Nyttårsaften er avlyst.

Å våkne opp etter første natt hjemme på lørdag til nyheter om krig i Gaza, og opp mot 200 drepte palestinere i de første angrepene, var ingen god følelse. Nå ville krigen fortsatt vært på god avstand fra meg, men de spontane reaksjonene i Ramallah på lørdag er noe jeg gjerne skulle ha vært en del av - holdt på å si heller det enn å bli dynket i tåregass bak slottsplassen fordi norsk politi endelig fant en unnskyldning til å få brukt noe av tåregassen sin.

Nå, 5 dager ut i Israels angrep - Israels massakre - på Gaza, er det internasjonale samfunnet fortsatt ikke i stand til å stanse det. Det er skammelig. Det er ofte slik at verden ikke klarer å stanse massakre og ugjernigheter. I områder som Burma, DRC, Nigeria, Zimbabwe og sikkert mange fler har verdenssamfunnet tydelig vist mangel på politisk vilje og makt, så hvorfor er massakren mot palestinere så veldig annerledes?

For det første fordi staten Israel eksisterer takket være sterk europeisk og vestlig støtte, og hva den staten gjør rundt seg bør være av interesse for de statene som har ansvaret for at den eksisterer. Videre er aggressatoren og okkupaten en av våre nærmeste allierte i Midtøsten. Israel, som Norge har stått ved siden av i tykt og tynt, er i dag ansvarlig for å massakrere palestinere, slik den var i Libanon i 1982. Da som passive tilskuere, denne gangen som aktive bødler.

For det andre, og det viktigste: I de andre tilfellene av massakre og ugjernigheter finner man sjeldent politiske ledere som ser ned og mumler fram sine protester, slik Aps fylkesordfører Tore O. Sandvik så korrekt kritiserer Norge for å gjøre i dette tilfelle! Vanligvis sier regjeringene i fra om hva de forventer at aggressatoren skal gjøre, og de tar i bruk alle midler de har til rådighet for å få det til.

Men ikke i tilfelle Israel. Noen stater er likere enn andre. Bare tanken på f.eks. et europeisk kultur- og idrettsboikott som Fredrik Mellem og mange andre snakker om er helt umulig, selv om man vet at det vil være den mest effektive måten å stanse apartheidstaten Israel på.

Det er trist å se hvordan det internasjonale samfunnet og også den norske regjeringen er i stand til å skylde på Hamas for denne krigen. Framfor å få Israel - okkupanten de siste 40 år - til å stanse bombingen og massakren, legger man all skyld på de kinaputtene Hamas skyter inn til Israel. Det var ikke annet å forvente fra USA, men jeg, og jeg antar de fleste palestinere, forventet noe annet av sin egen leder Mahmoud Abbas, som ser ut til å være mer opptatt av maktspill enn å kreve stans i bombingen.

Hamas brøt fredsavatalen hevdes det, og har mer eller mindre blitt en etablert sannhet. Glemt er det fengslet palestinerne har levd under de siste 18 månedene (inkl. de seks fredsavtalen eksisterte), med kontinuerlig forverring av situasjonen. Ordet forverret mistet sin verdi, da det ikke var mulig å beskrive hvordan en desperat humanitær situasjon blir når man i tillegg stenger all grenser og nekter innførsel av livsnødvendig humanitær utstyr og varer som bensin og mat. Glemt er de drapene Israels militæret utførte i Gaza i hele sommer og høst under fredsavtalen. Det var knapt noen raketter som ble skutt mot Israel i oktober inntil Hamas ikke lenger kunne sitte og se Israelske soldater angripe og drepe palestinere i tillegg til blokkaden. Et samfunn i en situasjon definert som desperat av alle humanitære organiasjosjoner, er etter alle vestlige regjeringers mening skyld i at de nå blir bombet sønder og sammen av englene i Israel.

Det er trist å se at det eneste norske regjeringen er i stand til å si og gjøre er å kreve stans i angrpene og at partene skal returnere tilbake til fredsavtalen. Hva for et liv er det Raymond Johansen ønsker at palestinerne i Gaza skal returnere til?

Palestinerne trenger ikke lovnader om milliarder i nødhjelp for å bygge opp igjen en infrastruktur Israel kan bombe sønder og sammen igjen om 5-10 års tid, men de trenger sikkerhet. Langt mer enn innbyggerne i Sderot og Ashkelon, som nå har blitt evakuert fra sine hjem i busser, er det borgerne i hele Gazastripen som trenger verdenssamfunnets beskyttelse. De fortjener et liv uten bomber, uten okkupasjon, med åpne grenser og med innførsel av varer og tjenester som er helt nødvendig for et normalt liv.

Kjære J. Støre og R. Johansen: Kall en spade for en spade. Krev stans i Israels bombing av Gaza og drap av uskyldige mennesker. Krev stans i den okkupasjonspolitikken Israel gjennomfører.

Godt nytt år!

What Palestinian state?!?

I came to Palestine four months ago with a clear idea of a two state solution as the best solution for the region. That will say a Palestinian state alongside with Israel. I thought that most Palestinians wanted that too, but I was pretty surprised when I discovered that that’s not the fact. Now, four months later, I’m having my own doubts about a two-state solution on the territory of historical Palestine.

I still believe that a two state solution is the most realistic, or achievable, but it will be an unfair solution.

First thing first; where exactly do the world community, the Quartet or anyone, see the contiguous state of Palestine, as Bush promised in January 2008, in between the Israeli security zones, settlements, settler roads and of course the apartheid wall that eats up most of the West Bank? There has been little to suggest that Israel plans to give up the territories we know as Jordan Valley (the entire east side of the West Bank, thus the border to Jordan, which Israel wants to keep for security reasons), leaving the West Bank with no other neighbouring (trading) country than Israel, the numerous settlements in the West Bank (128 illegal settlements), their roads, the apartheid wall and so on.

If Israel had a desire to negotiate on those areas, they, if not decreasing the numbers, at least hadn’t continued to build more as they have done. Only in the course of this year, the year when Palestinians and Israelis would, according to Bush, sign a final peace agreement, Israel has built more than 25,000 illegal units inside the West Bank. All while Annapolis agreement was still under function. Illegal settlements have since the beginning in the 70’is been a crucial part of the Zionist project to control and later take over territory, and ar still part of that masterplan. As reported in Haaretz today, the population growth among West Bank settlers was three times higher than that of the rest of Israel during the past 12 years. Settler population went from 130.000 in 2005 to 270.000 by the end of 2007. The Palestinian figures are much higher (around 400.000).

During the same year, the numbers of road blocks on the West Bank have increased with 3%, according to a UN report (September 08), and are currently as high as 630. After standing over 50 minutes in queue at Qalandia checkpoint yesterday, I could only wish that once, only once, the so-called friends of Israel would have to stand in that line, listen to a 18-year old soldier barking his orders from his cabin, as if they were sheep or worse, with no regard to their age or condition, in a language no one but him understood. This year 67 women have given birth at a checkpoint, half of them loosing their child and 2 women bleeding to death.

Secondly, a two state solution would be bloody unfair. It would be unfair to the more than 750.000 Palestinians who were expelled from their homes in 1948. Today they count about 5 million people and are spread throughout the world, but live mainly in neighbouring countries as Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and even West Bank in refugee camps and under severe circumstances.

Ilan Pappe, one of the so-called new-historians in Israel, describes in his newly released book The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, how the Jewish (Israel didn’t exist yet) military groups, or better to say, Zionist terrorist groups, as Hagana and the Irgun, under orders from the indisputable leader of Zionist movement, David Ben-Gurion, systematically expelled Palestinians from their homes and destroyed their villages. As part of the so-called Plan Dalet, village after village was attacked and Arabs thrown out of their homes, sometimes even massacred. The massacre in Deir Yassin is the most famous of them, when Menachim Begin (yupp, the later prime minister) led his Irgun group into Deir Yassin 9. April 1948, and killed 170 civilians. Another massacre in Ayn al-Zayton that formed the basis for the novel Bab al-Shams and later a movie, left 70 people were left dead. All this with one aim at sight: Intimidating the Palestinians and thereby judaise the land. “Had we never heard of the events in the former Yugoslavia but had been aware of only the case of Palestine, we would be forgiven for thinking that the US and UN definitions [of ethnic cleansing] were inspired by the Nakba, down to almost their last minute detail”, Pappe writes in his first chapter.

Half of the indigenous people living in Palestine were driven out with half of their villages and towns destroyed by the Jewish military force.

All this before May 15th, 1948, before the state of Israel was declared, and the Arab countries half heartedly entered Palestine to “defend” the Palestinians. By then over a quarter a million Palestinians had already been expelled, two hundred villages destroyed and scores of towns emptied. Villages as Khirbat al-Kasayir and Hawsha are just two examples of villages allcoated to Palestinian state by the UN partition resolution (181) occupied by Zionist troops before May 15th. All under the watch of British troops morally bound to protect the civilians, and the UN representatives who were on the ground supervising the implementation of the division plan, but basically turning there back to whole thing.

There will be no peace without these people getting their right to return, as the unanimous UN resolution 194 (1948, dot 11) states, and Israel taking the moral responsibility of making them refugees in 1948. Pushing them to Europe or other countries, which seems to be the Israeli plan, or not taking any responsibility is not the right stand.

In connection with Israel's UN membership in 1948, fulfilling this resolution was one of the requirements, but Israel holds the "hardly flattering world record of ignoring UN resolutions", as Snorre Lindquist and Lasse Wilhelmson writes in an article in Palestine Chronicle.

It can be written much about the war in 1948. All too often we hear about Jewish David facing an Arab Goliath. Attacked by 7 Arab countries, it fought bravely (and miraculously) won the war. Well, the war started, as just shown, long before May 15th, and the Goliath was at that time defenceless Palestinian villagers. The other reason for the “miraculous” victory is the Israeli superiority both militarily and numerically. Only Hagana had, when plan Dalet was put into effect (april 48), more than 50.000 troops at its disposal, half of which had been trained by the British army during the Second World War (Pappe). The Arab states, numbering at top 30-40.000, knew before entering the war, that the Palestinians had lost, and that they didn’t have any chance to win.

The biggest force, the Jordanian Legion (under the command of British General Chief of Staff, John Glubb Pasha) actually annexed the West Bank without firing one shot, due to a double game King Abdullah of Jordan played. Being the head of the military effort of the Arab countries on the one hand, and striving to reach an agreement with the Jewish state about annexation of the West Bank on the other. In other words, the Jordanian occupation of the West Bank at first came about thanks to a prior agreement with the Israelis, but it remained in Hashemite hands due to defensive efforts of the Jordanians and the Iraqi forces when the Israeli army tried to wrest parts of it back (Ilan Pappe 2007:121).

A two state solution would furthermore be unfair to all the Palestinians who have lived in Israel for the last 60 years.

Out of 970.000 Palestinians living in the 1948 Palestine, only 156.000 remained. 50.000 of these were internal refugees not living in their original villages, since those villages were demolished. Today there are about 1.2 million Palestinians (not including Arabs in East Jerusalem) in the state of Israel (app. 20%). 263.000 of them, or in other words, every 1 in 5 Palestinian/Arab in Israel is a refugee. These people would have a very uncertain future in case of the creation of a new state of Palestine next to Israel. The Foreign Minister and the newly head of the leading Kadima party Tzipi Livni is quoted in Haaretz last week questioning, the already B-citizens in Israel’s, national aspirations.

The “biggest democracy in the Middle East” as some falsely call the state of Israel, wants only to be a home state for the Jews, leaving no room for other nationalities or minorities. As in 1948, The Zionist wants the land, but without the Palestinian population.

There has never been a Palestine, the Ziontists claim, and they are right. All through history the people of Palestine have been under foreign rule, be it the Ottomans or the British Mandate. But this doesn't change the fact that there was an entity of land called Palestine or the Universal Declaration of Human Rights' Article 21 (3) that states that the will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government, and it definitely doesn't give the Zionist Colonialists the right to claim a state and rule on Palestinian land. If Israel righteously wants to claim the title of “biggest democracy in the Middle East”, there is only one, and the only fair, solution: A bi-national state for all the people of the historical Palestine, even the refugees.

Pakistan, Palestine and Mumbai

Being in Pakistan for the last two weeks has been an interesting experience. I arrived back to Palestine yesterday, and was in Lahore for 10 days to celebrate my younger cousin’s wedding. Given the tense situation in Pakistan, me not having a car, and thereby not much to do, I had plenty of time in front of the telly watching the news about everything going on in Pakistan, and especially the attacks in Mumbay. That is, during the hours the power were on. Four to five times a day the power was cut off for an hour at the time due to lack of power. And since I didn't have anything else to do, this blogpost has turned to be a long one.

During all my stays in Palestine I’ve always compared the prevailing conditions in West Bank with Pakistan. The history of Pakistan and the mandate of Palestine have similarities that make this comparison interesting. Both regions were under British authority at the end of the Second World War, but whereas the Muslims in India got their state after a two-state solution on the subcontinent of India in 1947, the Palestinians are still fighting for their state.

This year, while the Palestinians are in their 61st year under occupation, Pakistanis celebrate their 61 years of independence as a free nation. After hundred years of struggle Pakistan was drawn on the map, and the world witnessed one of the largest immigrations in modern times. Over a million people left their homes to the other side of the new boarder drawn on the map to the newborn Pakistan or India, including my father at the age of three. Unfortunately this immigration wasn’t as peaceful as described here, but under extremely tragic and violent conditions. Pakistan has been a united and independent state for 61 years now despite all the predictions of early collapse of Pakistan. There are talks about Pakistan as a failed state, recently at the beginning of this year when the West’s favourite Benazir Bhutto tragically was murdered under a terrorist attack and the political situation was a mess, but Pakistan has been Azad (Free) for 61 years.

This is something I've always had in mind. This freedom, that cost exceedingly and is the dearest that Pakistanis have, is what constitutes the decisive difference between Palestine and Pakistan today. Besides this difference it was depressing to notice that I just moved from one sad reality to another. Despite the independence and freedom, Pakistanis are just as occupied as the Palestinians. Not by soldiers or settlers at gun point, but by fear, corruption and in the chains of poverty.

The conditions are really poor in Pakistan these days. Not a day goes by without a terrorist attack in the country. I lost count over how many people died because of terrorist attacks of various kind, be it bomb explosions, suicide attacks, random shootings, U.S. missiles hitting Pakistan and leaving X people dead, or all at once, during the 10 days I was there. This has resulted in two things in particular; huge aggression against Americans and of course fear of terrorist attacks framing themselves.

This fear is not a new phenomenon in Pakistan, but anyone following the news recently can understand that this fear is greater now than it has been for a long time. Halat bohat kharab Hain (The conditions are very poor), you hear everywhere. Partially is this due to the global economic crisis that Pakistan too suffers from, but the remark has its root in the uncertainty created by all the terrorist attacks as well.

The latest terrorist attacks in Mumbai didn’t help in that matter; but reinforced the feeling of uncertainty in Pakistan. India was quick, some would say a little too quick, to point at Pakistan, and the situation was very tense for a while. For a couple of days the fear of war was greater than the fear of terrorist attacks. This was on our day of Barat (2. day of Pakistani weddings and the day when the grooms family brings the bride to their house) and Walima day (the last day of the wedding that contains a dinner by the grooms family), the military force of India and Pakistan were both on high alert, and was consequently one of the hottest discussion topics during wedding dinners. That in the face of the fact that there were an outburst of “arbitrary firings” and riots in different areas all over Karachi with over 40 people dead during the week after the attacks in Mumbai.

Remarkably enough those riots started the day after the attacks in Mumbai.

I've been asked to give a comment on the attacks in Mumbai, but I don’t think it’s possible for me to give a neutral or a more well thought comment than all the comments that have been given already. I suppose the question is more to give a report of the attacks as they were seen from Pakistan. The immediate reactions in Pakistan ranged from "this is deeply tragic incident" to "They took one hotel (Marriot in Islamabad for 3-4 months ago), we took 3 of theirs". The stronger the allegations against Pakistan got the more the people rallied around the flag and the sympathies drowned in the desire to fight. Now, almost two weeks later, the countries are fighting over whether the threat to Pakistan was a phoney call or a real threat, but back then, it seemd real enough. It was quite difficult for all to understand how Indian intelligence so categorically could blame foreign (Pakistani) elements only a few hours after the attacks were engaged. How could they know that the boat the terrorist used came from Pakistan, etc? And if they knew all this, why didn’t they stop the boat? Now, there is no reason to deny that the people were related to or were Pakistanis one way or another. I can even believe that they got their training and planned the attacks in Pakistan, but that alone is not a reason to bomb Islamabad. There were reports about British nationals among the terrorists without India having plans to bomb London. I agree with the Pakistani officials when they say that these terrorists are non-state actors attempting to destabilize the region and wanting a war. Let’s not give them want they want.

India points especially at a Pakistani based militant group called Lashkare Tayba. A militant group fighting against Indian occupation of Kashmir but the group was banned in Pakistan in 2002 and are responsible of many terrorist acts even within Pakistan. The terrorists themselves claimed to belong to something they called Deccan Mujahedin; an India based extremist group fighing for Kashmir. As far as what I heared that group was connected to Hyderabad area in India. I'm not sure of what else they're fighting for precisely, but it is a province in India that have had major problems between Hindus and Muslims for a long time, with hundreds (if not thousands) killed the last 10 years.

Some of the first reports (Friday or Saturday – 2 days after the attacks) were that Pakistan agreed on sending the director of ISI (The Pakistani intelligence agency) to India. This decision was reversed soon after. This U-turn was welcomed by the population. I asked some people why they supported this "non-cooperative line". In their opinion this had nothing to do with cooperation or not. Pakistan had offered to cooperate with any means to find the truth, by setting up a joint investigation team and so on, but the Indians refused to that, and demanded that the ISI director was sent to India for questioning. Sending the director of ISI as a “suspect” to India was – understandably – out of question. No country with some integrity and self respect would do that.

Was Pakistan or ISI involved? No one knows. Just like no one know whether India (or RAW, as their agency is known in Pakistan) were involved in the explosion at the Marriot hotel, the shootings in Karachi or the recent bomb blast in Peshawar. According to some friends, Pakistan had intelligence pointing at India after the attacks at Marriot, but Pakistan refrained from blaming India as strongly as India now blamed Pakistan . This said it is no secret that both countries have their interests in destabilizing each other for various reasons, and maniacs willing to carry out such actions exist everywhere.

India's accusations are completely without reason, was the general perception in Pakistan. Although, it is very symptomatic for both countries to blame each other, or a third actor than internal weaknesses, when anything like this happens. Usually India is more loud in its allegations than Pakistan (as seen in earlier incidents in 2001 and 2003), but this blame-game goes both ways. To blame foreign factors, or foreign conspiracies (often with reference to the neighbouring country (or CIA and Mossad for Pakistan’s case)) is one of the favourite hobbies here on this subcontinent, and shows in a way the mistrust that exists between these neighbouring states. Unfortunately, this goes for the ordinary people too. As mentioned, people talk about the obvious connection between the attacks in Mumbai and the attacks in Islamabad. A majority of the people are more than convinced that Indian intelligence is behind the attack on the Marriot hotel in a way or another, and I've also heard people saying : “it was about time. They have come a long way inside Pakistan (with reference to everything going on in Baluchistan and in the northwest areas) and it was time to show them that we exist,” about Mumbai. Although the immediate danger of war (if it ever existed, both countries being nuclear powers) is over, most people in Lahore are waiting for a reaction from their neighbouring country in the East, beyond all that was already happening in Karachi. The problems in Karachi was partly blamed on the political party of MQM and it’s leader in exile Altaf Hussein (of course in alliance with foreign (Indian) elements), but now they have the blast in Peshawar to talk about. I’m glad I’m out of the country before that time.

What I don't really understand is why any terroristattacks in Pakistan so easily is blamed on the sectarian problems within Pakistan, but not in India. As if India doesn't have it's fair share of sectarion or nationalist problems?

Back to Pakistan, my stay and my impressions from there.

The most striking to me has always been the enormous indifference/uncaring (likegyldighet) I see in this country. People – and particularly the sound middle class – tend to seem indifferent to everything, wanting to live their lives without any serious concerns about the conditions around them. Be it the tremendous poverty, the political chaos or the more sickening; combination of extreme poverty next to enormous private wealth.

You find poverty in the West Bank too (since I still haven’t been to Gaza, it’s difficult for me to comment about the conditions there) but it is not even close to being as visible and prominent as in Pakistan. Partly, it has to do with the huge population difference between Palestine and Pakistan. With over 172 million inhabitants, Pakistan is hard to manage and to develop. Any economical growth, if any, is eaten up by the population growth.

Historically, Pakistan and Palestine are both feudal societies not really able to shake that off from their systems. At the same time, Pakistan, in contrast to Palestine, has as mentioned enormous population and just as high illiteracy level. The official figures are 49 % of literacy in Pakistan. Palestinians, for their part, have one of the highest literacy levels in the entire (Arab) Middle East. Feudal societies with huge population (labour) and low or no education is an ideal combination for feudalism. When you add the historical luggage of a hierarchical caste system, paternalism and a good portion of religion, you have the perfect recipe for everlasting feudalism.

The biggest enemy for those empowered by the feudal system is education of the masses. It is only through education that the heads, or minds “open up”, as a friend said to me in the car on the way home one evening, and you'll easier be able to know your rights – as a worker or as a citizen.

Those governing Pakistan today and who have done so since the beginning of time for Pakistan are the same landlords who've always benefited from this system of feudalism. Take the leaderships of the Pakistan People Party (B. Bhutto’s party) or Muslim League (N) (Former Prime Minister and now opposition leader Nawaz Sharif’s party) as examples. They are both families we call landlords, owning huge amount of land in Pakistan, and even though they pretend running for elections on slogans as Roti, Kapra or Makaan (food, clothe and housing), it is all too clear that they do not want to relinquish their power and the benefits this old system gives them. PPP is even a member of the Socialist International and from that Norwegian Labour’s (my party’s) counterpart in Pakistan.

While it is and should be a public affair to provide its population with education, at least at a minimum level, it is remarkable that none of the governments the past 60 years have managed to raise the literacy level worth noticing. Conspiratorial enough I’d say that it is not a coincidence. With as little as 4% of the GNP used on education, the educational sector is left for private interests or non-governmental actors to fill. Education, and even primary education, is today a huge industry in Pakistan with private schools on “every street corner”.

To put it very simple and brief, it is the middle class’ duty and responsibility to end the negative impacts of feudalism and to inflame the necessary change. This middle class with education, knowledge of both rights and duties and with the ability to do something exists today in Pakistan without the required change coming.

That nothing (little is more just to say) happens, has a simple explanation, and does not include selfishness or uncaring that is so striking as I pointed out. It has to do with another ingredient that makes a natural and positive development of a society impossible – corruption.

Corruption is so widespread that for a large majority of people in Pakistan there exist no laws or regulations. Anything and everyone are for sale. It goes through all layers of society and numbs any positive development. When corruption is so common and widespread, people end up with no confidence to the institutions of society. To put it more scientifically; Neither the Judiciary, executive or legislative power has the people's confidence in Pakistan today. It's every man for himself, and the survival of the fittest that applies.

Not so strange, when a former criminal is country's president today. I have never held back that the deceased Benazir Bhutto and particularly her husband, the so-called mr. 10%, and current president of Pakistan, Asif Ali Zardari, are not among my favourites. But his impressive game that has taken him from the jail cell only four years back  to the top of the political hierarchy today is "admirable". It is incredible that a man, who, according to everyone, filled his pockets and accounts with state revenues during his wife's governments during the 90s, now is head of state with direct (to say it popular) access to the same revenues.

With a corrupt judiciary, there is no equality of the law, and no one can guarantee the consequences you will face if you claim your legitimate rights. So it is not a mystery why the middle class is so paralyzed.

Over time, everyday life is far more important for people than to produce a political change. Especially when any serious attempt could result in unknown consequences, and no average person wants, either for himself or his children, to be a victim of that. This fear, according to my friend, is what keeps the middle class back. Moreover, the educated middle class is numerically a minority in Pakistan, and when considerable bulks of these are equal partners in the corrupted system, there is little Hasan and Sadia can do. Hasan sees how the community fly off in the wrong direction and it doesn’t help how much he cries for justice, he’s only left behind, so finally he flies along. Or as my buddy said: Agar woh kutte ke bachen hain, to main bhi kutte ka bacha hon (if they’re sons of bitches, I’m a son of bitch too). To put it in a more attractive language: If you can not claim your right, you fight for it.

It is an evil circle not easy to get out of.

Besides poverty in Pakistan, you’re struck by the class divisions in the society. The huge population is easy to blame in this context too, but in my opinion it has also to do with the old hierarchical caste system that unfortunately still exists today. Pakistanis are obsessed by casts or bradri (families/brotherhoods) as they call them. These bradris go back to old times, and indicates your family’s background; landlords, salesmen, kings, servants and so on. Combined with the new casts made out of the power of money and education the country is divided into many layers. Sheikh, Choudry, Jatt, Raja, Mughal or Rana are all names used to show what bradri you belong. I don’t want to exaggerate the role of Bradri, but am sad to state that there are still families not wanting to marry their children outside their own bradri and so on…

Most of the homes (middleclass and up) today have their mulazim (workers/servants), and some families make a huge point out of how many mulazims they have. These are people the families cannot function without, but whom they never really trust, even though the mulazims may have served them their entire lives, and even lived in the same house (of course in a different section). This is not the worst. The worst part is the clear distinction that’s made between people by everyone. Small children are raised up in an environment where they’re indirectly taught that not everyone are alike. Watching small children bossing around grownups is sometimes hard to watch. What’s interesting is how everyone has found a class / person beneath them. Even the barber I went to had a person underneath him, to find scissors and comb for him, who had one underneath him who had one under him and so on. This hierarchy is often based on age and seniority, and instead of uniting, people find someone below them to kick and thus get out their own frustration. Actually, it can be quite amusing to watch the chain of yelling as it follows age and hierarchy in a matter of five minutes. An order at a shop may sound something like this:

Customer: "A glass of orange juice. Quickly!"
Salesman: "Yes, of course sir."Then the salesman turns to the guy next to him:
"Oe, a glass of juice ASAP!"
The guys nods, and yells to the kid next to the squeezing machine:
"Come on kid, a glass of juice to the gentleman now. Chal, jaldi kar!"And so on.

If anything is wrong with the purchased item, the whole chain of command repeats it self.

Walking around in the relatively well-off neighbourhood in Lahore I lived in (a housing society like many others made up behind walls and 24 hours guarded gates, giving the residents a sense of security, and me a sense of Palestine), the only ones walking or riding a bike on the streets on any given day you see are the so-called Mulazims – or the poor people, while the residents (rich) remains indoors, in cars or all other locations than on the streets. Surely there are tense times these days, but the main reason is clearly the class society I just described, and the despise each stratum has for the stratum beneath them. People choose to remain indoors or in cars, not in fear of a possible terrorist attack, but because they don’t want to degrade themselves by walking in the streets or standing in lines outside a restaurant as a mulazim.

Well, I had to ask my friend about not standing in line and order food when we stayed in the car when we stopped at a burgers shop (same friend and same ride as mentioned a couple of times). He had a different – I may call it a more capitalist – approach to this phenomenon. "By sitting in the car, I will first of all have the privacy I want, and secondly, the man who came to the car, took my order and will bring us our food will earn 10-15 Rupee. I do not have to do anything, because there are others who will and wants to do it for me. Good for me, good for them.”

I'm not sure of what I feel about the logic. There was something in me that wanted to protest, but I could not deny the fact that by staying in the car, I “created” jobs. In a country with huge population, enormous poverty and not that many jobs, this is an easy way of “creating” jobs.

To sum up; Pakistan has a great potential and have always had it. No doubt about that. Rich on natural recourses as gas, petrol, coil and so on, this country will (Inshallah) rise up to its potential. But, political instability, huge population and corruption are all obstructions in the way of triggering that potential. This far, the biggest achievement for Pakistan after 61 years of freedom, is not the creation of the best health system, educational system or something like that, but the achievement of becoming a nuclear power (which is quite huge actually). And honestly said, that is the only reason why anyone talks to Pakistan in international affairs, and why India has abstained from attacking the country the last decade.

But before the country can start moving in a more positive direction, the country needs to solve out its problems with its neighbour, but more important it needs a generational revolution especially among its politicians. Besides the exception of 8 years with general/president Musharraf, the same politicians who led the country while I lived here in the early 90s, and was 11 years old, are controlling the country, and that’s not a healthy sign. Political assassinations are not a way of achieving that change.

Besides the change among its politicians, the country must somehow get rid of the corruption, and bring back peoples trust in the institutions developed to serve the people. This seems like the most difficult task, but the generational revolution among policymakers and fight against corruption is kind of interconnected. The fight against corruption must start from the top, meaning that the leadership has to change, either physically or if they are able to, at least in mind. But perhaps the most crucial factor is the task of educating the people, and states lack of focus on that matter. Education alone will, in my opinion, solve many of Pakistan’s problems as poverty, uncontrolled population growth and even corruption and the class society.

The moral is; my cousin is happily married, I’ve left the country of my origin and am still unmarried. Pakistan is nice, but sitting in BirZeit, I’m glad to be back in Arab culture and land.