Who Will Decide Country’s New Direction?

United States President Obama has said that although he appreciates Pakistan’s support, he would not hesitate to carry out another mission (such as the one in Abbottabad) if he were to find out new information about the hiding places of al-Qaida and Taliban members. Additionally, he said he will use the information found at Osama bin Laden’s compound to find other terrorists. Although Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Gilani congratulated America on the success of Operation Geronimo, other high-ranking officials in the government collectively condemned the attack and even passed a resolution against it. The contradictory viewpoints of Pakistani lawmakers and politicians prove that Pakistan has no idea in which direction it is going. Who, then, will decide our country’s new direction?

The demands of leaders of religious groups in this country are not only improper but also impractical, given the global atmosphere. I mean to say that the demands of these groups, which include terminating relations with the U.S., cutting off NATO’s supply line and embarking on an anti-American agenda may provide solutions to some of our problems temporarily, but will not be effective and workable in the long-run, because in today’s world, international relations are not built solely on power and aggression. Rather, they are built on global trade and economic interdependence.

Look at India. During the Cold War, it calmly worked its way toward success and prosperity. It continues to remain on this path. Pakistan, on the other hand, was at first involved in the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan against the Soviets. Now it is stuck in another war against the terrorists. So busy was our country in solving the problems of other countries, it overlooked all the problems that it is now facing. Our politicians are engaged in childish, irrational arguments and have not learned these painful lessons from the past. They are not prepared to deal with our present problems. As I write this article, the Pakistani Naval Station in Karachi has become a target of terrorist activity. We are seeing fires and blasts there. Some of our expensive planes have been destroyed, and police and paramilitary officers have been killed.

Pakistan is not learning anything from its previous mistakes and cannot decide what its direction and goals should be. Just as it is our army’s duty to guard our borders, so it is our politicians’ collective duty to guard our values. I won’t hesitate in saying that we never truly became one nation. We never really protected this country that Quaid-e-Azam gave us 64 years ago. Given our situation, we need to work through our problems independently. We need to rely on ourselves, rather than ask other people for help. Let us sit down and assess all our domestic and foreign policies of the past 25 years. Although 64 years is not a long period in a nation’s life, many other countries that are just as young as we are have made much more progress than we have. They did so by implementing policies and laws that would help them resolve their own country’s problems, not another country’s. In order for us to go in the right direction, we will need to take actions that benefit our country, not another one.