Pakistan - A Child Of Incest?
Satish Kumar
Mohammed Hanif in a recent interview:
Q. Numerous obits on Pakistan have been written. Is the country
really about to implode, as the doomsayers suggest, or is it carrying
along just fine?
A. Pakistan implodes almost on a daily basis, then gets bored with its
own miseries and goes to sleep hoping to wake up just fine. That has
never quite happened. Someone recently said, what do you expect from a
country where the Father of the Nation (M A Jinnah) happens to be a
brother to the Mother of the Nation (Fatima Jinnah). So it's a bit of
a dysfunctional family but then we tell ourselves, which family isn't?
Q. How do Pakistanis view India? The elite view? The mass view?
A. Pakistanis used to view India as a poor elder brother who would
pick on the younger brother to feel good about himself. Now they see
India as the newly rich older brother who hasn't lost any of its old
habits. The elite feel competitive and want to maintain a kind of
status quo. They only violate it when they can manage to go to
Bangalore for a cheap heart bypass. Our masses are too busy trying to
make a living and trying to find a safe mosque to pray in.