Always blaming the government has become a drug addiction for Pakistanis.

For many years now, whenever something goes terribly wrong in Pakistan, the first reaction of the population is to always pin the blame entirely on the government.

It doesn't matter what the government does to improve the situation, everything is supposedly always their fault.

Take for example the current war against religious extremism, no matter how many Pakistani soldiers and policemen/women have died fighting these terrorists, it's still the governments fault for "not doing enough." Is it ever enough?

And even when the government puts in it's best efforts such as troops killing as many militants as they can, foiling many terrorist attacks, there is hardly if any sign of appreciation.
Instead there is blame after blame weather the government acts or not. Damned if they do, damned if they don't.

There are also many crazy conspiracy theorists in Pakistan who claim the ISI is training these terrorists to carry out the attacks. They claim this without any proof or even the slightest bit of solid evidence. Why would the ISI train and support the very people who are killing their own troops and blowing up their own offices?

These conspiracy theorists are obviously parroting the Hindutva propagandists next door who attract a large following of Pakistanis through Bollywood and other means.

Other conspiracy theorists like Ahmed Rashid repeat similar claims for profit since he's sold many books on this topic.

Even the high prices and the wide scale poverty is the fault of the government. While it's undeniable that the government, especially the armed forces of Pakistan have a history of corruption and human rights abuse, they have been made the scapegoat for just about every problem in the country.

Weather the government is democratically elected by the people or a dictatorship, everything is their fault.
For the poor, the government is totally at fault for their positions, while for the rich, the government is totally at fault for not doing enough to protect them and improve the country.

The truth is that the main cause of poverty in Pakistan is overpopulation, which I discussed in this post.

What right does a middle or lower class man with six or more children have to blame the government for his poverty when he makes enough income to support only one or two children? Even when many lower and middle class Pakistani men do not allow their wives to work outside of the household?

For the typical rich, spoiled, Westernized Pakistani elite, who is he/she to blame the government for the problems of the country?
The rich elites only pay taxes because they are forced to as they earn a sizable income.

The rich elites hardly contribute to Pakistani society. They send their children to English schools where they are Westernized and are hardly aware of what goes on in their country.
Many of these elites frequently break the law by bribing their way through or getting help from a friend or relative who works in the government.

Even with all this, the hypocritical elites still have the courage to accuse the government of corruption and the cause of every problem in the country.

Even during the intense war against the Taliban, there are demonstrations in front of Pakistani embassies by the expatriate communities.

Even when the Swat girl incident happened, somehow it was the governments fault with the blame going at them.

This recent news article is similar to the point I'm making. With TV shows trying to get higher ratings by bashing a democratically elected government the people themselves are guilty of installing. Amongst the people, many bash the government to feel not left out by their peers.

There's another recent article written covering government bashing to gain more popularity (and also to deflect guilt from one's self or organization in my opinion).

I do not advocate how Pervez Musharraf took power in Pakistan through illegal military force, but I have to admit he was a far greater leader then the elected Pakistani leaders in the recent decades.

Under Musharraf the Pakistani economy gained a steady recovery. Seats in the parliament were reserved strictly for women and religious minorities and religious extremists were given a strong response.

Even in newspapers I remember reading sometime around 2002-2003 where there were more than one cases of Musharraf ordering protection for women targeted by their husbands/families for honor killings. Still no gratitude.

I remember in 2006 passing by a protest by a women's rights group protesting against Musharraf for the poor treatment of middle class women in Pakistan. Despite all his efforts, give him no credit; just more blame.

Even during the 2007 Lal-Masjid incident in Islamabad where Taliban terrorists took over an important Mosque in Islamabad, blame after blame just struck Musharraf despite all his efforts to have the terrorists taken out without any of the hostages being harmed.

Most people, especially the elites, always focus on the negative side. Instead of supporting Musharraf's reforms, they elect Asif Zardari, who has been a longtime suspect in a history of corruption in Pakistan.
Today Zardari with his corruption record and his government are hounded and blamed by Pakistanis for the problems of the country.

If the case is such, then perhaps Pakistanis need to act independently of the government to improve the country since they see the government as an unreliable force no matter who is elected by the people. The people blame the same government they themselves elected.

Somewhere this cycle should stop and the people should support the government when they are doing something positive otherwise there will be no progress. Already people should know by now this cycle of hounding and blaming the government has achieved nothing.

Blackwater in Pakistan?

Many familiar with Pakistan would know of the rumors that have been spreading for over a year on the presence of Blackwater (now known as XE) in Pakistan.
There's a huge hysteria amongst Pakistanis and the Pakistani media that Blackwater is openly operating in Pakistan.

Apparently their operations include renting/buying houses and/or apartments in residential areas of major Pakistani cities like Lahore, Islamabad and Peshawar. Rumors are spreading that they are harassing and intimidating locals living in the areas that they are staying in and carrying out illegal assassinations on wanted Al-Queda/Taliban suspects in Pakistan.

According to me, these rumors are far-fetched. Knowing Blackwater/XE's bad history in Iraq and Afghanistan, their possible presence in Pakistan has triggered these false rumors and hysteria.
There were claims that started out with Blackwater/XE possibly being assigned to protect the American embassy and consulates in Pakistan.

The fact that Pakistan is full of armed locals, both individuals and various groups from illegal drug gangs to Islamists, Blackwater/XE would not last very long if it operated the way it is rumored to.

The most likely scenario is that Blackwater/XE is hired to protect the American diplomatic missions in Pakistan, but still within embassy grounds, resulting in these false rumors due to their bad human rights records in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Perhaps they are also trying to target Taliban/Al-Queda suspects in Pakistan- by hiring local mercenaries to do the job for them. As I stated earlier, there's no way a foreign army can go on a killing rampage in a country like Pakistan without attracting the attention of armed locals, both citizens and authorities, that outnumber them millions to one.

This video discusses in detail of the operations of American security agencies through the help of local Pakistani mercenaries:

The most Indo-European and "Aryan" nation outside of Europe.

I'd like to stress once again that I have enmity with only a certain number of Iranians, Afghans and Indians.
These particular Iranians/Afghans/Indians are the anti-Pakistani elements within their respective countries.

There has been a huge Internet campaign amongst these people to claim "Aryaness" exclusively for themselves while defaming Pakistani people and portraying Pakistan as the "rouge Islamic, terrorist, anti-Aryan" nation.
As I stated in my earlier post, there is a huge irony in all of this.

Linguistically speaking, Iran, India and Afghanistan are only about one-half to three quarters Indo-European, while Pakistan is an almost entirely Indo-European speaking country up to ninety-nine percent.
I can even break that down further to Indo-Iranic. Aside from Brahui, Baltistani and Burushaski, all of Pakistan's about two dozen languages are Indo-European of the Indo-Iranic subbranch.

Even genetically speaking, the Indo-European haplogroup R1 is more dominant in Pakistan than it is in Iran, Afghanistan and India.
The haplogroup maps below show this to be true:





Iran and Afghanistan both have a huge percentage of Turanian haplogroups (q) in their populations.
Iran also has a much larger percentage of haplogroup J1 in it's populations.
India on the other hand is one of the most genetically diverse countries on Earth, being full of various, unrelated languages and haplogroups. This should go out as a strong message to the anti-Pakistani "Pan-Aryan" elements in Afghanistan, Iran and India.

Pro-Iranian/Afghan/Indian "white nationalists"

I have noticed a new phenomenon on the Internet amongst suspicious "white nationalists" (white in this case refers to someone of European descent and not the physical term) making extremely pro-Iranian, sometimes pro-Afghan or sometimes even pro-Indian comments.
These comments of the suspicious "white nationalists" include insistence on accepting Afghans, Iranians and Indians as "lost Aryan cousins."

Their comments are as ridiculous as Persians speaking an Indo-European language is proof of their common roots with Europeans. Do not Jamaicans and Hazaras also speak Indo-European languages? What proof can speaking a certain language give on the origins of a people?

Sometimes it just doesn't end there. These strange "white nationalists" resort to Paki-bashing, working hard to propagate to other white nationalists on how Islamitized and religious radicals Pakistanis are. That they are some sort of "anti-Aryan terrorists."

These are extremely ironic claims coming from pro-Iranian/Afghan "white nationalists" considering the fact that Iran and Afghanistan are far more Islamitized than Pakistan ever has been.

Even during the rule of military dictator Zia Ul-Haq when Islamitization was at it's peak in Pakistan, it was still hardly harsh when compared to Iran under the Ayatollahs or Afghanistan under the Taliban.

One would wonder why white nationalists would selectively pick Afghans, Iranians or North Indians as "lost relatives" while ignoring Pakistanis?
Why would white nationalists even want to pick any non-white (remember "white" in this case refers to anyone of European descent and not the physical term) at all?

Some racist Afghans and Iranians try hard to claim the name "Aryan" exclusively for themselves. This is the same claim coming out of Pro-Iranian/Afghan "white nationalists" on the Internet referring to Iran and/or Afghanistan as "true Aryan nations."

The answer to all these questions is simple: These "white nationalists" are Afghans and Iranians in disguise on the Internet.
They can be seen on just about every white nationalist website from stormfront.org to Pan-Aryan front.

Evidence of their real nationality can be seen when they vigorously reject a war against Iran, not because of economic or political setbacks (though that appears to be the official white nationalist view), but because it's a "white against white" war according to them.

Further evidence to their true nationalities can be seen by the suspicious pro-Iranian/Afghan propaganda spurred by "Germans," "Brits" and "Bulgarians."
Historically speaking, Germany had close economic ties to Iran and gave much aid to that country under the Nazi party, resulting in a pro-German attitude amongst Iranian racists even till today.

On YouTube "Bulgarian-Afghan brotherhood" videos can be seen posted by Afghans. Some of these "Bulgarians" and others can even be seen referring to themselves as "We Iranics."

In reality most white nationalists view most Muslim majority countries as their enemies and have no preference to one over another.
Not only that, but linguistic and genetic evidence both contradict the propaganda of these pro-Afghan/Iranian "white nationalists." (WN)

I explained in an earlier post on this issue that linguistically speaking, Iran, India and Afghanistan are only about one-half to three quarters Indo-European, while Pakistan is almost entirely Indo-European, with only three languages (Brahui, Baltistani, and Burushaski) spoken by it's native population being non-Indo-European.
Indeed most of these "Pan-Aryan" Afghans, Iranians and Indians have little knowledge of what Aryan truly means, which I tried to simplify in my anthropology blog.

In my finding, the agenda of these Iranians and Afghans posing as WN is to gain acceptance of their people(s) in the white nationalist community.
If their true nationality was known to the white nationalists, they would not be taken seriously. In fact, some WN forums on the Internet have restricted sections for non-whites on their forums. Some WN forums don't even allow non-whites on their message boards at all.

But under the guise of Germans, Bulgarians, Brits etc. it makes it the easiest thing for these racist Indians, Afghans and Iranians to post their propaganda.
Many WN with little knowledge on world history and politics fall prey to the propaganda of these Afghan and Iranian "Pan-Aryans" disguised as whites. They gullibility think "oh our fellow WN consider these people to be white so they must be white."
Afghans are even seen on the Internet disguised as Turks and making pro-Afghan comments because of their love for other nationalities.

The desperation and inferiority complex of these particular Afghans/Iranians/Indians is really laughable.

Iran is not the role model for Pakistan as many Pakistanis make it out to be.

Many Pakistanis both Pan-Islamists and secularists see Iran as the brave country that stands up to Western imperialism simply because it has cut off economic, political and diplomatic ties with America and does not comply to Israeli and Western demands.

Pakistanis and other Muslims who believe this are missing out on many facts.
Firstly Iran, unlike Pakistan, has large oil reserves that it can export abroad and make huge profits from the oil market as well as use it domestically. Add to that, it has a much smaller and stable population and more resources that Western sanctions do much less damage to a country like Iran than an overpopulated country like Pakistan which has limited energy resources and a much larger population.

But even with all these factors put in place there are many negative things that the Iranian people have had to suffer through compared to Pakistanis.

While Pakistan is a relatively secular country and gives better rights to it's women and minorities, Iran is a much more strict society where women have to cover their heads in public.
Ironically Sunni Muslims are given fewer rights than non-Muslims.

Punishments for minor crimes (though now possibly decreased) such as alcohol consumption are severe. Public executions are frequent. People with personal relationships outside of marriage have to keep their relationships a secret from the state.

Many Iranians regret allowing the Mullahs/Islamists to take over and there are various movements in the country to overthrow the Mullahs.

Iran also lags behind Pakistan in technology and transportation safety, thanks to these sanctions. Recently many incidents of air crashes by various Iranian airliners both government and private have been reported.
This is because of Western sanctions that don't allow Iran to buy modern airliners such as Boeings and Airbuses, forcing the country to use outdated Soviet built aircraft which come with all sorts of technical problems, making them a serious hazard to public safety.

Iran has been able to buy a few second hand Western planes, but very few companies are willing to sell aircraft of high quality whether new or used.
Pakistan on the other hand has been able to maintain an excellent fleet of modern aircraft and purchase new planes.

While on the subject of aviation, it is worth mentioning that Boeing has bought over a hundred million dollars worth of components from Pakistan including engine parts for the GE94 engines in it's Boeing 777 series and other components for it's B767s. This would not be possible under sanctions.

People who argue that Iran has managed to protect it's sovereignty despite being militarily weaker than Pakistan should know that Iran has close military ties to the Russian Federation (RF).
With NATO's heavy presence in Central Asia and the Middle East, the Russian Federation is most likely react sharply to any American, Israeli or joint NATO attack on Iran.

Iran is an important ally for the Russian Federation being rich in energy resources both strategic and militarily.
Western sanctions have opened an opportunity for the RF to sell it's products in the Iranian market as a substitute for all modern technology that Iran is unable to purchase.

Many ignorant hardliner religious Iranians and their admirers ignore the fact that the Iranian government has been silent to Russian atrocities in Chechnya or the fact that Iran sided with Armenia against Azerbaijan in the Karabakh wars.
This is all despite the fact that Azerbaijan is Shia Muslim like Iran and the top officials in the Iranian government ever since the revolution are ethnic Azeris including the supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei.

All these facts must be observed by people before they reconsider the Iranian regime as the tough kid in the neighborhood who stands up to the big bullies.

Pakistanis suck up to Middle Easterners

Given the situation of labor class Pakistanis in Gulf Arab countries where they are often underpaid, not even paid for months, abused, subject to false accusations and racism this important question arises once again: Why are Pakistanis so vigorously pro-Arab and pro-Middle Eastern?

The answer lies in a discomforting fact: Religion. Few are willing to face this fact. Because the last Prophet in Islam happened to be an Arab, many Pan-Islamist Pakistanis, particularly Wahhabbists simply worship Arabs.
This goes against Islamic teachings which openly stress Arabs and non-Arabs are equal in the eyes of the creator.

A fact to note is that Arabs identify themselves as Arabs, Turks as Turks, Persians as Persians. Even the ethnic minorities of Turkey, the Arab states and various ethnic groups of Iran identify with their countries before their religion. And even when they don't, they still identitfy with their individual ethnic group before their religion.

It's only the Pan-Islamist Pakistanis who see themselves as Muslims and identify themselves only as such.

These ignorant Pakistanis don't see the outright racism of Arabs against their people, nor do they realize Arabs would never want to include themselves with Pakistanis in their political movements.

You can often spot Pakistanis in pro-Palestinian demonstrations weather in Arab or Western countries. At times you can see many of them, they're not difficult to spot at a pro-Arab demo.
But never have I seen or heard of Arabs or any other Middle Eastern national at pro-Kashmiri/Pakistani demonstrations.

While Pakistani pilots volunteered and risked their lives in Arab-Israeli wars, no Arab pilot was given permission by his government to engage in direct combat against Indian pilots in the Indo-Pakistani wars.

It just doesn't end there with the Arabs. During the Iran-Iraq war right after the Shia Islamist regime in Iran took over, a lot of Arab and Western countries supported Iraq (Syria sided with Iran I believe), while North Korea and Pakistan were the only known countries to lend military support to Iran.

For instance North Korean missiles were shipped to Karachi and then transported from there into Iran on land through Balochistan under the escort of the Pakistan Army because the Gulf was too dangerous with ships being bombed and sunk from both sides. Once stationed in Iran, these missiles were used to hit Iraqi targets.

Yet today many ignorant and arrogant Iranians ignore this fact and falsely boast that Iran "fought alone" in the war without outside support.
Pakistani scientist Dr Abdul Quadeer Khan even put his life at risk by foolishly sharing nuclear technology with Iran, another fact deliberately ignored by most Iranians.

Instead, the current Iranian regime maintains good relations with India, sponsors protests against the treatment of Shias in Pakistan, when they have never protested against the oppression of their fellow Kashmiri Muslims by India or when Iran is known for it's discriminatory treatment of it's Sunni population. Iran has even lend India airbases within it's borders.

Imagine the reaction by the Arab and the Iranian regimes if Pakistan opened full diplomatic relations with Israel and allowed it to use Pakistani airbases. It's hypocrisy.
Yet all over the Internet and public debates, Pakistanis can be found everywhere, staunchly defending Iran in enriching it's nuclear program.

Another common phenomenon amongst Pakistanis is to claim Arab, Persian and/or Turkish ancestry. Some go as far as to claim direct descent from the Prophet Muhammad himself.
As I explained in another post, there was minor mixing with Arabs, Turko-Mongols (not the ones from Anatolia) and Persians. However, the majority still remain the same.

As the haplogroup maps below show, the distribution of the Semitic Haplogroup J1 (represented by the mutation M267) is very insignificant in Pakistan:




Even the Mughals, who were mostly Mongoloid, belonged to Haplogroup Q and it's subclades, invalidating Pakistani claims of Mughal ancestry.
Sadly enough there are even movements in Pakistan to make Arabic and/or Farsi the national language because some Pakistanis have decided to make Lashkari the scapegoat for all the linguistic tensions in the country and to "bring Pakistanis closer to their Muslim 'brothers,'" which I decried and refuted such bias against Lashkari.

Having good relations with countries in our region is important for political and economic benefits. But this unconditional love and sacrifice for Middle Eastern people will take us Pakistanis nowhere. It will gain us nothing and will only bring us losses.
As an example Pakistan supported the Arabs during the Arab-Israeli wars and sold Iran missiles to aim at Israel.

Israel has been (probably in retaliation) selling India sophisticated weapons technology and actively been training Indian troops in Kashmir. Had Pakistan stayed out of other peoples' conflicts Israel might not have sided with India.
Even in early 2006 Pakistan's government gave three million dollars to the Palestinian Authority when there are millions of Pakistanis sitting on the streets starving and living in worse conditions than many Palestinians.

This money could have gone to improve living conditions for Pakistanis at home (such as providing contraception) or even gone to Pakistani workers in Gulf countries who go unpaid for months and rely on bank loans to survive. Some even commit suicide to escape the unbearable slave-like conditions created by their greedy Arab employees.

Somewhere this inferiority complex towards Middle Eastern people has to stop if Pakistan is to progress as a country.

My impression of Zaid Hamid

When it comes to politics, I like how Zaid Hamid gets defensive of Pakistan, since there is a current "blame Pakistan" hysteria created by NATO loosing in Afghanistan. This hysteria is deliberately enhanced by the Pakistan-obsessed Indian media.

In that sense Mr Hamid can serve as a shield against Indian political propaganda which is quite popular amongst many self-hating prone Pakistanis especially these Bollywood loving ones.
Mr Zaid Hamid's tactics should also be admired. Just by appearing on talk shows, writing to the press and starting his website, he has managed to gain a large number of followers in Pakistan and amongst Pakistanis living abroad.

This large following has brought him more public attention and credit when it comes to politics.
But with all that mentioned, I have an overall negative view of him. As I wrote, I admire him for trying to deflect false propaganda against Pakistan, but his best defense has been a countless number of conspiracy theories, which I really dislike.

What's more is that so many of these theories have no proof or any evidence supporting them.
As an example, he has claimed the killings of Baloch nationalist leaders as a CIA job to destabilize Pakistan. His claims have been that the Pakistan army has nothing to gain by doing something that would go against public sentiment.

Many counter claims can be used against that. The American government needs Pakistan to stay stable, by doing something that would threaten this stability, it would be difficult in getting Pakistan's support to defeat Al-Queda and the Taliban.

Another theory of his which I find despicable is that the 1971 rebellion in Bangladesh against Urdu or Undri domination was entirely an Indian conspiracy to disunite Pakistan. His claim is that Urdu was going to "unite" Muslims of the Subcontinent and that the Indians didn't like that.

There is nothing wrong with having a federal language that can act as a tool for common communication, but asking the Bengalis or anyone to adopt a new language in place of their own is wrong and ethically immoral. No culture or linguistic group will give up such a thing and here Mr Hamid actually tries to justify what happened in Bengal.

The Bangladeshis might have accepted Urdu as a dual language to go with their native Bengali, but to force them to give up their first language resulted in the language movement of Bangladesh.

Zaid Hamid's Pan-Islamist ideologies are also unhealthy for Pakistani youth. Pan-Islamism has always taught Pakistanis to get involved in the problems of other Muslim countries in the Middle East and ignore Pakistan's own problems which are far greater.

Many Middle Eastern people look down upon Pakistanis and consider them "second class Muslims."
Zaid Hamid parades the Israeli and Pakistani air forces almost coming to war, when no Arab air force has come to fight at Pakistan's side or even openly condemned India's genocide in Kashmir.

When it comes to history, Zaid Hamid is your typical Pakistani Pan-Islamist with the same slogan "we 'Muslims' ruled over Indians for a thousand years and brought them civilization".
I have already discussed in this post that the Muslims who ruled over South Asia were not the ancestors of most present day Pakistanis.
But the typical Pan-Islamist Pakistani cannot seem to comprehend this. Instead of identifying with their true ancestors, Pan-Islamist Pakistanis see themselves as "descendants" of those who colonized their forefathers.

Having a person like Mr Hamid using his popularity to spread ignorance in a third world gullible society like Pakistan is a bad influence from my point of view.
I even come across "patriotic" Pakistanis who quote him to win arguments as if his word is the absolute truth.

It reminds me of my childhood days in Pakistan where children at school would quote the Quran to win arguments as if it's something unquestionable.
The same pattern of making Zaid Hamid into an unquestionable icon is dangerous.
No leader no matter how loved must be questioned in every teaching or order he/she gives.

Even as I a Pakistani nationalist am critical of Jinnah whom I see as my icon and hero.
Though Mr Jinnah was a great man in my eyes, he was not perfect and made many mistakes that cannot and should not be forgotten.

Mr Zaid Hamid deserves the same criticism and in my overall view he is a bad influence on Pakistanis. The worst part about people like Gandhi or Zaid Hamid that their good qualities completely cloud up their negative side like a curtain.
This is something that only leads people in the wrong direction.