Monday, April 26, 2010

Troops from the Pakistani armed forces need to be deployed to help the police fight crime.

I don't know the exact statistics of crime rates in Pakistan, but I can assume things aren't getting any better especially with the political instability 2008 onwards alongside our growing overpopulation crisis.
Add to that the skyrocketing prices of food that have hit Pakistan. It is unlikely that crime will improve or crime rates will decrease. Most likely the opposite is happening.

I looked up some Pakistani police websites and it confirms newspaper reports of frequent police deaths that one of my parents mentioned.
Fighting criminal gangs in Pakistan is like almost fighting a mafia. With the availability of illegal firearms and other weapons, the police are quite vulnerable to getting injured or killed by these gangs, especially during raids and clashes.

Most readers may not know, but the police in Pakistan, especially Karachi and other undeveloped areas are in no shape to take on these mafia type gangs.
The police in Pakistan usually prefer job applicants who have been with the armed forces or have basic training in army-style combat.

But unfortunately, most police employees in Pakistan are poorly trained and equipped and have little or no training in their background when joining the police force. Protective clothing is also very limited to the police, so getting hurt or killed is quite easy for them. That can perhaps be changed if the armed forces spared a few dozen troops for raids and combat missions for the police.

Pakistan's army has about six hundred and fifty thousand troops (don't know how accurate the sources are, but I'll go with it). Is it possible that out of these six hundred and fifty thousand troops that a few dozen can be spared to assist the police during raids on gangs and fighting crime?

It would certainly help save police lives and help defeat the criminals. It could also serve as good training for the troops.
I do not believe that from these six fifty thousand troops that all of them are active on the front lines for war.

Why not put them with the police to help them? It will keep the troops busy and keep them well trained so when the time for war comes, they are still prepared and the police's job can be made somewhat easier and safer.

Casting non-Pakistanis as Pakistanis in the Western media.

Sure many readers will think of it as a harmless thing. But then when you have your people portrayed falsely in the media, you may not think of it as anything harmless.
And besides what is the point of casting two people who are clearly non-Pakistanis as Pakistanis? Doesn't it make the TV show look a bit unrealistic?

Below is the video:


Any Pakistani watching this will recognize the strange and obvious foreign accent these people are speaking in.
They do not look anything like Pakistanis except maybe like certain Indian immigrants who settled in Pakistan. This appearance is more of North Eastern Indian or perhaps Caribbean by the sound of their accent.

Also noticeable in the video is at about 1:22 to 1:24 the people are speaking in another language which is clearly not Urdu.

Nothing wrong with these people being whatever race or ethnicity they are. What is wrong is these people are being cast as something they are clearly not and generating false stereotypes.
Anyone who doesn't have a problem with false stereotypes being generated has something wrong with them.

So what is actually wrong with casting real Pakistanis or any nationality represented in the video instead of putting in fakes?
What is the benefit of putting in fake actors, spending time teaching them Undri/Urdu lines and then casting them as the wrong nationality?

Britain is a country full of Pakistanis (though Indian migrant Muslims may make a significant population amongst the "Pakistanis") so is it that difficult to find a Pakistani to play the role of those two characters?

Instances such as these of giving Pakistanis a wrong image in the media needs to be pointed out and exposed in an effort to stop this silly practice.

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Renaming Pakistan does not work.

On many occasions I've heard one of my parents mentioning several times that changing the country's name from Pakistan to "confederation of Indus nations."
Some of my friends and associates also claim that Pakistan should have kept the name "India" being the land of the Indus Valley as it is.

Even in her book Empires of the Indus Alice Albinia writes that Pakistan could have been named "Industan" or kept the name India instead of Pakistan. Note: "India" in this case does not refer to the modern-day country by the same name, but the name given to the Indus Valley region-modern-day Pakistan by ancient European empires who arrived there.

Today I received an email about some movement pushing for renaming Pakistan Indus state or something of that sort.
I've seen similar videos on YouTube calling for Pakistan to be renamed India or given some similar name. Even one of my parents claims to prefer the name "confederation of Indus nations" instead of Pakistan.

My take on this is simple: I oppose it. You cannot rename a country after a geographic term. Should Egypt be renamed "confederation of Nile nations?" Should Turkey be renamed Anatolian republic or Anatolia? Note that Anatolia is still kept as the geographic name for the central and eastern regions of Turkey, while Turkey remains the state term. Anatolia specifically refers to Central and Eastern Turkey, not the Western parts.

People can argue that "confederation of Nile nations" is not appropriate since Egypt is a "nation-state" while Pakistan is not.
This argument is wrong. Many people think of North African Arabic-speaking countries as nation states when in fact they are home to many Berber-speaking tribes, including Egypt.

I'm not going to get into why most Egyptians speak Arabic today, but the fact is Arabic is not the only language of Egypt today, hence Egypt is not a "nation-state."
Taking up names of geographic terms could lead to many misconceptions and political turmoil.

Should Iran rename itself "confederation of Turkic, Semitic and Iranic nations?"
The name Iran is said to be derived from the ancient "Ary-an" which Indo-Iranic speaking people refereed to their land as "land of the Aryans."
This might not sound fair to Iran's Semitic and Turkic populations, but the fact is today all the various peoples of Iran are called Iranians due to their Iranian citizenship.

Iran is no longer seen as "land of the Aryans" but simply a country with a name derived from an ancient name meaning "land of the Aryans."
The same applies to Pakistan. Keeping the name Pakistan (land of the pure or land of purity) does not change the fact that the land is the Indus Valley. Keeping the Indus Valley as a geographical term for Pakistan is fine, but replacing the state term with a geographical one is not the best solution.

For one, Pakistanis are definitely not the pure decedents of people of the Indus Valley Civilization today, nor a are the Indo-European languages we speak proven to be related to the Indus Valley language.

Secondly most countries do not go by their geographic names. I've come across many Azerbaijanis claiming that they are only Turkic by language, but their country and people are still part of Transcaucasia by geography, race and culture.

Should then perhaps Azerbaijan be renamed South Caucasia or Southern Transcaucasia to better convince the world that it's people are not Turanians?
Finland is home to both Finns and Lappish/Saami people. Perhaps Finland should be named East Scandinavia to keep a neutral name balance?

The same applies to Pakistan. The name Pakistan is just a name of the country. It poses no harm or ethnocentric term, unlike the case of other countries that have names after their majority ethnic groups.

Why is it that Pakistan must take up a geographic term as it's name and all other countries stick with their original or given names? This idea serves no purpose and is simply senseless. There is nothing wrong with the name Pakistan as far as I can see.

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Religious minorities in Pakistan should not celebrate their holidays publicly during dangerous times.

Though the idea of restricting the public social activities of religious minorities in Pakistan (including Shias) might sound unjust at the beginning, it is in their best interests and Pakistan's best interests.

A few months ago, Shias celebrating their religious holiday of Muharram on the streets made them easy targets for Sunni extremists. Even armed guards cannot really serve as a protection against suicide bombers.

Knowing the rise of religious militants as a result of Pakistan's war against the Taliban, religious minorities would be amongst the first targets.
To celebrate their holidays openly in public places only makes the jobs of the militants far easier. It's like mice crawling into a household of domestic cats.

During political turmoils Pakistan is facing such as now, the government should make public announcements discouraging religious minorities from celebrating in public. They should be told that while it's a great sacrifice being asked for them, no sacrifice is greater than their safety.

It's only during times like these that these steps are necessary. It could save a lot of lives and then a bloody aftermath which often results in massive rioting, looting and destruction of public property which only harms the economy of the country.

Thursday, April 8, 2010

Ethnicity and provincialism in Pakistan: What we don't normally hear or read

Author's note: I am of Baloch, Sindhi, Muhajir and Punjabi descent. Critics of my post are free to have their opinions, but the idea of Punjabi hegemony on my part can be ruled out due to my multiple ethnicities.

Over recent years, the cases of ethnic, tribal and provincial nationalism in Pakistan seemed to have reached a high peak.
Members within my own family are leaders of major provincial-nationalist organizations that seek greater rights for their province Sindh inside the state of Pakistan.

I myself was and still am a strong supporter of provincial equality within Pakistan. But that support has changed and my trust in many provincialist rights organizations has severely declined.

Over many years, provincial rights organizations have complained about being labeled "Indian agents." Much of their political messages and websites in Pakistan have been blocked/censored by the government and they have protested this as a violation of their freedom of expression.

But while complaining about such an accusation being given to them, I feel these provincial nationalists have done everything to earn this label, instead of fighting for a true and just cause. Let's first cover some examples of this.

During my summer holidays in Karachi back in 2005, I was sent an email by one of my parents who is a member of a Sindhi human rights organization. The email contained a speech by an Indian who attended this organization's seminar in Washington DC.
It started out with "as we all know, the state of Pakistan was carved out of Indian territory."

I didn't bother reading the rest of the email, knowing the bias it contained. It got me wondering, if this is a Sindhi cause, why does it have to involve the Indians? A few days later I another email containing an article about why Pakistan was "created."

Apparently according to this article, a group of Muslims in the British Raj could not stand the power of "Indian democracy" and so these corrupt Muslims elites opted for a separate state where they could rule over the masses like Kings and Queens.

As already explained in this article, the region of Pakistan was never a part of India, except under the Mauryan Empire which lasted about a century. Secondly, where was this so-called "Indian democracy" during the British Raj? At that time the subcontinent was under British imperial rule, so how can these supposed Muslims elites evade or fear a democracy that does not even exist?

Such claims are not just opposing points of view against the state of Pakistan, but outright lies. The worst part is that this is all being promoted by an organization which claims itself to be a defender of Sindhi rights, yet welcomes Indian propaganda itself.

It is now up to readers to decide weather the government and people of Pakistan have the right to be suspicious of such organizations or to accuse them of being "Indian agents."

It does not end with Indian support. This Sindhi organization that one of my parents helps runs claims to seek a greater audience amongst the people of Pakistan. Yet of all the interns that they recruit, I have not heard even of one hailing from any part of Pakistan.
In fact, these interns are from completely far ends of the world such as Sweden, America etc.

Then comes their alliance with Baloch organizations which seem to be so strongly pro-Afghan and pro-Indian. They also have interesting tactics of labeling any pro-Pakistani Balochis and Sindhis as "puppets of the Pakistani government" or pretending the so-called province of "Balochistan" is all Baloch ethnically speaking.

With these Baloch and Sindhi organizations working together, there is a pattern of sponsoring Indian & Afghan propaganda, blaming the ISI for everything that goes wrong in India and Afghanistan, labeling any pro-Pakistani Sindhi or Baloch a "government agent."

Interestingly they have a Kashmiri who is strangely pro-Indian and claims his people to be of Jewish origins (I do plan on discussing falsified Semitic ancestries in Pakistani populations in my other blog called History of Pakistan).

The establishment of the Durand line has also been condemned by these pro-Indian/Afghan separatists, which has been refuted in this article.

With all these things mentioned, there was even another Sindhi organization which decided not to partner with my parent and friends out of resentment for promoting Indian hegemonic agendas. This Sindhi organization supposedly departed to Pakistan in hopes of promoting provincial rights without involving pro-Indian/Afghan elements.(These people were in North America).

The organization(s) one of my parents works for even has close ties to Uighur separatists from China.
Interestingly enough, all these campaigners for provincial equality in Pakistan never work with separatists from India or Afghanistan. How far can they go convincing Pakistan and the world that they are not working on behalf of Indians and Afghans?

I'm not trying to imply that these people are indeed Indian RAW agents, though the RAW may have an indirect hand in funding and other means, but the nature of their activities is enough for them to decide how they'll be judged.
Besides that, their pro-Indian/Afghan policies are outright hypocrisy and immoral.

India and Afghanistan have treated their minorities even worse than Pakistan, so for these provincial nationalists to speak so highly of either countries indirectly advocates and tries to justify the inhumane treatment of Indian & Afghan minorities.

Of the organizations my parent (I won't mention which as I keep personal information private on the Internet) has worked for and the people they consist of, I have made two observations in provincial nationalists. This mainly applies to those from Sindh and Balochistan.
I cannot comment on other provinces as I have little knowledge of their provincial nationalists. The pro-Indian Kashmiri guy is an extremely rare case amongst his people.

Some negative things I've observed in Pakistani provincial nationalism:
Though I do not doubt that there are plenty of provincialists in Pakistan who are actually in search of human rights and greater autonomy and not acting as Indian/Afghan puppets (ie. the Sindhi group that I mentioned above which left for Pakistan), I've uncovered many things about the darker and more sinister side of Baloch and Sindhi nationalism.

Many Balochis and their political groups I've come across practice what I call Baloch fascism.
This practice is based on jingoistic, bigotry ideas and falsified beliefs that I have found through simple observance.

As examples, I've conversed with a Baloch separatist closely associated with my parent. He along with this mysterious Kashmiri play the game of blaming the ISI for everything that goes wrong in Pakistan, Afghanistan and India without any proof or evidence.

As I wrote before, it is hypocrisy for Pakistani provincialists to be defending India and Afghanistan since both countries have a worse history of treating their ethnic and religious minorities.
Some Sindhi and Baloch nationalists have defended this idea claiming they need this support.

But then this generates more hypocrisy on their part. When the Pakistani government aided religious and ethnic minorities in India and Afghanistan, these same Sindhi and Baloch nationalists have accused the Pakistani government of "meddling" in the affairs of the two countries.

Seminars and cultural events that have taken place hoist the Baloch Liberation Army flag; a flag which represents a single Baloch organization and not the people of Balochistan who have not even given their consent for this flag to represent them.

This Baloch separatist also seemed to be very enthusiastic on telling me he and his wife don't teach their children Urdu, the national language of Pakistan (which is fine by me).
But then the hypocrisy in all this is that the Baloch themselves have been imposing their language onto other ethnic groups of the province called "Balochistan" such as the Brahuis.

I have also been asked by this separatist on the legitimacy of the state of Pakistan. I was questioned weather Pakistan is a nation state to justify it's existence.

The definition of a nation state in the past might have meant one race, one culture one language.
However, today it mostly refers to a state binded by a people speaking a single language. Pakistan of course, does not fit this definition. But then the question is does the province of Balochistan?

Baloch fascism covers up many facts that I will discuss below, while highlighting only facts that suits it's cause. Baloch fascism is also mirrored by what I refer to as Sindhi Chauvinism.

Sindhi Chauvinism circles around the ideas of Sindh being the center of human civilization, Sindhi language and culture being older than all the other cultures in the region or that Punjabis and "Muhajirs" are the cause of Sindh's problems and that Sindhis have absolutely no part in it.
Again, most of Sindhi chauvinism can easily be disproved through historical and scientific facts.

Facts that Baloch fascists and Sindhi chauvinists never discuss:
The so-called land of "Balochistan" has never been home only to the Baloch people. On the subject of naming the land after an ethnic group, a fact to note is that the Iranian government refers to their Baloch province as "Sistan."

The Baloch seemed to have arrived much after other ethnic groups in "Balochistan" according to this article. Also according to the article, the Baloch displaced other ethnic groups in the land that they arrived in.
I've also personally heard of claims that Balochi extremists have been oppressing Brahuis and pressuring them into assimilation.

The linked article and claims seem to be supported with two points:
1) A Brahui once told me that many Baloch tribal leaders have been pressuring his people to declare themselves as Baloch; in other words asking them to surrender and trade their Brahui identity for Baloch identity.

2) The theories of Baloch people arriving in the region from a more western direction coincides with the fact that Balochi is a Northwestern Iranic language, placing it closer to Kurdish, a language spoken in the northwestern areas of the Middle East.

Like all other language families and their subfamilies, the Iranic languages and dialects are broken into various categories based on geography. Languages having closer spoken proximity to other languages in other geographic locations and it's origin points are termed as such.
In this case, the modern Baloch language is closer to the Iranic languages spoken in Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran than it is to eastern Iranic languages such as Pashto.

With all that being mentioned, "Balochistan" is not and was not a land consisting simply of Balochis. These are key points that Baloch fascists will not discuss.
What Baloch fascists will also not discuss is that it is not Urdu that threatens the various languages of "Balochistan" but the Baloch language itself.

Urdu is still mostly spoken mostly in urbanized areas of Pakistan such as the main cities of the country and main towns of the provinces. In rural parts of Sindh, Balochistan, Kashmir, Pakhtunkhwa and perhaps even Punjab, Urdu is not used in daily life.
Even my own visits to Hyderabad showed me my relatives speaking to one another in Sindhi and hardly using any Urdu let alone English.

It is not the Punjabis nor the "Muhajirs" who have told Brahuis and other minorities in Southwestern Pakistan to trade their language and culture for Punjabi or Urdu, but rather certain Baloch supremacists who have fought vicious battles against them in the past.

Knowing the tense history between the Baloch and non-Baloch populations of the region; especially Brahuis, it is unlikely the Brahuis will submit to a separate state under Baloch domination.

The right to the territory of so-called Balochistan lies with various ethnic groups who have traditionally inhabited it, not simply just the Baloch. The Gwader port was acquired by Pakistan from Oman around 1958, which puts Baloch-centric claims on a significant portion of the coast of that province into question.

Another fact that Baloch fascists and their masters in Afghanistan and India will not mention is that Balochis constitute only around two to three percent of Pakistan's population at the most. Within that two percent, only a small handful consist of separatists.
This means there are plenty of Balochis (including close friends of mine) loyal to their country Pakistan. In fact even a friend of mine of Iranian-Baloch origin works for the ISI.

With a small handful of Baloch fascists using backing from Afghanistan and India, there is little chance of Balochistan separating from Pakistan; knowing the enormous size of the Pakistani armed forces added with their superior weapons technology to the separatist militants.

Below are thought provoking videos to those who have been sympathetic to Baloch separatism. The first reaction by many Baloch and Sindhi separatists might be that these Balochis are government puppets. But then again, these pro-Pakistan Balochis can easily point back the finger at the separatists and accuse them of being Indian/Afghan pawns:





As mentioned before, Sindhi chauvinism revolves around crazy ideas of Sindh being the cradle of civilization and Sindhi predating other languages of Pakistan. It also speaks of the victimization of Sindhi people at the hands of the evil Punjabis and their "Muhajir" puppets.
I even got an email by a Sindhi chauvinist who discussed Sindh's history periodically.

The end of his email concluded that the Sindhi language has evolved over a period of five thousand years.
Let's discuss Sindhi chauvinism starting with this rather far-fetched claim. As most educated people know, Sindhi is an Indo-Aryan language, part of the Indo-European family of languages.

According to most historians and linguists, there is no evidence of Indo-European (IE) languages having a presence in the Indus Valley region as far back as five thousand years.
In fact, five thousand years ago, linguists estimate that most of the IE languages were still mostly intact meaning they were the same language before breaking off into various languages due to geographic separation between their speakers.

Also according to linguistic, historic and archeological evidence, the IE languages arrived in the Indus Valley/Pakistan around two thousand to three thousand BC, ruling out the belief that Sindhi was spoken in Sindh as far back as five thousand years.
Sindhi, like all the Indo-Iranic languages of Pakistan were brought to the country through migration.



Opponents of these theories can easily research the facts for themselves. No symbol or artifact of the Indus Valley Civilization connects to the artifacts or symbols of ancient Indo-Europeans. To better understand this, please see my History of Pakistan blog and search books on this subject such as Indo-European culture or Proto-Indo-European Language and Culture by Benjamin Fortson.

Even genetic evidence contradicts Sindhi chauvinistic beliefs of Sindhis being the exact same people of the Indus Civilization.

Sindhi chauvinists also like to spread the idea of Sindhi victimization of their people without taking the slightest bit of responsibility for it.
In 1947 Karachi and other parts of Sindh were flooded with Muslim immigrants from all over the subcontinent. The Sindhis welcomed and sheltered them. They hardly reacted nor showed concerns to the massive numbers of the immigrants.

When I was once at a Sindhi gathering at a restaurant in UAE with my parent, I heard the same cries of complaint from leaders that the Punjabis have taken over Sindh and given it to the Muhajirs.
I have heard these cries countless times before. But another Sindhi in the meeting pointed out that Sindhis did not raise any voice or opposition to Muhajir and Punjabi domination of their province; nor did they stand up to their oppressors.

Instead they welcomed them during the over flood of the Muhajirs into Sindh. Even with the rise of the MQM in the 1980s till today, there was hardly any strong reaction or resistance from the Sindhi community.

I myself have thought this for so long. Not only that, but Sindhis I've spoken to insist that Muhajir aggression must be countered with peace and love.
Is it even a wonder why Muhajirs have managed to dominate Sindhis in their own province despite being outnumbered by them?

Sindhi provincial chauvinists also don't mention the fact that Sindh also has smaller minorities such as Siriakis and Tharis.
Sure Sindhis can argue, they are not that different from themselves. But then neither are Punjabis that different. Linguistically speaking Sindhi and Punjabi are both Northwestern Indo-Aryan languages. The two peoples are almost like first cousins both having similar language, culture and traditions.

My own maternal grandmother's father was Northern Punjabi despite the fact that she was born, raised in Sindh and spoke Sindhi. Punjabi and Sindhi are both derived from the same Northwestern Sanskrit dialect.

My thoughts and opinions on provincial nationalism in Pakistan:
Firstly, if provincial rights are going to be made critical issues in Pakistani politics, the provincial nationalists themselves have to reform and be objective if they are ever to achieve their goals.

For this to happen they need a large audience amongst not just politicians but the people of Pakistan who are sympathetic to their cause.
And to achieve that they must stop working with the Indian and Afghan governments to reduce suspicion upon themselves.

Particularly Sindhis and Balochis need to also keep the fascists and chauvinists out of their organizations and also open doors to interns from all over Pakistan to work with them instead of bringing in people who have little knowledge on Pakistani history and politics.

Sindhis and Balochis also have to stop spreading biased ideas that their fascist and chauvinistic members mislead their communities into believing. Discrimination needs to come to an end- including Baloch discrimination towards Brahuis and other non-Balochis in so-called "Balochistan."

This doesn't mean I defend the armies brutal atrocities in Sindh and especially Balochistan.  Nor do I advocate taking energy from Balochistan to support Punjab's needs without any benefit.

Also with the coming of solar technology and temperatures soaring in Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan the government and peoples should invest more in solar technology so more and more people have equal access to energy.

Provincial autonomy and equality is the solution to unity in Pakistan combined with Pan-Indo-Iranism. The education system must have the languages of the ethnic minorities available throughout Pakistan. Punjabi children should be allowed to study Punjabi at school as should every ethnic group in Pakistan alongside the federal language Urdu.
Brahui children should be allowed to study their own language and study Baloch and Urdu as additional options.

People who speak Urdu as a first language must then learn the main language of their province.

Overall there is also thought about the people of Pakistan as a whole. Pakistani people have much of a shared identity based on linguistic, genetic and cultural lines. Most Pakistanis descend from ancient Indo-Iranic tribes that spanned across Eurasia before settling into the Indus Valley and merging with the native population(s).

This idea can be used to forge a national Indo-Iranic identity, for most multi-lingual and multi-ethnic countries do not have common language family, unlike Pakistan.
For all this to happen, unbiased knowledge of the history and politics of Pakistan must be spread and promoted.

Only then I feel, will the issue of ethnicity and provincialism in Pakistan will finally be resolved and satisfied.

The video below covers the issue of reforming common Pakistani nationhood with a new sense of Pakistani nationalism in the form of Pan-Indo-Iranism:

Thursday, April 1, 2010

Pakistan's nuclear weapons vulnerable to extremist takeover? Think again.

A few years after America and NATO's invasion of Afghanistan, many journalists and political analysists claimed that Pakistan's nuclear arsenal was under the threat of take over by the Taliban and other extremist groups.

This idea was later amplified by news agencies on their television news reports and the Internet, especially by Pakistani bashing groups from India and America.

People who buy into this idea including Pakistanis should ask themselves a few questions. Do they know that nuclear weapons are not operated by simple buttons, but by an entire system of codes and sophisticated machinery?

If so do they really think that a bunch of primitive savages like the Taliban have the knowledge to operate such sophisticated technology? And if so do they realize that the Taliban need certain codes to gain control over the nuclear warheads and to operate them? Codes that are restricted to some nuclear scientists and anonymous people in the government.

I am surprised that whenever questioned on this issue, neither has Zardari nor any other Pakistani politician pointed out the facts that I have stated above.
Their only responses have been the same assurances that the nuclear weapons facilities are well protected.

And even if they weren't protected, let us imagine a scenario where the Taliban take over the facilities.
How would they be able to operate or understand the machinery and technical specifications required to use these nuclear warheads? Especially when even an educated person will have difficulty figuring out how such an advanced system works.

And then what of the codes? Nuclear weapons are unusable until they are charged, much like a gun being unusable until it is loaded.
To arm and launch the nuclear warheads, the Taliban will need to know the set of codes and how to input these codes into the launch system.

In the end, the Taliban in control of Pakistan's nuclear facilities is as dangerous as a four year old child with an empty handgun.
But most people who buy into the common idea that Pakistan's nuclear weapons are prone to Taliban control do not take such important points and questions into account.

They usually buy into this idea because somebody on TV or the newspaper or the Internet said so.
Also many enemies of Pakistan push this idea without providing any proof or solid evidence that the Taliban has even the slightest knowledge on such sophisticated technology.

Some defenders of this new phenomenon claim that there are those in the Pakistani government sympathetic to Al-Queda and the Taliban who would aid them in gaining the country's nuclear arsenal and the know how to operate them.

But the problem is that these people fail to name the Taliban sympathizers in the Pakistani government or to the fact that the Pakistani government's support for the Taliban- which was politically motivated- has all ended.
Infact the ISI, a common scapegoat for instability in the region has been targeted several times by the Taliban for the Pakistani military's war against them.

All the support that Pakistan used to have for the Taliban was politically motivated and has ended for almost ten years ago until anyone can prove otherwise.

Many supporters of this idea of extremists taking over the nuclear arsenal of Pakistan usually repeat their statements without touching on the key points that have been mentioned above; probably because it would kill their crazy theories.

All my points and questions have been raised simply through common sense. This is something many today lack when it comes to world politics, even many Pakistanis, hence they believe what they are told.

Beliefs such as these have all sorts of gains in them. For Indian extremists and other anti-Pakistani elements in the world, it helps spread Pakophobia and defame Pakistan.
For others such as news agencies and journalists, it helps sell more books and newspapers which has plenty of profits in store.

Why does criticism of Pakistan have to walk hand in hand with praise for India?

In all the years of hearing critics of Pakistani people and state policy by fellow Pakistanis (I myself am a strong Pakistani critic), I notice it always has to walk hand in hand with a strange praise for India.

Even those Pakistan critics that I admire such as Tarek Fatah who reminds us all of Pakistani people's inferiority complex towards Middle Eastern people or others such as Pervez Hoodbhoy who speaks openly about the Arabization of Pakistan through the spread of radical Islamist Wahaabism.

Yet, with all their constructive criticism, there comes a price to pay with a praise for India.
Much of this praise can easily be disproved through basic facts. But regardless, why should these praises even be there?

Whenever Pakistani patriotism comes up or any defensive counter action against Indian propaganda or cultural invasion comes up, Islamists always find their way through into patriotic movements as in me and my friends case or people turn to Islamists like Zaid Hamid and other fundamentalists to counter Indian propaganda.

Heck even I favored the Middle Easternization of Pakistan when I noticed the Indianization and pro-Indianist fever that infected many Pakistanis.
Today many Pakistanis opposed to Indian cultural invasion and propaganda warfare against Pakistan see Islamitization and Middle Easternization as the solution to the problem.
Is it now even a wonder why?

Because our liberal and educated speakers and analysts have no hesitation to praise India when drawing out our own problems yet take a one eighty degree turn on the fact(s) that India is hit with far worse problems than Pakistan socially speaking.

I don't want to go into detail on India's problems of being the poorest country in the world or why more than half the world's hungry population lives in India or why there have been countless more incidents of violence towards religious/ethnic minorities and women in India than in Pakistan.

People argue because India is the enemy or a country 'closer' to us culturally speaking, that we must compare the two.
If that's the case, how many countries do we actually know that always speak highly of their enemies to seek a 'solution' for their problems. I'll be happy if anyone can find me one.

What about the fact that Afghanistan and Iran have also shared culture with Pakistan due to common ethnic Pakhtuns and Baloch?
How many compare Afghanistan or use it as a role model for Pakistan?

These pro-Indian elites have such a powerful influence in Pakistan and their self-hatred is echoed across the border in India as an attempt to show the world that Pakistanis hate their country and want to join India. The media of these self-haters has usually held an inferiority complex to the Indian government.

I am a strong admirer of Tarek Fatah, especially when it comes to discussing the inferiority complex many Pakistanis have developed towards Arabs. But his praise for India as a way to smack ourselves for our problems is again something that bothers me.

So people who want to deflect Indian propaganda have almost always the Islamists to turn to. In the end because our educated leading speakers refuse to see reality. Neither are they helpful in countering Indian propaganda against Pakistan. Infact, these people often support anti-Pakistan propaganda manufactured in the Indian media. I recently read on a government financed newspaper in Pakistan (from our tax money) being published to counter anti-Pakistan propaganda.

But instead, according to what I read, the writers started writing pro-Indian propaganda.
Now people should stop wondering why Islamist radicals like Zaid Hamid are able to become the Pipe Piper for those sick and fed up of Indian Hindutva fascism.

In Iran during the Shah's regime, people were living under a dictatorship that they weren't happy with. Iranians were outraged at the Shah's attempt to Westernize Iran and feared the loss of their own culture.
But few were willing to stand up to the Shah. All those except for the mullahs were silent. And in the end the people turned to the mullahs to overthrow the puppet dictator who threatened Iran's culture(s) with his Westernization programs and the same puppet dictator who sold his country to America.

Were the mullahs a better option? Of course not. But look how they got into power. The same is happening in Pakistan where those opposed to Indian Hindutva fascism are turning to the Islamists who are the most outspoken against it.

The most outrageous thing is not the negative result that pro-Indian criticism of Pakistan, but most of this praise for India is entirely untrue. Most of their praise for India is actually quite the opposite of reality.

We have to come out of this self-hatred. Firstly it's not going to solve our problems. Secondly it's all lies. Thirdly it's clearly not having a positive impact and sending people to the Islamist Middle Easternization front.

If those pro-Indian critics want to criticize Pakistan, then do it but keep your love for India separate from that.

I am one of the few Pakistanis who openly reject both the pro-Indian front and the pro-Arab Islamist Wahhabi front.