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During the Taliban era it was a very famous slogan of anti-Taliban forces united under the name Northern Alliance led by Ahmad Shah Masood who couldn’t escape a suicide attempt by Al-Qaeda men just two days before the event of 9/11. This slogan was used as a politically disliked verse by the Afghans who saw increased involvement of Pakistan and its spying agencies into the affairs of Afghanistan.
However, Pakistan very successfully installed a religious fanatic government run by the graduates of its Madrassas (a group of religious school well above 12000 in number spread across Pakistan that teaches the most radical interpretation of the faith of Islam to boys as young as five years and above) that ruled notoriously more than 90% of Afghanistan for over five years.
The Taliban Movement was only recognized as legitimate and responsible governments by three countries namely Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and UAE. However, the world saw on 9/11 how responsible this movement was in establishing an era of fear and hatred.
Then the slogan had a practical meaning as the world observed silently the human rights abuses, military incursions, and devastation of Afghanistan’s tourist attracting Buddhas located in the historic Bamyan province. Now, what does it mean? As I glance on Pakistan’s national daily newspapers particularly English ones I seek to ask the question, what it means for Pakistani newspapers to allocate a joint page for Kashmir and Afghanistan.
For example, the daily The Nation allocates its 11th page, the daily Daily Times allocates its 9th page, the daily Mashriq allocates its 13th page. The interesting point is that Afghanistan gets its shared page with Kashmir, which according to Pakistanis is an integral part of Pakistan and that Kashmir is destined to become a part of Pakistan. But Why Afghanistan shares its page with Kashmir? Is it also thought by the Pakistanis to be the same?
Does Pakistan endeavor to install a government of its choice in Afghanistan?
It could also be reasoned that Afghanistan is a very important neighbor to Pakistan because both the nations share the same religion, partly same language (Pashto) and partly similar culture, the Pakistani media allocates special place for stories from Afghanistan. Had it been so, can anyone remember any Pakistani Newspaper that would carry specially allocated page for Afghanistan and that with the Indian Held Kashmir before the Islamization of Pakistan by late President Zia-ul-Haq and Pakistan’s relentless support for the warring Mujahideen? If not so, then should it be presumed that the Pakistani government and its agencies are not accepting the ground realities in letter and spirit?
