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Thursday March 28, 2024

People’s unity to foil enemy design

By Zafar Alam Sarwar
July 31, 2018

The common people, irrespective of creed or affiliation with any political party, are asserting they dislike terrorism in any form and any attempt in any way to divide us on sectarian lines by any country will be thwarted. “We know who funds terrorists.”

“Whatever our social, political and economic condition we respect our soldiers who are dedicated to our motherland’s defence in the same way as we did in September 1965. The devil is clandestinely active at the international level to sow seeds of disunity and thus weaken the Muslim unity,” say elder citizens.

A faithful Pakistani, whether he’s Pakhtun, Baloch, Sindhi, Punjabi or Urdu speaking, realises the necessity of working together for a common cause whenever the need arises. That’s why every citizen says Chief of Army Staff General Qamar Javed Bajwa has come up with the truth that every shaheed (martyr) or injured is equal, regardless of sect and ethnicity.

The need for greater unity arose after the May 21, 2016 drone attack inside Pakistan. As a matter of fact, unlike the power-hungry leaders, the common people want to throw the old begging bowel and work hard collectively to become a welfare state.

One of the pre-requisites to achieve such goal is unity of thought and action. And for that one should for a moment leave aside the ‘acts’ of self-seeking leaders and self-imposed slavery to any other country.

One has to look at the state structure objectively in the national interest in the given circumstances. Pakistan is a state, not a colony owing its existence to any foreign power. The idea behind the struggle for Pakistan, as its founder told the officers of the armed forces, was that we should have a state in which we could live and breathe as free men and which we could develop according to our lights and culture and where principles of Islamic socio-economic justice could find free play.

All the pillars of the state, including the media, have to perform their functions in high spirits with honour and dignity in an atmosphere of harmony, patriotism and devotion to the cause of Pakistan-which means making it impregnable with sound economy and internal security.

One is reminded of the address of the founder of Pakistan of January 23, 1948 to the Establishment of HMPS ‘Dilawar’ wherein he emphasised that the weak and the defenceless in this imperfect world invite aggression from others.

The best way in which we can serve the cause of peace is by removing the temptation from the path of those who think we are weak and, therefore, they can bully or attack us. By the way, the threat that more strikes will be carried out has only emboldened the common man who is with armed forces fit for freedom and, following the advice of the Quaid-i-Azam, remain alert, very alert, for the time for relaxation is not yet there.

zasarwar@hotmail.com