Move Forward Pakistan

There is nothing constant in today's world, hence the growth of 24/7 news media. In the United States, almost all the news channels update news every 15 minutes, in addition to running a non-stop news ticker at the bottom of their screens. Newspapers around the world constantly update their online editions to stay relevant and up-to-date. All this is done to attract viewers and customers and obviously customers gravitate towards papers or other sources of information that are in sync with their own ideology. Yet, it is not impossible to find fair, middle of the road news being presented objectively when it comes to major sources of information. Regretfully, this is not the case in Pakistan.

If one leaves the English press aside, it is too painful to write, or dare I say read anything in Pakistan's Urdu press. It seems that there is a race in Urdu press to see who can win in not being objective. Or the Urdu press is only staffed with people who are unable to separate their own nationalist or religious feelings from their official duties – to be neutral.

This is not journalism, this is non-sense.

It is both tragic and comic that Pakistan's (Urdu) press, political pundits, social, military, and other so-called analysts constantly opining on every private channel are stuck in the past. More amusingly, it seems that everyone in the country is one-dimensional. Nobody, and believe me when I say this, nobody seems to get above the most superficial and weirdest possible analysis , India, Israel and America are conspiring to harm Pakistan. Apparently, these countries have nothing else to do, funny, right? Believe me, people in Pakistan believe this to be accurate and this is not funny.

Every society is full of conspiracy theorists. Every society has people who write and say things that are not only wrong, but also make average citizens nervous and at times yes, nauseous, but these people don't get to appear on major T.V. channels and these people definitely don't get to write daily columns in major papers, except of course in Pakistan. In Pakistan, it seems that almost everyone associated with Urdu press lacks the ability to be objective, fair or God forbid even balanced. Nope, you won't get that at all. What you will get actually is selected reading of the material which would be discredited everywhere else, and based on these readings, you will get bizarre predictions. For example, these so-called analysts, pundits, and other folks have discovered that Pakistan, believe it or not, is the fortress of Islam (literal translation from Urdu) and that everyone, including Pakistan's neighbors are scared of Pakistan's nuclear technology, so, of course, they are conspiring against Pakistan, and by extension, yes, are you ready for this? Drum roll..against Islam. Phew, there you go! In other words, everyone is against Pakistan, because Pakistan has atomic bomb and these forces (forces of evil in their words) will never be able to do anything, because, well, from here on, it becomes too bizarre to even write. Surfice to say, the layers of conspiracy get thicker and thicker and the irony is that most of the people buy into this, wholeheartedly. These people forget, conveniently, that Soviet Union was full of superior atomic technology, the kind of technology we can't even dream about, and yet, Soviet Union degenerated into piece, despite being a superpower. No, don't tell these nut jobs anything; they would declare you agents of foreign forces, just because you tried to tell the truth.

Talk about self delusion and denial.

There is no question that there are forces working to destabilize Pakistan, but these forces are not external, nope. These are people inside Pakistan and we just know them by a different name. Taliban, yes, the same Taliban Pakistan itself created and funded and now, the monster is determined to bite the hand that fed him for so very long. But, even after every suicide bombing inside Pakistan by these nut jobs, the media, both print and electronic, but especially electronic (with one or two exceptions) start giving this impression that (hope you won't laugh, because it is very funny) this terrorism is being carried out by the C.I.A, Mosad and of course, R.A.W.

Seldom have I seen anything this off the mark.

Instead of tackling their internal problems of water, sewerage, electricity, gas, petrol, pollution, lack of economic opportunities, religious fundamentalism, ethnic divide and so forth, people in Pakistan huff and puff about India, Israel and America. Instead of fixing their own house, people of Pakistan criticize everyone else. Instead of taking responsibility of their own failures, people of Pakistan constantly shift blame for their own mess. So much so, that people in Pakistan have started saying that if only Zardari and Nawaz Sharif bring back their money from abroad, Pakistan's problem would end.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry at this level of bizarre convictions.

I wish people of Pakistan could understand one simple fact. No one can, and no one will fight their fight, they have to do it themselves. If not, in couple of years, another general will wake up and declare Pakistan and Islam in danger and we will once again, witness the journey, backward journey that is.

Bilal Qureshi

Washington, DC