If you look at you will find that all the hot spots showing signs of a Muslim rising have been neutralised.
LAHORE: This is with reference to Khaled Ahmed’s article “Can we restart the Kashmir ‘thing’?” (December 19). If you look at the whole scenario, particularly after the collapse of the Soviet Union, you will find that all the hot spots showing signs of a Muslim rising have been neutralised. Palestine, Chechnya and Kashmir are all such examples. Different tactics have been adopted to achieve this but the ultimate truth remains that these regions have been pacified for the foreseeable future. A common factor, however, has been portraying the freedom fighters of all these places as monsters. In fact, at present the whole Muslim world has been forced to make feeble defences about their non-involvement in “terror” activities. Khaled Ahmed has tried to document the timeline of the Kashmir issue vis-a-vis Pakistan and its policy on the issue.
His conclusion seems to be that only Pakistan is interested in the settlement of this issue while the whole world now stands against us. He, however, fails to address the opinion of the Kashmiris. The reality is that Pakistan is faced with a raging war in its neighbourhood which has logistic support from within our country and the unrest fuelled in Balochistan and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa is aimed at the very heart of the issue. Under the given circumstances Pakistan’s own survival is at stake so any talk of rekindling the Kashmir issue is, at best, only talk.
Moazzam Salim
Published in The Express Tribune, December 21st, 2010.
