Pakistan is a failed state from the very beginning. It's constitution, which protects feudal 'zamindari' (landlord, war lord) system guarantees that. The situation got worse with General Zia who converted that Muslim majority country to a fanatic Islamic state based on hypocrisy, lies and subjugation of its own poor people.
Now the hereditary rich Pakistanis control almost everything, enjoys all the state privileges while the poor ones are left with Islamic terrorism to sustain themselves- financially and as a source of anxiety reduction and inspiration to face the next day of humiliation and brutality by those Pakistani elites.
Now Pakistani elites need to decide if they want the country to survive at all or implode with anarchy, violence and Islamic extremism. They simply can not go to the western countries (who are increasingly reluctant to take them) after destroying that country and leaving millions to die there.
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Majority of Pashtuns in Pakistan, Afghanistan and in Diaspora support #PTM demand of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to publicly share the painful stories of orphans, widows and missing and murdered #Pashtuns . Examples/Lessons can be learned from South Africa/Mandela's TRC AND Canada's TRC against the missing and murdered indigenous women.
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The idea that their military is doing anything to dtem the Taliban is laughable. A better idea would be to start kidnapping senior officers families. Let the have a taste of terrorism.
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“A lot of this is self-censorship, but you can’t ask individual journalists to be crusaders for free expression,” said Saroop Ijaz, a representative for the advocacy group Human Rights Watch in Pakistan.?
Weird to read this in the NYT!
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I empathize with the persons affected.
Extra-judicial executions of unarmed young people by police is rampant in the United States.
And when a cop murders an unarmed young person, the cop almost always gets away with it.
In countries dominated by religious fanatics, regardless of the religion, unjustified gun violence is rampant.
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Men, all men. Well, there does seem to be a place for women, but some are standing, sitting in hiding tents, where this religion seems to put women.
I won't take any of them seriously, until they give women some rights. Equal,
well, you can't expect the Middle Ages to suddenly burst into the 21st Century, can you? The Pashtun's want equality, give it to the woman first!! Then, again,,
the Pakistani army isn't something to admire either.
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Sanna Ejaz a Pashtun woman and human rights activist was MC of the 60,000 gathering. Gulalai Ismail one of the global rights champion was mobilizing young women and men. Nobel Laureate Malala Yousafzai supported their just demands of bringing missing and murdered women and men to courts.
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Please don't use Malala as an example of anything relating to
equality in Pakistan. She was fighting for rights and was nearly murdered for doing that. You've no right to use someone who nearly lost her life as example of women's equality in Pakistan, or any Islamic theocracy.
Be the revolution you seek. Take women out of separation, wearing tents to hide themselves, give them the education they seek, and then talk of the women with rights to demand
to equality.
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So, I cannot find anything telling me what the difference is between a Pashtun and a "regular" Pakistani?
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Pakistani in general are Punjabi's or Sindhi's or mohajir who also share South asian or Indian ethnicity.
They make 85% of population and speak urdu or punjabi languages which again close to south asian/Indian Languages.
They look like Indian counter parts.
Pasthun on other hand share ethnic cultural identity with pasthuns of Afghanistan.British never able to colonise afghanistan so gave autonomy to pashtuns in afghan-pak region.
When India is partitioned pasthuns wanted a separate country or merge with afghanistan which eventually turned down.That is reason Afghanistan did not recognise pakistan until 1950.
There is always a fear in Pakistan elite that pashtuns either want separate country or merge with afghanistan,so this is root cause of afghan-pakistan problems.
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I agree they should have clarified that. Pakistan is a mix of many ethnicities, including Pushtuns, but dominated by Punjabis who are > 50% of the population and dominate power. National elections are won/lost in the Punjabi heartland. Pushtuns are marginalized, but not as much as other communities likes Sindhis and Balochs. Pushtuns are actually quite integrated into the military establishment, but the lawless PakMil actions against extremists in Pushtun territories have made it difficult for them.
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It's more than a little bit ironic how Pakistan's military and security service harass the country's Pashtuns even as they protect the Pashtun-led Taliban insurgents from Afghanistan who seek refuge amongst the Pakistanis. That having been said, the Pashtuns are an indigenous ethnic group who appear to favor the most conservative forms of Islamic teaching. It would probably be better for them and for all of their neighbors if they were afforded their own state spanning the contiguous areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan in which their community dominates, subject to an agreement that they would not seek to export their beliefs to communities outside of their jurisdiction.
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Military will ruin Pakistan. It succeeded in breaking
up East Pakistan, now Bangladesh, by perpetrating
brutality on Bangalis protesting their oppression.
It has learnt nothing from its mistakes and continue
to use the same tactics in Balochistan and now
Pushtoon area. President Nixon while personally
liking the military dictator Yahaya Khan, who acted as go between China and USA, lamented how politically stupid
the he is. It is true of Pakistan's military.
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Countries have armies, but the Pakistani Army has a country to toy with, and live off it.
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