Najam Sethi on a Liberal Pakistan

Sounds too good to be true!

Now, thankfully, positive change is in the air. Nawaz Sharif was handpicked and nurtured by the military three decades ago to do its bidding. He duly became the nemesis of the PPP, in the bargain getting into bed with the religious parties, passing Islamic laws and promoting jihad against India. Now he is all for peace with India, wants to stop all jihad across borders, is waking up to action against sectarian parties and religious terrorists and is embarrassed and hampered by the Islamic laws passed on his watch. The military, no less, sees the primary and immediate national security threat as emanating from internal religious extremism and not externally from archenemy India. Unfortunately, however, Imran Khan’s PTI is still muddying the waters by continuing to resist the development of a new national narrative of state and society based on modern notions of liberal and secular democracy.

Limits of self-criticism

Kaalchakra wrote in a comment on pakteahouse.net, about the boundaries within which Pakistanis must remain:

“One can ‘criticise’ Pakistan, and promote ‘self-introspection’. But to not fall “beyond the pale” one must offer ‘solutions’ that call for at least one of the following three –

(1) more Pakistani military, to protect Pakistan against a rapacious India

(2) more Islam, to save Pakistan against the ill effects of Hinduism

(3) more Jinnah, to make Pakistan different from what Hindu/Gandhian leadership would want it to be.

The less a person buys into this living TNT as Pakistan’s universe of solutions, the more unacceptable/sell out the person becomes.”

(TNT = Two-Nation Theory)