Re: Most Pakistanis fear extremism, dislike Taliban: survey
Absolutely true.
The only trouble is that self loathing is probably the most common form of mental illness in the country as well as amongst the NRPs.
Truth to be told, Pakistanis themselves played the biggest rule in maligning their country and creating all kinds of misconceptions and paranoia by taking extremes views of fringe minority and generalising it on a reasonable majority. Words like ‘Kaffir’ and ‘Taliban’ were casually thrown around by those fringe groups against anyone who remotely differed in opinion and appearance to them. Anyone who’d studied Pakistan or lived and breathed in Pakistan was perhaps always thoroughly assured that a country that has never voted a religious party as a majority government would even dare imagine welcoming a barbaric Taliban rule. So in other words, the sentiments, the intelligence and the voice of the silent majority was always undermined in the country. At most, the silent majority differed, if not completely lost hope and direction in dealing with Taliban because neither the ruling nor the military elite bothered taking public in confidence, took initiative and led from the front against this menace. But things have changed considerably since past 4-5 months.
I’d like to hope and pray that worse is really over for Pakistan, but the next challenge certainly still lies in the Afghan border.