A critical review and response to “What does Pakistan want in Afghanistan?”

OliKolm

By Liaquat Ali Hazara

Liaquat Ali Hazara

When we look at the history of Pakistan since its birth, we understand that a particular autocratic mindset has always to tried to keep the general public at bay in terms of having the reign in their own hands. With the time passing, this cunningness of deliberation gained momentum to leave the majority of stakeholders being ruled and taken-granted at all time. Just after a year of its independence, Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah – the Founder of the country – lost his life apparently due to poor health contrary to reliable notions that he was sent to Ziarat, Balochistan intentionally to speed up the deterioration of his health causing his ultimate demise. The assassination of Liaquat Ali Khan – one of the founders of Pakistan and the then Prime Minister – remains clandestinely mysterious to date, languishing in cold storage indefinitely.
The ill-plotted schemes against this country have been engineered and successfully executed but, alas, no one ever dared to dig deeper to find out the real perpetrators behind them. The debacle of Dhaka in 1971, the lineal murder of the Bhutto family, the trio system of education, ie., Urdu, English and Madrassah system, the mysterious assassination of Nawab Akber Bugti, the genocide of Hazaras in Pakistan are some of the major issues which have never been probed thoroughly to unveil the conspirators.
One particular faction which is loyal to extremist or Wahabi-form of government finds its place at the heart of decision-making and power-sharing process to divert from the principal wholesome policy. They are on the pay-roll of the Inter Services Intelligence to accomplish imported tasks and the list has been carefully drafted to include the inter-communal and faith hypocrisy and hate mongers and the ardent supporters of Wahabism. The loathsome and mean people have taken the entire Pakistani society hostage who execute their assignments on the instruction of others especially their Saudi masters.
In continuation of the caption of this article, I, similarly, came across the recent article of Najmuddin A Sheikh – former Pakistani foreign secretary and ambassador – who is otherwise a learned man, has tried to misrepresent the historical facts. His article titled, “What does Pakistan want in Afghanistan” has narrowly focused on scenarios pertaining to Afghanistan societal structure and ethnic rivalries.
I mostly wonder as to what make them write something unreliable and disgusting which cannot harm anyone except themselves. In addition, he has completely over-lapsed his intellectual and statesmanship capability to the extent that he deliberately attempted to cajole his readers. Although, a proportionate component of the elite class of the Pakistani society are the paid employees of its intelligence agency such as the ISI or they have close links with the latter to co-execute the routine functions including their writings on various journals, local dailies, international newspapers and other channels, one may misperceive the heightened political, social and moral stature of the columnists, writers and authors.
The above-mentioned columnist Najmuddin A Sheikh has left no stone unturned to dilute the historical facts of Afghan society. For instance, in paragraph second of the article, he described, “ In 1992, we tried to get the Mujahideen parties to agree to a power sharing arrangement pending elections. This effort was frustrated partly by the personal ambitions of the Mujahideen leaders and partly because the right ethnic balance could not be struck — the Iranians stressed that 30 per cent of the posts should go to the Shias even while the Hazaras, the principal Shia group in Afghanistan, represented no more than eight per cent of the population and Hikmatyar, our protégé, refused to accept even temporarily a lead role for Rabbani’s Tajik Jamaat-e-Islami.
This is particularly of interest to mention that he was serving Pakistan as ambassador to Iran between 1992-1994 whereas, the word WE has been elusively mentioned which must have been broadly elucidated to convey the explicit meaning. In the following sentence, he mentioned an ideal deal among various Afghan factions and ethnicities could be finalized as Iran wanted 30% of the posts should go to the Shi’ites especially the Hazaras who are predominantly Shias.

He has skilfully tried to fool the readers to portray a completely negative image of the ethnic Hazaras of Afghanistan but I have thorough study of the Hazaras and, at present, in the process of completing a book on them, in that the Afghan history is the witness that the Iranian authorities have never helped financially or otherwise the Hazaras of Afghanistan even in imminent dangers of ethnic cleansing by the Taliban, how on earth Iran would boldly stand for them? There are credible proofs that Iran has always supported the ethnic Tajik even in the time of war and peace in Afghanistan. Similarly, the anti-Hazara factions such as Sheikh Asif Mohsini – an ethnic Pashtun Shi’ite Cleric and pro-Iranian – and Muhammad Akbari were at the forefront to fight against the Hazaras’ mainstream political struggle of Hizb-e-Wahdat Islami which was led by Abdul Ali Mazari. Needless to say that between 1992-1995, there were eight pro-Iranian political movements excluding Hizb-e-Wahdat Islami of Mazari.
This is pertinent to mention that there are over 0.7 million ethnic Hazaras living in Quetta and with 0.3 million in Karachi let along other scattered cities of Pakistan whose real strength remain unascertained. The Hazaras of Pakistan have the highest ratio of education in overall Pakistan whose youth are educated to degree level with over 90% literacy rate. The ambassador has completely overlooked the mammoth contributions of the Hazaras who have sacrificed their lives for the sake of the country. General Muhammad Musa Khan – the then Commander-in-Chief of Pak army and the Hero of 1965 and 1971 war, Air Marshal (Retd) Sharbat Ali Changezi, the female Hazara pilot Saira Batool, Olympian boxer Ibrar Hazara are a few examples of this ethnicities contribution for the federation of Pakistan. There are other Hazara calibre who are profoundly working for the development and progress of Pakistan but the columnist has kept them aside to meet the ulterior motives of his masters.
In yet another attempt, his racial prejudice completely clasped his intellectual quotient to declare the Hazaras’ population to mere eight percent. I firmly believe that Mr. Sheikh must not have developed all the grey hair in the sunlight to blindfold from the truth to the extent that a substantial proportion be mentioned with bias. I must refer him to the Bonn Accord which endorsed the Hazaras 19-20% of the Afghan population contrary to the claims of Hazara leaders to be between 25-30% of the whole. A war-torn and poverty-stricken country has never seen census in the country since the Saur Revolution, hence, there is no universal parameters to gauge the exact number or acceptable ratio. One must find it hard enough to acknowledge the fact that the columnist and the former ambassador lacked the knowledge about one particular ethnicity.
With the years’ perpetual policy of turning Afghanistan into a hotbed of ethnic rivalries, subjugation and persecution have already alienated the sympathies of Afghan nationals who love to hate our philosophy of Pan-Islamism, the bond of Muslim Ummah and brotherly relationship. The typical Pakistani establishment mindset has injected infinite amount of communal hatred, ethnic prejudice and factional disharmony in Afghanistan to the extent that they have noticeably tarnished the self-esteem and patriotic dignity of a layman Pakistan.
This is high time that the intellectuals, esteemed academia, columnists, writers and politicians started realigning their policy in accordance with the true spirit of national interest of Pakistan in order that the country’s strategic importance be reinforced for the common good of the people.