Where is the promised land?

Pervez Akhtar Khan

Former Air Commodore, PAF

I have a 75 years old Iraqi-origin Pakistani friend. He came to Pakistan when hardly 25 years of age. He was conscientious enough even at that tender age to refuse to join the Baath party.

His punishment was exile. Overnight, Saddam Hussain made him homeless, landless, and without any citizenship.

 By a quirk of luck, he used to teach mathematics to the son of a Pakistani diplomat in Basra City, who provided him with temporary documents to travel to Pakistan to save his life.

With grit and determination, he put down his roots in a completely different culture. Brilliant academically, he completed his doctoral studies in linguistics from Punjab University. His dissertation applied the TG Theory of Noam Chomsky to the Linguistic Theory of English-Arabic Translation. The thesis was approved by a professor at Harvard University.

 From a one-room shack, today he lives in a posh area of Islamabad. Married to a Pakistani lady, he has raised four brilliant children. He also supports his surviving siblings in Iraq. Even today, he is asked by world-renown TV and Radio stations to do a commentary on ME, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. As a journalist, he has worked in the leading newspapers of Pakistan. He has translated thousands of pages of official documents of GOP from English to Arabic and also for Arab Embassies.

Every day, during our hour-long walk, we discuss the happenings of the day. In the last few days, we have been discussing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He can connect the dots with his lifelong study of each group and individual personalities involved.

 He is also an encyclopedia of Pakistani politics and affairs. He has seen the transitions in Pakistan through the lens of an independent, secular observer and researcher. His phenomenal memory serves him well.

Yesterday was a very pleasant cool evening in Islamabad while Karachi was sizzling hot.

He surprised me by asking a question. "Akhtar Sb, do you know where the promised land is ?"

I thought, he asked this question in the context of the current crises in Palestine so I replied that I didn’t believe even for one moment about this BS of a PROMISED LAND where milk and honey flows. The Zionists narrative is based on pure fiction just like the Hindutva nonsense. Both states are usurpers. These so-called narratives are anti-history, created just to grab land and power.

I was going to go on but he stopped me dead in the tracks when he declared.

" My friend, Pakistan is the promised land but unfortunately, most of you don't recognize it."

 Since yesterday, I have been mulling over and trying to digest his pronouncement. What is it that he sees but most of us don't?

I promise that as soon as I can extract and coax it out of him," why he called Pakistan the promised land, I will inform you.

Pakistan Paindabad.

PS: Jassim Taqui writes: This piece for me is a Ph.D. and more. It is the greatest recognition of about 50 years of research and academic activities in Pakistan. With people like Pervez Akhtar around, Pakistan is in safe hands. PAF has already restored the pride of the nation on February 27, 2019. May God bless the land and the people of Pakistan.Ameen.