To my neighbour

I casually joked with my friend yesterday, "who the hell employs Pakistani maids these days?"

An innocent snide remark, it well reflects the suspicion, distrust and fear associated with anything and everything from Pakistan.

Though it is unfair to brand people for their government’s actions, I wonder if the collective psyche of people in Pakistan has remained free from the grip of jihadi ideologues and terror’s advocates.

To be corrupt is one thing but to be willing to let grow a poison that bit by bit kills the basics of an ordinary life is not acceptable.

Pakistan’s government recently allowed the imposition of Sharia in NWFP to buy peace with the Taliban who have become a powerful entity in the fringe regions of the country.

(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7891955.stm)

Why does a country that has witnessed more military coups than democratic elections in its small life, lacks the will and means to impose (if not create) peace?

What qualifies a state as sovereign, if its government has to depend upon an external, non-state agency to ensure that its borders remain peaceful? What proof there is that a power hungry, mercenary group seeking legitimacy through religion will not turnaround on its democratic and liberal ethos?

I wonder what will happen to Fatimah Bhutto who is rumoured to be dating George Clooney once the Taliban gain foot in the country. For that matter, what will be the fate of all insha-allah mouthing cricketers and the holier than thou army wives and daughters parading as academic intelligentsia.

Will Lahore’s vibrancy survive the moral policing of a Taliban style government? Will the clean- and bareheaded ‘strings’ still be crooning dooor…dooor? Will generation X/Y/Z survive or a Benazir Bhutto ever helm Pakistan’s politics and what about Meera?

(http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2009%5C01%5C03%5Cstory_3-1-2009_pg7_1)

These are serious questions. Their answers will determine if future American governments will or will not raze down Pakistan. The number of body bags arriving home all over India too will depend on which way Pakistan goes.

Wake up, before it is a fatwa that shakes you out of your slumber. Do not concede your hard won freedom to the peddlers of a hate religion. And let us not give any one a chance to drive us back to where we started.

I am a peace loving Indian and wish hell to all those who disturb the ordinary pace of my life. I don’t care about religion, politics and Siachen in the larger scheme of things. But if foreign sportsmen can be targeted despite ignoring the collective fear of the cricket community to play in one of the most cricket crazy countries, I am unsure if I will be willing to ignore the petty politics of colour, race and nationality when the next prospective maid gives me a call.

(PS: If you think that living in a glass house (note the glass was imported from some place in China) I should not be expressing my opinion on my neighbour’s mess, you are correct.

When I made that comment to my friend, I got thinking how we come to generalise incidents, accidents and experiences. I have often been a part of the drawing room talk of Muslims being zealots who pray five times a day and don’t wince when they kill an animal or a human being. In Hong Kong, I have sensed unsaid opinions on Indians.

Being conditioned by what we see is an integral part of who we are and however hard we try to sit on the fence we end up painting the fence either black or white)


PS II: I picked the links from a blog I read regularly