Pakistan - the land of the "pure"

I write this with numerous apologies to those who might think I am exaggerating.

August 14, 1947 was supposed to be the dawn of happiness and joy for millions of Muslims of the Sub-continent, when their struggle met a logical end in the form of a new state, which they so-proudly named PAKISTAN or "land of the pure".

But over the years, this land has become so impure and dirty that the stench it emanates is far awful than that of the decomposed body of an orphan who has died on the streets for quite a while, but insensitive passers-by still keep throwing money at him thinking he is alive and just acting to get a penny or two.

I still remember the words I read of an American lawyer in the Aimal Kansi case, who stood tall in a US court and said with a snub that "Pakistanis would sell their mothers for 20 dollars". Furious as it may make seem, those words fit so well today on us Pakistanis, but we don't seem to be learning from our ignominious mistakes.

Handing over our own countrymen to outsiders for a couple of thousands of dollars and earning millions out of the trade (like the "enlightened" general Pervez Musharraf said in his autobiography) is one thing, but giving away our sisters, daughters and mothers to infidels so they can satiate their barbarism is something that should throw us deep down the abyss of shame and humiliation.

One such sister in case is Dr Afia Siddiqui or prisoner No 650, previously held in a US-run prison in Bagram, Afghanistan, for over five years. She has gone through every form of torture and cruelty that a sick and sadist mind can invent. But to our utter disgust, no Pakistani leader – secular, liberal or religious – has yet taken up her issue, while people in the British parliament can feel Dr Siddiqui's pain from thousands of miles away. That is the humanity that they have and we lack.

We as a nation have failed badly and as a state have flopped to the extent of surpassing all yardsticks of the meaning of the word. What is the use of a country when it cannot protect your dignity; when it cannot feed your family; where you can be kidnapped by your own intelligence agencies and traded for money to foreigners? And once you are in their hands, you can be sure no one will have the spine to speak for you. You will be lucky enough only if you are a British, American or Australian citizen. Otherwise, yours will be the only voice you will be hearing for a long, long time.

Pakistan has from day one been treated as a shooting range for many outside forces – the British, Arabs, Americans and the Chinese. Everyone has tested their strengths here, but victims of our own hospitable culture, we have never let them feel that they were fighting their war. We always owned those adventures as our own even if it was our blood they were so mercilessly spilling; our leaders telling their foreign masters that it is "as much our fight as it is theirs".

Time is surely an excellent judge and today I am sorry to say that perhaps the making of Pakistan wasn't as fruitful as it should have been; though it might be too early for such emotional statements, and I hope I am proved wrong.

But for now, it seems the huge sacrifices and numerous murders and rapes of the Muslims of the Sub-continent, who wanted a glimpse of this "promised land", have all gone in vain. Pakistan has turned into the "land of the impure". I just hope we wake up before we reach the edge of the cliff.