READING AGAIN the NOTE Chishty WHATSAPPED Me in MAY

Some things are happening good –for our future generations though. And many things are happening bad for the status quo. The ‘deep divide in opinion’ nested in the note you sent me reflects telegraphically the ‘denial gap’. It is being exploited by vested interests for understandable reasons.

IRSHAD SALIM – This morning I was forwarded with a note from a friend in Riyadh. It said: “Forwarded as received – Copied from a post”. And, hardly concerned with the veracity of the post and its author, I understood that my friend agreed or sort of agreed with it. That made two of us –after reading the note.

To me, the opinion in the post did not matter. What ‘agitated’ (not irritated) me though, is that to my mind the note bytes swung between observations and inferences, opinions and analyses, hearsays and facts. On a big picture (rooftop view) the note pointed out things sans naming persons, personalities and or dates, etc. Bottom line: It was a food for thought like it or not.

We’re definitely not planting rice any more. Trees? Yes. Education? Sort of. In binary sense, we are for sure beyond zero (0) holistically speaking. That’s a ‘developing story’ and not a Geo ticker okay?

I hence forwarded it to some (two sets of friends- political and apolitical). As expected, both sets texted me back with ‘who wrote this’, rather than giving an aye or nay or something in between.

Did they agree, disagree with the post, or go into thinking or over-thinking mode, or try to read the author’s mind. I don’t know. But I picked up “deep divide of opinions” as key set of words in the note.

Chishty is one of the many concerned Pakistanis overseas who keeps throwing at me such notes for info and comments. I dared to comment openly.

Just so you know Chishty, there’s a parallax effect in Pakistan: many of us may be confused with the train moving forward (even slow), and the station called status quo going backward (even slow). Probably this observation may ‘agitate’ your intellect too just as course-correction bits and pieces are agitating others across highly polarized divide. Some things are happening good –for our future generations though. And many things are happening bad for the status quo. The ‘deep divide in opinion’ nested in the note you sent me reflects telegraphically the ‘denial gap’. It is being exploited by vested interests for understandable reasons –in my opinion.

We’re definitely not planting rice any more. Trees? Yes. Education? Sort of. In binary sense, we are for sure beyond zero (0) holistically speaking. That’s a ‘developing story’ and not a Geo ticker okay?

Keep forwarding the note please. Here’s the full note:

“Aoa. They tried to destroy Pakistan with every move but this Is The Worst; They tried to destroy Pakistan. They tried with terrorism. They could not.They tried with religious divide. They could not. They tried with economic espionage. They could not. They tried with breaking Baluchistan. They could not. They tried with ethnic divide in Karachi, they could not. They tried with flooding Afghanistan with likes of Khulbushan Yadev, they could not. They started worldwide maligning campaigns against Pakistan they could not. Then they probably came to a conclusion that the best way to destroy a country is not through weapons but through creating a deep divide of opinions. It’s like giving a gun to a child and telling him it’s a toy. That gun is the social media and most of us are those children firing bullets of our divided opinions. Having varied opinions is our right. Having opposing views is a learning experience. Having personal likes and beliefs is a sign of freedom, but if having all of the above is only with an intention to prove the other wrong and insult them, it is neither a right nor a privilege. It has come to such a divide that if you support the PML-N, you are considered anti-establishment. If you support the Judiciary’s decision you are considered an Army stooge. If you belong to PTI,  then you must belong to a party backed by the Army and the Judiciary both. It has come to a point that it reminds me of the MOST CLEVER sentence ever uttered by a politician in the history of politics, GEORGE BUSH: “EITHER  YOU are WITH US or AGAINST us”. And the world was destroyed in the next decade after we heard that sentence. The world saw absolute destruction, chaos, mayhem, murders,terrorism, divide, polarization, prejudice and every negative human emotion one can think of. The more you think of that sentence uttered by the (former) President of America, the more one has an opportunity to reflect and learn from it. It was the most perfect sentence coined by a team of linguists with an absolute knowledge of human psychology. It worked. One had to choose a side. The word did, and the world got destroyed. But now we have a choice in Pakistan. We do not need to choose a side. We do not need to disrespect each other. We do not need to think that if one is a PML-N supporter then he is anti-army or judiciary and vice versa. Let’s not be divided. Let’s respect each other’s likes and dislikes. Let’s not try to convert them into the believers of our points of views. This is THE TIME that us Pakistanis need to be united. We are being attacked and its a Psychological Warfare accompanied by Information Operations. The worst kind of war. Let’s promise each other that we will not be divided. We will live with difference of opinions and respect those differences. Pakistan Zindabad.”

(The writer is a business consultant, analyst and presently based in Islamabad)

First published in mid-May 2019.