after spending 24 hours traveling yesterday and getting no sleep on the plane due to a stomach ailment, i am up bright and early on tuesday to post about part of my kashmir and pakistan trip.
i haven’t been to the region since i was kid. the last time i visited, that bastard dictator, zia ul-haq, was president. he has much to answer for the current situation in pakistan and afghanistan. a general under zulfikar ali bhutto, benazir’s beloved father, haq (who incidentally shares a last name with my mother’s side of the family but is not a relation) overthrew bhutto, had him summarily executed and took control of the country for more than 11 years. during that time, he helped a nation that was progressing, albeit slowly, get mired in the heartbreaking afghan-soviet conflict, brought about the rise of the ISI, pakistan’s answer to the CIA, and aided the birth of taliban-like groups in both afghanistan and pakistan. these things have contributed to so much of the strife in afghanistan and pakistan. may he rot in hell.
haq also spent millions funding the kashmiri conflict. i am a pakistani-born afghan but i don’t think india or pakistan should have control of the region. while it was intended to be dispensed to pakistan after the partition of 1947 because of its predominantly muslim population, it’s been more than 50 years since then and the two nuclear powers can’t seem to come to a compromise. i have always believed that kashmir is for the kashmiris and never more so than now.
i didn’t know how my recent trip to azad jammu and kashmir would pan out. while i expected natural beauty—from waterfalls to what the norwegians call fjords to majestic peaks—and wonderful, hopeful people, what i didn’t expect was a tortuous four-hour drive from islamabad that had me clinging to my seat as the hired driver, naseem khan, traversed his way up the mountain on a two-lane road littered with more than a dozen landslides.
was i going to be a landslide victim? stay tuned to find out…
