Pakistan should reconstitute its national identity and society along pluralistic and secular lines.
OXFORD, UK: This is with reference to Ejaz Haider’s article of July 12 titled “The missing pencil” where the writer seems to be arguing the case for talking to the Taliban.
If only Pakistan can reconstitute its national identity and society along pluralistic and secular lines, so that all its citizens — irrespective of religion or ethnicity — are treated as equal under the law, there won’t be any need to fight with India, or play the ‘great game’ in South Asia anymore. All the states in the region can then peacefully coexist and realise the benefits of free trade and commerce through cooperation and friendship. But this can never happen until Pakistan changes its own narrow identity and national thinking first. And that is what thinkers like the writer ought to be pressing for.
SS
Published in The Express Tribune, July 13th, 2011.
