achieved. He lived in a small house in the sprawling grounds of colonial mansion for the French governor. Leadership truly matters when nations have to transcend the unattainable.
It is a long and difficult haul for dependent countries towards gaining a more respectable position in the equation of relationships with donor (read master) countries, especially when there is not only a complete lack of will for change but also an abject submissiveness to the philosophy of living on dole. With these state of affairs it is wishful thinking to presume that we are sovereign or will ever achieve that cherished and dignified status.
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