VANCOUVER, CANADA: This is with reference to Saleem H Ali’s article of October 18 titled “Balkanisation of Pakistan”.
With regards to the writer’s mentioning the ‘Yugo’ automobile that was made in the former Yugoslavia, perhaps he is unaware that there was a joke about it for many years. In fact, the local people would say that the de-fogger on the car’s rear window was not to de-fog the screen but to keep one’s hands warm. This was explained that since the car would often break down, and had to be pushed, the de-fogger would come in handy that way.
On a more serious note, there were three major groups in the former Yugoslavia: Serbs, Croats, and Bosniaks. They essentially speak the same language and they are all Slavs by race. However, the main difference between them was of religion in that the Serbs followed the Orthodox Church, the Croats followed the Catholic Church and most Bosniaks are Muslim.
Even the cuisine of the area and to a great extent, the culture was similar. However, all of these common and shared traits were not enough of a binding force. In Pakistan, the opposite is in fact the case because religion is the same of most Pakistanis, but their differences are in ethnicity, language and so on. I would say that on this count, the article’s argument suffered.
MK
Published in The Express Tribune, October 19th, 2011.
