The National Unity and Survival of Pakhtuns
Due to the geo-strategic coordinates of Pakhun land as a gateway to south Asia, the expansionist designs of imperialist powers from Alexander to Babur played a catastrophic role in destabilizing Pakhtun land. Despite of lacking organised defense mechanism and military technology, Pakhtuns resisted all invaders and kept on fighting till they kicked their enemy out of their land. While Pakhtuns never invaded any nation or state, the imperialist powers never let them live in peace and work for the development and stability of their land. Pakhtuns suffered a lot due to their defensive policy and principle of non interference.
It was in 1747 that Ahmed Shah Baba, contrary to the defensive policy of Pakhtuns, adopted the policy of offence as a means of defense, to establish the first Afghan republic extending between central and south Asia. The secret behind the establishment of Afghan Empire under the leadership of Ahmed Shah Baba was that he gave a political vision and a national target to the disintegrated and disillusioned Afghans. It was the struggle for the achievement of this target which resulted in the unity of Afghan tribes. This historic achievement showed that the unity of Pakhtuns was the effect of a cause and not a cause in itself. It established the fact that no nation can be united without a target. National target is the binding force for any nation. Hence the contemporary leadership of Pakhtuns should also set a clear national target for the nation if the leadership is sincere to see the national unity of Pakhtuns.
Let us analyse the strategy of the antagonist forces working against Pakhtuns in order to prevent them from becoming 'a power to reckon with' on the map of the world.
1. Retaining the British administrative division of Pakhtunkhwa to retain the occupation of Punjab on the NWFP, FATA and Pakhtun belt of Attock, Mianwali, Dera Ghazi Khan and Balochistan.
2. The formation of Pro-Military and hence pro-Punjab constitution to safeguard the vested interests of Punjab.
3. Preventing the formation of popularly elected governments.
4. Intervention by military forces with the help of its agencies to pressurize the elected governments in case the elected governments want to do any legislation against the national interests of Punjab.
5. To topple the elected government if they dare to take any bold decision in the interests of masses against the will of the military forces.
6. To project the vested interests of Punjab and military forces synonymous with the national interests of Pakistan.
7. To deteriorate the law and order situation in Pakhtun regions by using military forces and its agencies to discourage investment and developmental work.
8. To compel the brain trust to migrate from the Pakhtun land so that Pakhtun land suffers from brain drain. The continuous outflow and outsourcing of skilled human resource to Karachi, Middle East, Far East and Europe from Pakhtunkhwa as well as Afghanistan in addition to the investment of Pakhtun businessmen and traders in the cities of Rawalpindi, Islamabad, Lahore, Faisalabad and Karachi instead of investing in Pukhtun land in Pakistan or Afghanistan is the proof of the above cited fact.
9. Fabricating and catalyzing the differences between the Pakhtun and Non Pakhtun population of Afghanistan by infiltrating ISI agents into Taliban to fight against ISAF forces
10. Projecting Taliban as the representative group of Pakhtuns so that the gulf of hatred could be inculcated between Pakhtun and ISAF forces on one side and between the Pakhtuns of Afghanistan and that of Pakistan on the other.
11. The operation of Military forces in FATA to support Taliban so they can hijack the tribal as well as settled areas of Pakhtunkhwa.
13. The support of Taliban by military forces from FATA region to back them up against the ISAF forces in Afghanistan and giving a wrong impression to the world that it is the Pakhtuns of the Tribal region who are responsible for supporting Taliban.
14. The hypocritical policy of Pakistan to talk about promoting mutual friendship and collaboration between Afghanistan and Pakistan while at the same time continuing military operations in the tribal areas of Pakhtunkhwa to make it a "no-go-area" for the common Pakhtuns and discourage rather prevent all sorts of mutual interaction between the Pakhtuns across the border. On the contrary showing a tough stance on relations between India and Pakistan but at the same time opening all vistas of opportunity and mutual interaction between the Punjabis of both countries.
Power is like money and lack of power is poverty. Money attracts more money and poverty brings more deprivation till it questions the very existence of the poor. Without power Pakhtuns are poor and their poverty will keep on depriving them of all their resources of livelihood till it finally threatens their survival.Pakhtun have witnessed the phase of their political and economic deprivation and now their very survival is under threat.Pakhtun are being killed and compelled to take revenge so that their mass killing can be justified, their victimization is the target of ethnic cleansing in Karachi, their massacre is in progress in FATA and they are suffering in the resonating explosions of bombs planted by Pakistani agencies in different cities of NWFP and Balochistan.The occupied Pakhtun heaven-on-earth is being wrongly projected as a safe haven for foreign terrorists.
It seems that the atrocities and injustice against Pakhtuns and other oppressed nations in Pakistan will compel the Pakhtuns and their leadership to initiate a struggle for their survival and freedom. For this purpose Pakhtun nation will have to free the occupied regions of Pakhtuns viz NWFP, FATA, Attock, Mianwali and Pashtun regions of DG Khan and Balochistan from Punjab-dominated Pakistan.
The result of the freedom struggle will either be the founding of a separate Pakhtun nation state which could make a federation with Balochistan or a merger with the motherland of Pakhtuns – Afghanistan .In both cases the Pakhtun-majority state should be based on the tenets of Pakhtunwali which intrinsically encapsulates the virtues of human dignity,individual freedom, political sovereignty, social equality, economic prosperity, retaliation against oppression, standing against injustice, rule of law and No to dictation.
It is time to regain the political control of Pakhtun-soil by putting an end to the occupation of non-Pakhtun aggressors once and for all before it is too late and life for a Pakhtun becomes something to hate. It is better to die for the freedom of Pakhtun soil while raising your voice than to live in a country which is ready to sell your resources and quote your price.
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Pukhtoon Khan
pashtun@hotmail.com
