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The Pakistan Mistake
By Jack KellySome countries are mistakes. Most of the mistakes are in Africa, where 19th Century European colonialists carved up the continent without regard to the settlement patterns of native tribes, or in the Middle East, where after World War I Britain and France carved up the corpse of the Ottoman Empire to suit their needs of the time. An example is Iraq, which cobbled together three groups will little in common and less fondness for each other to create a kingdom for a Saudi prince who had been useful during the Great War. The colonists are long gone, but the consequences of their mistakes endure. Copious amounts of blood have been shed in civil wars between hostile tribes lumped together in the same artificial "country." The most egregious example is the genocide in Rwanda in 1994 in which up to a million people were killed. The colonial mistakes in Africa and the Middle East were driven by arrogance and greed. But the most dangerous mistake was caused by an excess of political correctness. Pakistan was created in 1947 when Britain granted independence to the crown jewel of its colonies, India. British India consisted of what are now the countries of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Muslims had ruled India for roughly 800 years before the arrival of the British, and did so brutally. "The Mohammedan conquest of India is probably the bloodiest story in history," wrote the historian Will Durant. "It is a discouraging tale, for its evident moral is that civilization is a precarious thing, whose delicate complex of order and liberty, culture and peace may at any time be overthrown by barbarians invading from without or multiplying within." Muslims feared the Hindu majority would treat them as badly as they'd treated the Hindus before the British came, so they insisted on a country of their own. The result was Pakistan, a collection of disparate groups who have nothing in common except their religion. A clue to how big a mistake Pakistan is is its name. "Stan" is a suffix, which means "land of." Thus, Kazakhstan is the land of the Kazakhs, Uzbekistan is land of the Uzbeks, Turkmenistan is land of the Turkmen, and so on. So who are the Paks? PAK is an acronym for Punjab, Afghan and Kashmir. The Punjabis are the largest ethnic group in Pakistan (45 percent). But the Afghans are in another country, and much of Kashmir is in India. The divorce between India and Pakistan was acrimonious. Millions of Hindus fled from their homes in the Punjab and Bengal, while millions of Muslims fled from India. Hundreds of thousands of people were killed. Since partition, Pakistan has started, and lost, two wars with India over Kashmir and in 1970, one over Bengal, then known as East Pakistan, now the independent country of Bangladesh. Pakistan's politicians have put the acquisition of personal wealth ahead of any other consideration, making theirs the most corrupt democracy in the world. "No matter their political allegiance, Pakistan's party bosses stole everything in sight, reducing the country to stinging poverty and stunning violence," wrote retired Army LtCol. Ralph Peters, who has traveled frequently in Pakistan. The Muslims who insisted upon partition were wrong. India has been a parliamentary democracy since independence, and has treated its 160 million strong Muslim minority pretty well. India has become one of the world's great powers, while Pakistan has been sinking into a sea of corruption. "If India had stayed in one piece with Hindus and Moslems democratically competing in political parties, it would be a superpower today, larger and stronger than China," said Jack Wheeler, a frequent visitor to both India and Pakistan, who publishes a popular newsletter on world affairs. "But in place of an Asian superpower, we have two militaries at each other's throats, both armed with nuclear weapons, and presenting the world's best chance for nuclear war." Posted by: john frum 2009-02-23 |
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