Why should the United States or any other country in the world help us when we absolutely refuse to help ourselves? PHOTO: FILE
The finance minister asked the Americans for money because the country is running dangerously low on foreign exchange reserves. Yet, these reserves could be very rapidly built up again were the government to simply live up to its end of the agreements it has signed with the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and other multilateral lenders. The conditions that these institutions have set for their assistance may be politically difficult to achieve, but they only serve Pakistan’s own economic interest in the long run. Why should the United States give us money when we refuse to access a pile of money that is ours for the taking if we simply decide to make the tough choices needed to help ourselves?
The US government should, of course, release the funds it has promised. But that does not mean we should not make any effort to put our own house in order. We refuse to help ourselves on the economic front and refuse to tackle our own terrorism problem, but we malign as an enemy any person — Pakistani or foreign — who points out that fact to us: our misery is almost entirely of our own making. Yes, Pakistan needs foreign exchange reserves right now. But a significant amount of foreign cash is ours for the taking if the Nawaz Administration drags itself out of its own policy malaise and does what it promised its global lenders it would do. We are not beggars because we have to be. We are beggars because we choose to be.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 9th, 2013.
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@Vikram In a way you are right. It is indeed the violation of the BASIC right of citizens, when they are not allowed to enter their own country. Even today every Bengalistani is, by birthright, a citizen of the Islamic Republic. Pakistan has a fundamental problem: it is so near to India and so far from God. The intermingling of the Paki people with the inhabitants of Hind, have indeed in many ways deprived them of their sense of values and morality. Let us hope that your reminder of their present moral depravity will awaken then, and they once become the people who were not found wanting by fate three times on the planes of Panipat.
@Usman: "Even if we become worse than Afghan, we will still support Kashmir morally"
How exactly is Pakistan going bankrupt for Kashmir? Pakistanis are collecting millions of dollars from Muslim Ummah and Muslim countries for so called Kashmir cause.
Pakistan has destroyed Afghanistan a secular Muslim country by sending non-State actors (called taliban) to make it Islamic Emirates of Afghanistan.
Pakistan army killed 3 million Muslims and Hindus in East Pakistan and raped scores of Muslim women there.
Pakistan government has failed to bring Pakistani Bihari Muslims stranded in Bangladesh since 1971.
@Syed Jalal Kashmiri:
Dont worry brother,we are not scared of going bankrupt to support Kashmir.
Even if we become worse than Afghan, we will still support Kashmir morally
@Syed Jalal Kashmiri: You are correct - Pakistan has become nearly bankrupt because of its Kashmir policy. Peace in South Asia is not based on a small place called Kashmir, but on the policies of Islamic and mullah sponsored government of Pakistan.
@ Syed Jalal Kashmiri : Huh ????
@Syed Jalal Kashmiri: Till today I did not know that Pakistan's financial and economic problems were because of the reasons mentioned in your post:. Thanks for adding to my knowledge:) I hope and pray that you are made the finance minister of Pakistan.
ET mods - in what way is the comment by @Syed Jalal Kashmiri: related o Editorial? How did it pass your comment guideline?
+1 - spot on.
Kashmir is for Kashmiris, not for India. India’s problem has been their disrespect of our religion, our culture, our language, and our independence. Kashmir is not a problem, Kashmiris know exactly what they want. It is India, and more than a billion brainwashed Indians, which do not respect the dignity, honor, and humanity of Kashmiri people. Kashmir never was, nor ever will be a part of India. Kashmir is part of the Islamic world forever, and closer to Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iran than ever will be to India. Indians do not belong in Kashmir. You will have to leave one day, you cannot suppress the will of the Kashmiri people forever.