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Facts are facts
Reaction against the demand by Afghanistan that Pakistan stop naming their WMD after Afghan kings Farrukh Khan Pitafi There should be only one standard to judge everything. If you call yourself civilized, there should be no word like double standards in your dictionary. Then, candidly speaking, there is only one tenuous difference between a dictator and a puppet ruler. The dictator pursues dirty policies to strengthen his own rule, whereas the puppet figurehead introduces even dirtier policies just to placate his foreign suzerains. From Pinochet to Najibullah, there emerges a clear pattern to substantiate this argument. If there is no gainsaying that General Musharraf is a despot, it can also not be denied that President Karzai is a puppet on strings. And in the world of puppeteering, there is a single rule that defines the game. The one who can sell his conscience once, can sell his soul to more than one bidder. While Karzai was planted by the US forces, his recent postures prove that he is effectually dancing to the Indian tunes as well. You dont believe it? Just take a closer look. When owing to its identity crisis Pakistan wanted to sell its Central Asian credentials and historical profile, Karzai stood up claiming that Afghanistan was a South Asian country. When Pakistan named its missiles after the Muslim conquerors of Afghan origin, especially after Sultan Shahabuddin Muhammad Ghauri who had defeated Hindu Raja Prithvi Raj Chauhan (Prithvi being one of the Indian missiles), the Karzai government formally asks Islamabad not to use names of Afghan heroes for such a purpose, obviously to please the Indians. Likewise, the Afghan government literally begged the US administration to arrange President Bushs surprise visit to Kabul before his itinerary so that a whimsical case against Pakistan could be presented to bolster New Delhis position vis-à-vis Islamabad. In doing so, Mr Karzai cared a fig about the fact that India, which has sold its strategic ally Iran to win a nuclear deal from Washington, can do much worse to his country to gain much lesser benefits in return. The question of using names of Afghan rulers for our missiles too needs a closer look. In my view, Pakistan should have no qualms in renaming its missiles provided two queries are addressed. First, since the concept of nation states and hence of national heroes has evolved ages after the rule of Mahmud Ghaznavi and Shahabuddin Ghauri, does Kabul recognise Pakistan as a separate political entity dating back to the mediaeval ages? If it does not, this request obviously holds no water and therefore is a malicious attempt to deny Pakistan its heritage and history. Yet, if it does, it is high time that Kabul acknowledged and apologised for the horrendous crimes committed against our people by its former rulers. The scorched earth policy of these and other Afghan rulers, who considered areas now comprising Pakistan as their expendable periphery, is proverbial. Ghaznavi ransacked the region and took away the regions wealth and most valuable possessions. Ghauri quenched his thirst with this regions blood. Ahmed Shah Abdali, in the name of piety, robbed the land of its virginity and purity. None of these rulers committed any less a crime here than Kaiser William IIs armies in Europe before and during World War I. Why then, what is sauce for the goose should not be sauce for the gander? And then the crimes do not end here. Our Afghan brethren proved mercenaries to the British in their war of our conquest and confronted the Raj only when they were not paid money. When the Muslims of South Asia tried to migrate to their country owing to continuous political persecution and a religious edict, Afghanistan like modern day Australia closed its borders and let uncountable amongst them perish. When Pakistan was created, these folks left no stone unturned to snatch NWFP and Balochistan away from us in the name of Pakhtoonistan and Greater Balochistan, by fuelling unrest and insurgency in these areas. There has hardly ever been a time when they did not aid our enemies. And is Zalmay Khalilzad, the sworn enemy of Pakistan, not an Afghan by origin? What did Pakistan do in response? It opened its doors to the Afghan refugees during the Soviet invasion. It tried to broker the best deal possible between the Afghan political groups so that a lasting post-Cold War settlement could be achieved. Even when it all failed, the Taliban policy was created only to ensure that the Afghans do not resort to their old habits of serving Pakistans enemies. If it blew up in our face, it was only because of the fact that it was a logical extension of the US strategy of using Islam to counter communism in Afghanistan. Even at this moment, Pakistani soldiers are dying in their own country fighting a war to protect Kabuls new regime and often innocent Pakistani citizens are killed, abruptly dubbed as collateral damage, for the purpose. Small voices are heard already in Islamabad, expressing doubts that maybe it is in the Afghan blood to deceive their Muslim brothers and to fraternise with their enemies. These voices further point out that maybe it is better to rename our missiles, because the weapons christened with the Afghan names may one day explode on our own heads rather than on our enemys. I can only hope that they are wrong. Yet given the lessons of our long past history, it seems reasonable to just rename them. Since there should not be double standards in affairs of any realm, Pakistan should ask Kabul to table its demands of renaming the missiles through some international forum. Once Kabul does that, owns Ghaznavi, Ghauri and Abdali as its leaders, and brands Pakistan a separate entity since those times, Islamabad should not have any hesitation to not only rename its missiles but also to demand reparations for the crimes committed by these people against our ancestors. Germany had to pay 132 billion gold marks or $40 billion (which in Kissingers words are equal to $323 billion today) as reparations after World War I. I think the same amount would be good enough for us. Or else Pakistan should be allowed to devise its Marshall Plan for Afghanistan. After all, there must be one standard to judge everything. As for Mullah Omars alleged presence in Pakistan, even though Islamabad knows he is not here, he was head of a government that we recognised. Hence we have every right to accord him diplomatic immunity if we so wish. Meanwhile, the friends in Kabul should first look into the mirror before pointing a finger at Pakistan. The writer is an Islamabad-based independent columnist and media policy consultant Posted by: john 2006-03-18 |
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