It’s become almost acceptable to criticise Pakistan in any given context. The cricket team beat England yesterday in the test match, but there is always an underlying thought that some of the players may be taking bribes or taking performing enhancing drugs. How about British Pakistanis? They hate the indigenous British and promote a culture of radical Islam. There is no smoke without fire and some of these stories contain some truth, but issues become regurgitated every time Pakistan appears in the news.
The seasonal monsoons have devastated vast swathes of the Northern Pakistan and have continued to destroy the lives of up to 20 million people, but what line has the media taken in reporting this story? It is standard. In comparison to the devastating 2004 Asian Tsunami or the Haitian earthquake this year, donors are reluctant to part with their cash to help a huge number of helpless people, They are all living in poverty with no food for them or their children. Some fear corruption i.e. the Government’s back pocket (only 2% of the country’s budget is spent on education).
The media have led with stories of militant groups giving aid and the pictures show doctors with long beards helping the sick. The fact aid may not be coming through ordinary avenues does not mean that they will turn to the Taliban. As the excellent journalist Mohammed Hanif points out, the man filmed swimming across the river with a chicken tied to his head was not doing it so he could partake in a bloody fight in a country he knows nothing of, he was swimming across to save his chicken. These families only export food from the land they have farmed for centuries and nothing else. We may correctly assume in most circumstances the worse of the nation’s government and military but these innocent men, women and children only care for their next meal, not the Taliban.
The seasonal monsoons have devastated vast swathes of the Northern Pakistan and have continued to destroy the lives of up to 20 million people, but what line has the media taken in reporting this story? It is standard. In comparison to the devastating 2004 Asian Tsunami or the Haitian earthquake this year, donors are reluctant to part with their cash to help a huge number of helpless people, They are all living in poverty with no food for them or their children. Some fear corruption i.e. the Government’s back pocket (only 2% of the country’s budget is spent on education).
The media have led with stories of militant groups giving aid and the pictures show doctors with long beards helping the sick. The fact aid may not be coming through ordinary avenues does not mean that they will turn to the Taliban. As the excellent journalist Mohammed Hanif points out, the man filmed swimming across the river with a chicken tied to his head was not doing it so he could partake in a bloody fight in a country he knows nothing of, he was swimming across to save his chicken. These families only export food from the land they have farmed for centuries and nothing else. We may correctly assume in most circumstances the worse of the nation’s government and military but these innocent men, women and children only care for their next meal, not the Taliban.
Good to read you at your most perspicacious. I think the challenging economic environment is also a contributory factor, but your willingness to tackle the salient issues with independence of thought and intellectual flexibility is to be admired. Why, though, does international attention only focus on these areas when there is a humanitarian emergency, but the plight of the refugees in Gaza, for example, or poverty more generally is accepted as business as usual? I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts.
ReplyDeleteI shall be writing on this soon.
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