by
Waseem Altaf
The unprecedented courage conviction and candidness with which Marvi Sirmid faced Zaid Hamid on Dr.Shahid Masood's program on Express TV; Thursday night must be applauded by all those who still want this country to be out from the clutches of obscurantism. The protégé of Pakistan military and its offshoot ISI never had anything to say except raising hollow slogans and indulging in sheer rhetoric laced with emotionality.
This combination is lethal in affecting an average intellect, particularly in the absence of a counter narrative which never was a part of our textbooks and official history. Unfortunately it was Mr.Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto who after the 1971 debacle had all the history textbooks rewritten in the ideological context. We did study Asoka and Chandragupt Mauriya in our history books which were then removed and Pakistan Studies was introduced. The first chapter would begin with the term AryaVarta, a separate piece of land independent of what today constitutes Pakistan meaning thereby that this part always had an independent status long before 1947 and long before Mohammad Bin Qasim. The term was deliberately twisted.
The major problem we face today is that for 64 years the mullah the military and people like Majeed Nizami and the like have completely dominated this discourse. Anyone coming up with a counter narrative is instantly labeled as a traitor, an enemy of Islam and an agent of RAW. Unfortunately powerful stakeholders like the military are involved in supporting the official version. A couple of weeks back Ayaz Amir wrote something not much appreciated by the men in uniform. Today he is being accused of raping a teenage girl.
It is important that in addition to challenging the official dogmas, the common man should also be apprised of the implications of sticking to the two-nation theory and so called ideology of Pakistan. Hostility, hatred, militancy, massive military budget, violence, emergence and role of non-state actors, underdevelopment, and poverty! So on and so forth.
It is now high time to highlight the vicious circle this state is trapped into. We must also openly support the bold stance taken by Mian Nawaz Sharif on Indo-Pak relations and challenge the counter stance of Jamaat-e-Islami, and Majeed Nizami and Ashfaq Pervez Kiani. Ashfaq an officer of special grade 23 is nobody to talk politics.
Marvi we salute you for being a man while very few are left in this ill-fated country.
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