Who are the two Pakistan Siamese twins making news lately?
Faiz Ahmed Faiz wrote this couplet after a visit to Bangladesh in the seventies. That was then. Today after ‘the cruel birth of Bangladesh’ 38 years ago, it seems we are friends again. The pain of economic and political exploitation of East Pakistan by the West Pakistan establishment is now history. The wounds inflicted by a 10-month military operation in 1971 have healed, only leaving some scars on the older generation. Even today, most of the people I met in Dhaka last month were of the view that East Pakistan would not have separated had power been transferred to the Awami League. They also believe that Mujib-ur-Rahman was willing to be flexible on some of the six points, but in the Constituent Assembly and not outside of it as Zulfikar Ali Bhutto wanted. To discuss where Bangladesh stands today as an independent state, a quick look into its history is appropriate. To begin with, the seeds of its separation from India were sown in the early 20th century when its Muslim leadership su
CLOSE READ: CONJOINED TWINS “Pakistan and Afghanistan are conjoined twins. Our suffering is shared, our joys are always shared,” Afghan President Hamid Karzai said yesterday. He was in Washington to meet with President Obama and President Asif Ali Zardari, of Pakistan, who had anatomical metaphors of his own, having to do with the Taliban and cancer. (It may be metastasizing—thousands are now fleeing the fighting in the Swat valley.) With some twins, the debate is over who is more handsome or pretty; with these, it’s over who poses the bigger foreign-policy challenge for the U.S. The awkwardness built into the meeting became worse with news that dozens of Afghan civilians—perhaps well over a hundred—had been killed in what the Afghans say were American airstrikes. If the reports are confirmed, this will be the worst loss of this kind since the U.S. went into Afghanistan. Sources:
Despite their bloody separation, Pakistan and Bangladesh have a lot in common, including mistrust of India and economic woes. After how many meetings shall … Sources: http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&ct2=us%2F0_0_s_0_0_t&usg=AFQjCNE–bt4hkMrU1MWFRHYuDLRQndgdw&cid=0&ei=OUCIStCDBKnm9AT15rvSAQ&rt=SEARCH&vm=STANDARD&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.newsline.com.pk%2FNewsAug2009%2Freflectaug2009.
