Daily Show
As I’ve more or less said goodbye to the first place that hired me in Pakistan, a school I’ve taught at for three years, I’ve been in training for a new job that will, hopefully, hold me over until I secure another position. At any rate, I’ll be qualified to teach at any Inlingua center in the world. During the past week I’ve been training for Inlingua (it’s like Berlitz) as an English instructor, and while it’s sometimes been stressful, it’s been an enjoyable experience overall. Anyway, it’s not as stressful as tramping around town, interviewing at different schools. Indeed, training in this facility has been like a trip back to the U.S. – well-organized, corporate environment, friendly and professional atmosphere, reliable air-conditioning, American accents, and long days.
Tomorrow there’s going to be yet another planned strike in Karachi. This one, I think, is related to the two-year anniversary of the May 12th massacre. Yes, violence plagues the country as a whole (duh) but the splashy, headline-grabbing events usually occur hundreds of miles away from me. But there’s been some blood-letting in Karachi a few weeks ago, which, strangely, I didn’t even find out about until the next day (it happened, as it usually does, in parts of the city I never visit). I suppose that tomorrow will just be another day off from work for most people. First a strike was called, then a holiday declared by the government in response, and then the strike was supposed to be called off because, apparently, a holiday would make it ineffective. I’m sure there’ll be demonstrations, and if there are riots, things are bound to get ugly. I hope it’s not too hot, as I’ll be spending most of the day indoors (my AC still needs to get fixed!).
With so much to be angry about and so much chaos and confusion, it’s sometimes difficult to know what people truly think and how they truly feel. Last night I watched Fareed Zakaria on the Daily Show pontificating about Pakistan. My first thought was, wow, I bet most Pakistanis watching this, knowing who they are, would get angry at this show before a word was even spoken (featuring, as it did, a pro-American Indian Muslim being interviewed by a liberal American Jew). I agreed with everything Zakaria said, but one comment surprised me. He claimed that, despite anti-Americanism being at an all time high (true) in Pakistan, the majority are now actually in favor of the drone plane attacks! I’ve never heard any Pakistani express support for that, so I looked it up. I did find this blog article in Wired: http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/03/pakistanis-hear/.
Support for military campaigns against the Taliban is probably not growing, but the creation of refugees, now close to 900,000, certainly is.
It’s hard to know what to make of all this, but I think we need to be cautious before coming to hasty conclusions about public opinion. The U.S. has a long way to go before it wins Pakistani hearts and minds. The best thing to do is the limit any violence, come up with a comprehensive, well-planned Afghanistan policy (including plans for an exit), and consider how to assist Pakistan constructively in a way that minimizes: interference in their government, support for fanatics, aiding corruption, wasting American tax-payer money, threats to India, or jeopardizing our troops or civilians. In other words, it’s the same damn story as before!
