Saturday, May 07, 2011

Comment from the Dawn newspaper

One of the most forthright and hard-hitting comments on the death of Osama bin Laden I have seen comes from a column in the Dawn newspaper of Pakistan. Cyril Almeida writes:

Did the 1965 war make any sense? It was hard to find any sense to it then, even less so today.

Did Kargil make any sense? Not then, not today.

Did hawking nuclear paraphernalia on the international market make any sense? Buying did perhaps, but selling? And now we
have the world’s most-wanted terrorist recovered from the bosom of the Pakistani security establishment.

So maybe it does make sense after all. The establishment has flirted with irrationality in the past. Now it appears to have
perfected it.

Where do we go from here as a country?

As long as national security and foreign policy remain in the hands of a cabal of generals — unaccountable and untouchable, a lay unto themselves, and in thrall to their own irrational logic — what future can this country have? Surely, not much of a future.

You cannot help admiring the courage and objectivity of the writer. This is why I find it difficult to buy the idea of Pakistan as a failed state. There must be something very right about a country where a leading newspaper can produce such a column.

12 comments:

Khalil Sawant said...

You must read the columns of a certain guy called NFP in Dawn. The paper, given their countries situation, definitely has guts

Anonymous said...

Blunt and Trenchant. I wish Cyril the best; guys like him are some hope for Pakistan. Dawn Editorial board should be lauded for allowing neutral articles.

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Anonymous said...

I don't understand how you came to conclusion of Pak not being a failed state, based on forthright article by one journalist. For every such individual in Pak, you will find a thousand others living in their distorted reality.

The concept of Pak itself is not defined and they have never understood why they exist.

Anonymous said...

There may be something that is very right about a "country" and yet the "state" may well turn out to be a failed one. You are confusing two different categories. The definition of failed state is quite clear--Pakistan pretty much satisfied every criterion. BTW, India is not far behind.

If your definition of not failed is that the politico-geographic construct called Pakistan will continue to survive indefinitely, you are probably correct. But it will not be because Dawn is intrepid. Just as the "idea of India" has pays great dividends to India's political elites and therefore elicits their eventual support when push comes to shove, the idea of Pakistan too is strongly entrenched, especially among the ruling Punjabi elite. These dispensations don't fall apart under their own weight--they have the cheap manpower fodder to withstand rebellions for decades. They need an external catalyst--like the Bangladesh war to break them.
If you are holding out some hope from the Dawn editorial that a Pakistani state will emerge out of the existing structure that provides its citizens a decent life, then i think you are indulging in wishful thinking.

Anonymous said...

Well the aritcles in pakistani news papers are not the ones I liked,but this one here I got to say something is changing.

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