IRSHAD SALIM — Pakistan’s Army Chief Gen. Bajwa says terrorism is a global threat and has the potential to destabilize the region, and therefore needs a well-coordinated response. He met with Iraqi Naval Commander who appreciated Pakistan’s role in regional stability.
The General’s observation means that Global War on Terror (GWOT) remains a work in progress, and that the region which continues to be a hot spot, requires international attention with all the bells and whistles including but not limited to damage controls, failure management, dollars & cents (of course) and sense & sensibilities (obviously).
Definitely, dollars & cents would mean a lot, but sense & sensibility, particularly within — IS THE starter. In an attempt to understand the General’s ‘enduring stability in the region’ narrative he shared publicly in 2019 or 2020, last year I attempted to make a visual and figured all this is not possible without peace within.
We are now at a year later milepost; the project ‘democracy and dollar’ management is keeping things going. Two quotes shared on WhatsApp by two thought-leaders though, add up to a festering issue which keeps the man on the street generally worried, and has helped Imran Khan successfully make a rallying cry out of it countrywide.
My Grandma used to say, “Get your acts together”, every time I shared my school performance report with her, and she would give me a ‘chawanni’ (quarter) to knock my socks off.
Decades later I found out that Grandma was referring to (in her Bhojpuri soft communication) the import of Human Index and Performance Index.
That both gentlemen (thought leaders) shared the two quotes suggests we as a nation need to get our acts together (Human Index) for peace within (troika yin yang), and for ‘well coordinated response’ (Performance Index) toward ‘terrorism’, which Bajwa Sahib says is a ‘global threat’.
Pakistan Zindabad,
Karachi (Aug. 12, 2022)
