Today was holidays – the “day of solidarity with people of Kashmir (and Jammu)”. We went out to the city and (like its so often) I had some really weird sights…

Huge banners in Urdu and English have been placed around the city. Talking about heroes, enemies, not much abound friendship, peace or agreement… Its hard to understand such an approach, but let me say a few things for You about this valley…

The whole problem started with the Partition of British Raj India into India and Pakistan in 1947. The history behind this is really interesting, but at this moment all You need to know is that the muslims from India under the leadership of Jinnah have succeeded to persuade the British that its inevitable to create a separate Muslim state. Till today most Indians think it was not needed…

But anyways, the British said OK – each province of India (something like a mini-state) can choose if they want to be part of Pakistan or India. The problem was that in Kashmir the ruler was Hindu, but most of people were Muslim, so he decided to try to stay independent, i.e. not to choose… This made the muslims from new forming Pakistan pissed off (as they thought he could want to join India, who had more resources to offer) and sent army to kick the rulers out – and seeing that the rulers of course announced that Kashmir and Jammu want to join India…

Btw, the British would have never accepted K+J being independent, they didnt even agree with Bengal=Bangladesh be separeted and agreed only on its separation only if it is part of Pakistan!

Now the problem was that the leadership of India had an official document stating that K+J want to join India (that document got lost and nobody knows where is it) and thats why India has sent its troops to “protect” K+J. Only a UN-backed negotiation has stopped a full-scale war and has set a cease-fire line – which defacto became the border. India at that time promised that a census – referendum will be held in K+J where the people will decide whom they want to join… That census never happened… The leaders of India at that time felt that K+J are their “homeland” and thus never intended on giving the region to Pakistan.

Since that war, one more war between Pakistan and India about Kashmir took place, the result was actually a return to original cease-fire line. Part of it were troops trained and financed by Pakistan regimes that were supposed to stir revolution in Kashmir. They failed… This war made Zulfikar Bhutto become a hero, for his fight with words (as foreign minister) against India.

As a matter of fact, the area is partly disputed also by China, but Pakistan to strenghten its position against India made a border agreement with China and thus doesnt have conflicts with it. It should be also said that the disputed region is the size of Slovak and Czech republic combined.

To finish up the thing:
- both Indians and Pakistanis feel that Kashmir and Jammu are part of their country
- in light of the proclamation of Kosovo independence its possible to consider Kashmir pronouncing itself independent (as it did in the 60s), but nobody would support that.. as one of my friend ironically noted: “we want them to be free… under Pakistani rule”. And K+J has not enough infrastructure and will among people to become an independent state
- historically during Partition there was a district of India, that had mostly Hindu inhabitants, but leadership was Muslim, that proclaimed itself part of Pakistan (despite being fully surrounded by want-to-be-india districts), Indian troops kicked the leadership out… but it was MUCH smaller than K+J…but according to a (current) map of Pakistan I have, it is shown as part of Pakistan

picture for comparison… CR+SR=15 mio people
Pakistan = 180 mio people
disputed region (K+J) = 10 mio people

I have heard numerous times the sigh “we are living in such a bad/cruel world“… You know what? If You have a look at it – its CRAP! This is the best world there has EVER been (at least for homo sapiens sapiens)… We made the world this way and it might not be ideal for our minds and expectations but it would be a heaven for people from decades passed…

Yes, You open news and there is killings mixed with terrorists and topped with nature catastrophes. But consider a simple fact: its not very distand past when the state of WAR was a standard relationship between countries, peace was only the period of time after a successful war when there was no risk from other power to start a war (they were defeated).

Enjoy what You have, stop complaining, but do not stop trying to make world a better place…

But last days were not the best for Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto is dead, country is in cramps…

But, see, for me these days, when the country went through purgatory, have been about nothing,  repeating that I was bored is not true enough, I was actually numb, idle..

This is a few quotations from my wall on Facebook:
01.Jan.08@04:44pm: hello klepo. how goes things?
30.Dec.07@04:16am: heyyy!!! how are u doing??? ps:I’m not asking to check if u are still alive or not  [reason why the person wrote it like this is a longer story]
29.Dec.07@12:12am: Hi Klepo, how are you doing? How is the situation there? Take care of U
27.Dec.07@10:43pm: Hey Klepo………………… Take care man…… hows the situation there?
27.Dec.07@10:13pm: hey take care of yourself…. update us on the situatuion out there

I was afraid, frustrated and sometimes pissed off, but afraid about the country, not about me.  I was feeling exactly the opposite of what You have been feeling. While You have been anxious about my safety, I was frustrated about what will people of the world think now about Pakistan, while You were hoping that I am not in the middle of it and out of the country, I was hoping to be somewhere where I could do or experience something… even in Karachi, at my flat.

I am sorry, I didnt understand how much afraid have You been, every mail instead of making me feel thankfull that people care, made me even more frustrated about me doing and experiencing nothing…
I am sorry because I thought I was right, I hope You will still care. Trust me that when I say I am fine and nothing is going on, its true, but please still write me messages if I am all right…
I will learn to appreciate them.

What I think of her? Hard to say… I have met a person who was her advisor and he claimed that she was not corrupted and all of it were untrue accusations, I have met people who have no doubt that she, or at least her husband (thats nearly for sure) had stolen a lot of money, I have read articles about her being the Prime minister and was not too impressed… but now it doesnt matter much.

I want to share with You the moment of the event and what came after, from my point of view.

1. Assasination, 27th December 2007, 5 pm (I think)

I am sitting in the common room of the university dorms, writing some stuff for the conference. In one moment a bunch of boys run in, turn on the TV and speak to each other in excited (not at all grieving) voices. My assumption is that Pakistan won some cricket match… I am told what happened, still the tone of voice is “maaan this is so cool!”. I can imagine my face looking like somebody kicked my balls – my first thought: “We (Pakistan) are so fucked, so fucked!” The boys watch the news. Quatations:

random guy: “Yeah, one gone, good”
me: “what do You mean?”
random guy: “one of the old ones gone, only Nawaz Sharif and Musharaf left”
me: “and who comes after, please tell me?”
random guy: “[unsure] I dont know, anybody!”

random guy: “man, whats up with You? You look like it was Your country? ”
me: “well, it somehow is and I do think we are fucked, so fucked, all gone, AIESEC is fucked, but thats just the top of iceberg…”
random guy: “oh come on, its not like its the end of world, it will get fine, dont worry, dont be scared, we have survived worse”
me: “well, honestly, You are fine because You have seen worse and can wait months or years till it calms down, I want it to be get calmer NOW, I wanted to have a conference and have only 6 months left to do what I want here before I leave…”
random guy: “[quiet for a moment] well, we will live here…”
me: [this time me quiet]

2. reactions, 27th December 2007, 10 pm

random friend: “Whats up? How are You?” [in an optimistic voice]
me: “Honestly, You know whats up and I feel shitty ” [snapping back]
random friend: “Oh, well, yeah…” [shocked goes away]
…meeting him after a while again
random friend: “I want to tell You something: When I asked You I didnt think You would care too much, thats first, and second just a while before I have met You, [insert name] has told me that I should not act that pesimistic and rather be myself, in order to chear up people…”
me: [feeling pretty bad] “well, sorry, I didnt mean to… Its just the thing that when You ask me `How are You?` I actually tend to answer, because I am not a Native English speaker… ”
unknown guy walking by : “Hi [friends name] ”
random friend : “Hi, how are You…. ” [turns to me] “Actually You are right, I did it again…”
me: “Well, doesnt matter, I am still sorry… I just feel like this will be pretty bad…”

3. Coma of Pakistan

In books they sometimes write that the country went into a stand still in shock… Pakistan didnt… People have been talking and looking for more people to talk with about the event (educated part) or went to the streets and starting to burn random stuff (uneducated part)…

The country went into stand-still only for those who didnt dare for the next three days to enter the streets and stayed at home scared of the random violence on the streets…

….and from there its known history: mobs started to burn down the cities – cars, banks, shops, stalls, anything that comes under their hands goes down… My opinion on this is in the article called “Day 212 (29.12.07) – Why does man kill angels? In everyone of us is a beast… “

I am not going to tell You much, only basic assumptions of mine (no objectivity is guaranteed): what kind of promise for Democracy can bring a political party that for the last three generations is lead by the same family?

See… PPP was founded by Zulfikar Bhutto, who became hero while being the leader of Pakistan because he had people (left wing) oriented orientation. At the end of his rule, he rather became unpopular (some people say he started to behave like a dictator) and was executed after the military coup. After this, and after it was clear that General Zia (who did the coup) is even worse,  Zulfikar became a hero again.

And thus first his wife and later his daughter (Benazir) was appointed to bethe head of the party, the daugther actaully as a life-long chairman (!). She lead the party and, after General Zias mysterious death (plane explosion), became a prime minister twice, she didnt show herself very skilled when it comes to managing the country. During this time she has accepted an arranged marriage with Asif Zardari. A rich man, who got famous for very huge corruption scandals, while being an important person in Benazirs government and PPP. In both cases of her prime-ministering she was discharged due to corruption cases…

She got back from exile when it was obvious that Musharafs power is decreasing. After first unsucessful terrorist attack in Karachi (150 ppl dead) she was killed on the 27th in Rawalpindi…

Her 19-year old son Bilawal and husband were chosen to be co-chairmans of the party (also Benazirs sister was one option). One of the party officials said that the “PPP workers would not accept a non-Bhutto leadership“. The roles have been clear already at the begining = Zardari said news-guys should ask him as Bilawal is in a “tender age” and sent him to finish school…

Am I bias? Might be… Most of all I wrote this because very soon BB will become a martyr and talking about the negatives will not be appropriate (it actually already is) and secondly and more importantly – I am sad, that the “only hope for democracy and peace”, how BB was called e.g. in Slovak newspapers, was a person with such a history… end

Lets look back… I have never been a real adventure seeker, from time to time I took a decision to do something crazy, but most of the time it was far away from being dangerous… You might say that I went to Pakistan – which surely was a “dangerous” choice. Honestly? It was not… At time of my application I both didnt know much about Pakistan situation and there was not much going on in the country… And than, later when unrest came, there was a second aspect of mine – once I accepted the fact that I am going to Pakistan, I have filtered all the negative info…

Lets look at present situation… I am in the middle of “turning points of history“, “horrible tragedies” and whatever… Foreign friends of mine here are writing articles to newspapers back at home about what is going on in Pakistan, but I, who always wanted to be important, am not able even to update my blog.

Why? The biggest problem is that I am in the centre of news, but am not in the centre of the events. I go to the same webpages that You do (plus a few I know and You dont know about, e.g. www.dawn.com – english news about Pakistan) and see the same news and do assumptions You can do… So what should I write about?

Everybody is asking me if I am safe and how it is. Well my version of the events of the last two weeks is: I am at the dorm, where most of students have not been able to arrive, so the uni had holidays, trains dont run and we dont have money for plane, so we can not at present go back to Karachi, thats why we are stuck here, parts of city are supposed to be unsafe, so we dont actually go out of the campus, during the day we just roam around bored and from time to time hear sounds from distance about which we can not agree if it is: fireworks, riots or a guy celebrating a wedding…. And thats IT!

I have no new way how to answer questions about how am I or how is it, only thing I can offer special are the contents of discusions with local people about the situation, and those I am trying to offer You through this page with its random articles…

…and thats it, I know it was a boring piece of text, but felt like sharing

for something better read e.g. articles of Andrew or Emad or Cileia or just go to Facebook and read some of the notes.

Abdul Sattar Edhi – a man who from nothing has created the “largest and most organized social welfare system in Pakistan. Foundation works round the clock, without any discrimination on the basis of color, race, language, religion or polictics. The Foundation modifies the phrase “Live and let live” to “Live and help live”.” Foundation that owns the worlds biggest privately owned ambulance car fleet. A organisation=man who does for Pakistan what in other countries government is trying to do – care about the common people – but much more effectivelly.

Simply said: if You are born, ill, orphaned, injured, mentally or physically handicapped, addicted, poor and unskilled girl, raped, on run from family, uneducated in jail, street dog or just dead… in all these cases Edhi foundation, run solely from private donations, will take care about You… for free.

You have to understand that this man has created an organisation that is saving thousands of lifes of people and thousands of animals every year… With no benefit for himself – he still owns only a small flat (with only a table and two chairs), that he inherited from his mother, two pairs of clothes and well, the whole Edhi foundation, because he audits every expense in it…

…Why am I saying all of this?

Because there was only one moment that made me cry out (in both meaning of word) during the last days of blasts, shootings and riots… While reading this simple line:

29/12/07: Buildings and ambulances run by the Edhi Foundation, a charity that runs welfare centres, were vandalised. “Seven of our centres have been burnt in Karachi. Nineteen of our ambulances have been burnt, and eight others have been damaged,” said Anwar Ali Kazmi, a spokesman for the non-governmental organisation.

To finish the info: rioters had burned or damaged 947 vehicles, 131 banks and 31 petrol stations up until midnight on Friday. Dozens of banks, vehicles and fast food outlets were set on fire in Hyderabad. Six people died in Karachi on Friday after a factory was set ablaze, while more than 2,000 people torched a police station and stole weapons, police said.

I have always known a man is suicidal and acts without sense when in frenzy, but this is just too much.

My understanding of all peoples movements has been changed. Forget about men trying to free themselves or act together in a protest… Most of them are hell-sheeps, sheeps because they follow the crowd and act like it… To the extent that when the crowd shows anger, these hellish sheeps find the beast in them – and let it out.

…both God and Devil participated at our creation, thats the only explanation I have. Only few people can be admitted to heaven without doubts… but the rest of mankind takes some sick pleasure in destroying their work.

Sesion is over, me, Jeremy and the Islamabadis are sitting at the pool (the venue was perfect) with feet in water and just doing random chats when…

…understand, most Islamabadis are actually from Rawalpindi. And exactly in this moment of pure relaxation, one (and than another and another one) gets and SMS that in Rawalpindi was a bomb blast with I dont know how many people dead.

Worried expressions come, followed by calls home and checking on everybody possible if they are all right. Thanks God, nobody from their circles got hurt. (…would You care about other circles?) And as the home-checking calls slowly diminish, somebody gets another piece of news…

…a State of emergency was imposed on Pakistan!

Calls start all over again, everybody trying to reach some cousin, brother-in-law, uncle, family friend who ranks the highest in military to find out WTF is going on.

Pieces of news come: TV channels cut off, consitution dumped, flights cancelled, arrests, Islamabad and Rawalpindi closed down… And after a while some of them start to prove exaggerated.

Thats the real story. But the most fascinating was the behaviour of people. As soon as the safety of personal circles of the guys there was checked, the discussion went to for me into quite surreal ways. Seriousness got turned into sarcasm, biggest concern became if they will be on time for exams and all of them sure that the university (in Islamabad) will not do a shit about the chaos and keep up to the schedule. The speed with whitch people accepted the status, adapted and started to think and act as nothing has happened was astonishing.

Some people actually started to wish each other Happy Emergency Day

Observing this something became clear: stirring any kind of revolution in here will be difficult. People of pakistan have seen a lot and actually expect to see even more. They actually remind me of the character of Donkey Benjamin from “Animal Farm” by Orwell that I read recently. His approach is very clear – things wont change, I will get old and see new things come and become old and I will try to be still there and live my life.

And thats the story, not very entertaining, but giving an image, image that calms some of You down, that might frustrate some people and maybe might explain a few things. Heck, I guess it pretty explains why nothing has changed after all the rallies by lawyers and all those arrests, because the basic question is – why should anything change, why should I change?

Last thing… this article shows how much I suck in trying to be a journalist stirring peoples emotions. If You want some better stuff go to e.g. blog of this guy Emad…

There are two images that stuck in my head… The Black ribbon, symbol of protest against the State of emergency and the pic of the character “V” from the movie “V for Vendetta”… A friend came with a pretty chilling slogan for it “Remember, remember the 3rd of November!” (if You have seen the movie, You know what am I talking about…). What will be remembered? And who except of Wikipedia will? I dont know, ask Benjamin.

Today morning I am chatting with Cileia from Switzerland who is in Islamabad working for Mobilink… …I knew that exiled prime minister Sharif is planning to come back from articles already a while before, but since than it was so quiet that I have forgotten.

And today morning she is asking me “How is Karachi?”… As there was absolute no difference between this day and the day before for me, I said “nothing“.

And only than she told me that she is at home, because whole Islamabad is closed down, roads blocked, offices and shops closed (actually is holydays), communal right canceled… Sharif is comming and gov is afraid about uproars…

How did it finish? As soon as he got out of plane, he got busted and sent back to Saudi Arabia.

…Asking me what it means? I dont know, his rule was not considered by very good by anybody I asked (said to do corruption BIG time), so his talks about bringing democracy back are quite questionable. What I know is that Pakistan is supposed to have elections this Fall. But nobody knows if they happen in 3 weeks, 3 months or not happen at all.