People to People Dialog, At Least

Posted on September 1, 2007 
Filed Under Culture

Not so long ago, India and Pakistan (plus Bangladesh) were one country called Hindustan. And they got indepedent from British imperialism and come out as two countries: Pakistan and India popularly known as the painful Partition.

The once two nations had undergone at least three wars. Currently both are going nuclear which make this part of the world more dangerous. Although peace efforts has been made, there’s no significant breakthrough in the foreseeable future. Wars are made by politicians, not by the people. No wonder when cricket–the most popular sport in the sub-continent–was played by the two nations in Pakistan (2004) for the first time in 14 years, both people of the two countries were so exited.

The Pakistanis, as the host nation, welcomed the Indian fans wholeheartedly, so much so that even the Indians delegations (the media, Indian team and fans) were very much surprised to the way the Pakistani people treated them. See for example, the restaurant owners where the Indian team were playing welcome the Indian fans with free foods, etc. The relations known as people-to-people contact now is getting better by the day.

What I’d like to say here is if the relation between the politicians of western countries and their counterparts in the Muslim countries are not in the best shape for various political reasons– one of them written very vividly by my friend Ahmad Qisai in recent publication of the Jakarta Post– then we should not follow what our respective government has been and is doing. Instead, the people to people ccontacts like what the Pakistanis and Indians has been doing deserve to be taken into account as a very good precedence. If the government cannot make us–the citizen of the world–closer to each other; then it’s our own responsibility to take initiave towards peaceful coexistence. Parrotting what (bad things) the politicians have said and done is just gonna make things worst.



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