The writer is a retired army officer and a freelance columnist

pineswah@tx.micro.net.pk

All of the rest of the world, even that part of it which forms the much-vaunted Ummah seems to be going one way, we quite another. I write this from London, where we arrived via a one-night lay-over in Dubai courtesy the airline, a city state that never ceases to amaze me. Its hotels are bursting at the seems, its bazaars are teeming with shoppers, mostly foreigners.

Some weeks ago I wrote about how women don't get a second look in India (they are never stared at!), well, exact same in Dubai. We must have seen tens of Western tourists walking about the town in all sorts of dresses, not one of the men, many of them Pakistani labourers, leering at them. Not one. On the other hand, look at how we treat women, especially foreigners, in our country. You just have to observe how the throngs of people at our airports, most of them taxi drivers, stare at the poor things, jostle them, and in many cases feel them up. In short, do everything expected of louts and yahoos. No wonder we are now one of the most unfriendly-to-women-and-foreigners countries in the whole world.

And this, a country whose people are known for their generosity of spirit - walk through the countryside and every poor tenant farmer you come across will ask you to share his roti and lassi with him. This, in a country which is spoken so highly about by people who visit it for any length of time. Why then do our cities particularly present this ugly face to those who just come to tour the country for a few days? What is this lascivious manner all about? Why are we so obsessed with women (particularly gori) at all? I'll tell you why. This is the tyranny of the obscurantist who has, over the last twenty years or so (thank you, Ziaul Haq) lorded it over us, the ordinary people of the country. This is the tyranny of the medieval thinking brought into our society by the self-serving puppets of the establishment, the Sharifs and their munshis, the Binyamin's (what's the man's name - the one who was well on the way to banning all women NGOs in the Punjab at the behest of Capo di Tutti Capi Mohammad Sharif - but who is now kosher beyond belief because he is one of the PML (L)'s "stalwarts"?), and those of our clergy who are backward and ill-educated, and who spew poison from their pulpits.

Take another look at Dubai - an important part of the Ummah, no doubt, paying as it does the bills of other less fortunate members of the Group, us included. Dubai is a liberal, modern city-state, where foreigners are made to feel welcome; which is now one of the foremost convention centres of the world and a leading tourist attraction - with music concerts, international golf championships, sailing regattas et al, on offer. And hotels of international standard where people can behave as openly as they do anywhere abroad. Much as I like Dubai and admire the direction it has taken under the sagacious leadership of the late-Emir Sheikh Rashid and continued by his son, I have to say that it is hardly ornamented with even one-thousandth of the natural beauty that Pakistan boasts. Just imagine what we could do with our hugely beautiful country if only our government and it's points men in law and order and tourism General Moinuddin Haider and the good Colonel Tressler could get their acts together.

Let us open up our country by effective policing; let us give foreigners some little freedom to have (for example, and even though it is silly to mention a complete non-issue, for if a man wants to ruin his health its his problem) their pints and their chhotas in our hotels openly, not lurking like criminals in their rooms. More than that, let us face the fact that by driving alcohol underground we have given rise not only to boot-legging from which the state makes nothing by way of excise and import duties, but which has actually contributed to the taking of far more harmful drugs and therefore to crime of the worst kind. Indeed, if the UAE and Bahrain and Kuwait and Egypt and Syria and Iraq and Morocco and Tunisia and Turkey and Jordan and Qatar and Yemen and Malaysia and Indonesia and Bangladesh, all members of the great Ummah, can allow foreigners and other 'kafirs' to drink alcohol (only Saudi Arabia, Iran and Libya do not, and they are flush with cash) why can't we?

Indeed, if we really consider we are right and all of the countries named above are wrong, why do we extend our begging bowls to those of them that are petro-dollar rich? Why do we not then stand on principles and not accept any aid from them, considering that some of the wealth of these countries is booze-dollars too? To extend this argument further why, pray, do we kowtow to the IMF, the World Bank and the United States for one more dollar, please sirs, when they are 'kafir' too?

No. Let us open up our society. Let the arts: music and dance, flower in the arid desert we have made of our country. It is not as if we do not have the talent. It is just that we suppress it for fear of the obscurantists. But, will we ever face up to the truth? We will not. We shall continue to wallow in the mud-pit that we have made of our good country while the world strides confidently towards a better tomorrow. Unless, that is, the General will at long last become a messiah and pull us out of the mire by our bootstraps. Only he can do it.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch: The Sharif's have been allowed by the Saudi Royals to set up one of the largest steel mills in our part of the world. The latest news is that they have applied for land allotment and are approaching funding agencies etcetera, at the same time looking around for "partners" for the venture. Forgive me for sounding stupid, but is it not a fact that no foreigner can even think of setting up any business in Saudi Arabia, without what is called a 'sponsor' - a local who just lends you his name and then sits back on a nice fat pension for the rest of his/her life? Is it not a fact that foreigners cannot go near a Saudi bank, let alone approach the Industries Ministry for a license to set up a (mega, in this case) manufacturing unit without the sponsor leading them by the hand?