I believe that honour is an extremely isolationist concept and the army has a lot of questions to answer for us.
GERMANY: I believe that honour is an extremely isolationist concept and the army has a lot of questions to answer for us. Recently, army chief General Kayani said that the nation’s honour and integrity would not be traded in exchange for prosperity.
That statement is very disturbing. Whose honour is he talking about? The generals? There are millions of Pakistanis who have escaped to other countries for prosperity, sometimes at the cost of dignity and honour. Many more are willing to join them. Many more are living under the poverty line; all they want is a better standard of living.
Perhaps he should move to live in a hut without electricity or toilets and earn a few hundred rupees a day to find out what honour and dignity is.
I am sure the top brass did not know about Osama bin Laden’s whereabouts, but some at the lower levels must have. They must be traced and punished and given early retirement. What the world is afraid of is that one day those sympathetic to al Qaeda’s ideology might get into the driving seat in the army and government and that would be a catastrophe for the world at large, particularly for the liberal society in Pakistan.
Sharif Lone
Published in The Express Tribune, May 9th, 2011.
