Combating a War Within When people hear the word Pakistan, their mind immediately forms this image:

Taliban, extremists, oppressed women in burkas and men running around with Kalashnikovs! When I hear the word Pakistan I think of this: A state which is drowning and being taken to the bottom of the sea by the ruthless tide of corrupt leaders, false promises, inside wars and - most importantly, the inability of its natives to stand as one! Mostly desert with rugged hills and rocky mountains, it also has fertile valleys having rich orchards and prosperous farms growing apples, grapes, peaches and apricots in abundance. It is said to have a huge reservoir of mineral resources. The inhabitants of this land are proud, robust and fiercely independent. On the other hand, it has the highest number of militant, insurgent and sectarian attacks of any province in Pakistan. It is a province torn apart with separatist organisations attacking the state, sectarian and ethnic attacks. It is the province which is demanding love and attention from fellow Pakistanis. Welcome to the province of Balochistan! Apparently, the people in the region are demanding freedom from Pakistan itself claiming that theyve been subjected to injustice, prejudice and discrimination by the rest of the country; mainly the politicians and the ruling parties. The fault, as it may seem, lies in the unfair treatment by authorities. The fault might be the wrong decisions taken by our ancestors by neglecting the rights of our Balochi brothers and sisters. The fault, in my view, lies in ourselves that we are unable to envisage ourselves as one! We are incapable of looking beyond the imperfections and divergence. The fault is our inability to unite! A few more years in this seemingly insolvable imbroglio and Pakistan will surely become, like Somalia already has, a failed state. When Mr.Jinnah fought for an independent Pakistan, he cannot have imagined the chaos that it is tumbled down into now. Nor would he have envisioned it becoming a failed state! We belong to a nation which has 11 spoken languages, a huge cultural and regional diversity but yet we are all the same. Common faith exists and we only need a bit of discipline in order to be considered as one of the great nations in the world! No matter which party we support or which tribe we belong to. Whether we are Sindhi, Baluchi, Pathan or Punjabi; Shia or Sunni; Jutt, Rajpoot, Rai or what-so-ever, no one can change that we are Pakistanis and will remain that till the end. We should be able to respect, enjoy and celebrate the cultural divergence not fight about it! We want America to respect our countrys dignity and yet we fail to respect our country ourselves! Last week, in a match which riveted fans to the final ball, Pakistan tallied 236-9 in their 50 overs and then stalled Bangladesh on 234-8 in a raucous Mirpur Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium. Pakistan won the Asia Cup 2012. To me, this victory gained more importance when I saw the following on TV (footage from Geo News showing the celebrations by the people of Quetta) Now, I ask myself, who really wants to separate one of the biggest and key province of Pakistan? The natives seem happy to be a part of Pakistan- though I agree that Balochistan was neglected in the past but we cannot let the history repeat itself! We cannot let go of Balochistan due to our inability to stand together as one. We lost East Pakistan due to similar discrimination. The Baloch people have so far been bound by tribal delusions and violent state reprisals. Sardars have always enforced barbaric practices through jirgas on their subjects. Bugtis, Mengals, Murrees, Zehris and other tribes have always been blood-thirsty for each other. Akbar Bugti proudly became Governor of Balochistan

and allowed Army action against Balochis in the 70s to eliminate elders of other Balochi tribes in revenge. Balochis may revere their tribal chieftains but they do not have the wisdom to question their decisions about the past, present and the future. Its unheard of that they have done anything practical for the welfare of commoners; no benevolent trusts to run hospitals, clinics and schools. They used the extortion money just to keep private armies loyal to them. Most of their leaders have been working against them, misleading them with visions of Greater Balochistan, using the history as a weapon. The manipulated history which just highlights the atrocities and the injustice to keep them bound to the past, even while their vision is clearly set upon achieving future freedom from the malevolence of the state. The Balochis have been combating to free themselves from the constabulary state, as all freedomloving Pakistanis should have been doing since the beginning. If only Pakistanis of all faiths, or no faiths, had simply stood together as our ancestors once did in India, to resist the evil of the state (the remnant of the enforcement/control system put up by the British Crown), then none of these strategic brain games would now be possible!