| I have been honoured by NUST's generous invitation to speak at this conference. I do so for myself as a national civilian Pakistani, and on behalf of the silent majority of those 149.9 million Pakistanis who do not live in Islamabad, nor have served in the Armed Forces. For us, it seems that our country has never stopped being at war. Ever since 1947, we have been in a continuous state of conflict, of not actual war. |
| In 1971, our two wings fought each other, and lost each other. For 57 years, we have had recurring altercations with our neighbours. Internally, we are a nation at war within itself, where Sunnis battle against Shias, Mohajirs fight Sindhis, and Muslims discriminate against Ahmadis. |
| We will continue to be at war against uncapped fertility, poverty, disease and ignorance. Enlightened Moderation may be a good slogan. Enlightened Education I believe is a more practical and useful one. |
| As Pakistanis, we know the cost of war. We pay that cost every day. We have paid for it for the past 20,000 days since August 1947. And we will watch it devour the meat of our National Budget again this year, leaving the bone to feed our hungry social imperatives. |
| We pay the costs of war for a military machine we cannot afford, nor control. |
| We pay for state of the art nuclear weaponry we cannot afford, nor obviously control. We pay for research and development for chemical and biological weapons which we know can never be effective deterrents. I have read the Scriptures. The only One to use biological weapons with impunity was God when he afflicted the Egyptians with the Plague. |
| Having suffered the costs of war, we yearn for the dividends of peace - the Peace that passes all understanding, at least all military understanding. We Pakistanis who are not in uniform recognize that unless we can begin to achieve peace within ourselves, we cannot hope to resist participating in wars, or avoid joining them abroad. |
| What justification can we have for interfering in Afghanistan? When history has not been able over a thousand years to coalesce the warring tribes in Afghanistan, why should we believe that we can succeed? When the cause of Jammu & Kashmir has gone past the settle-by expiry date, what do we gain by insisting that it is still a core issue? |
| Kashmir may be a core issue to some, but in my opinion it is a Corps Commanders issue. It is not the core issue to those millions of Pakistani voters denied their own right of self-determination. |
| The resolution of conflicts like Kashmir does not lie in the hands of politicians; it lies in the minds of the military - on both sides. For if war, as someone once said, is made in the minds of men, the peace too must begin in the minds of men. |
| Chairman Javed Jabbar is an unlikely dove of peace, but his words have wings and can carry messages. No one is a more loyal patriot, nor better qualified or capable of changing the minds of Pakistani men, women and hopefully the military in Pakistan. |
| Published in WHEN BUSH COMES TO SHOVE & OTHER WRITINGS (2006). |
