The Trust is of course headed by the MD himself, Mr Majid Nizami, who not only fashions himself as, but actually believes he is, the defender of the 'true' ideology of the country. He has been a close confidante and supporter of Mardood-e-Momin General Ziaul Haq as well as Zia's one-time protege, former premier Nawaz Sharif (who calls Nizami 'uncle'). But keep in mind that this is also the head of one of the most politically influential media houses speaking (I say 'politically influential' as a qualifier of course, since the readership of the group's publications is fast on the downslide).
I am thankful to the meticulous Shahid Saeed for digging up and providing us the link.
I can't be bothered to translate the entire lumbering speech but here are some of its salient points, translated verbatim:
- "As far as Pakistan is concerned, we should be thankful to Allah that, after ruling Hindustan for one thousand years, when Partition of the Subcontinent happened in '47, we were successful in achieving freedom."
- "I give the phrase 'Two Nation Doctrine' more importance [than 'Ideology of Pakistan'] because it bothers our enemy India more. And I want to tell you that you [the teachers] should please explain to your students, the new generation, that the Hindu cannot be our friend. The Hindu was, is and will remain our enemy."
- "Until this conflict [over Kashmir] exists, the existence of Pakistan is in danger. The floods that recently came, were all because of India. All of our rivers come from Indian Kashmir, where they are building dams. Whenever they want, they can drown us in floods, whenever they want they can, how should I say it, starve us to death, destroy all our crops."
- "[Indians] cannot think beyond the Gao Mata [the motherland, literally: Mother Cow] and say we split Gao Mata into two parts, that's why they also cut us into two and made East Pakistan into Bangladesh. But it [still] did not become a part of India. God willing, it will once again become a part of Pakistan [clapping] and East and West Pakistan will be one. But the condition for that is that there should be patriotic rulers in Pakistan, who are deep thinkers, who know their history, who know the history of Islam and the history of India, and are not just adept at making money or taking commissions."
- "We have kept these lectures here because we had requested [Chief Minister Punjab] Mr Shahbaz Sharif to introduce the Two Nation Doctrine at every level in the syllabus."- "My request to you is to please convey the Two Nation Doctrine, the Ideology of Pakistan, to your students and expose the real face of India to them. And tell them that we should always be ready to fight India. Thanks to Allah, we are an atomic power. Our nuclear bombs and atomic missiles are, in the words of God, our horses. India too is a nuclear power but, believe me, compared to our horses, their nuclear bombs and missiles are mules or donkeys. [Clapping]. Some people ask me, do you want a nuclear war with India? I say yes, I do. They ask what about the destruction it would cause. I say, without destruction you cannot deal with the enemy. The United States was the first country to use an atomic bomb, against Japan. It caused a lot of destruction. But if you go to the US today, where the Professor sahiba lives [reference to someone sitting next to Nizami], their markets are all full of Japanese goods and Japan is far more prosperous today than it was before. Okay, so some people sacrificed their lives, some people's facial features changed. But if we want to live life as a dignified nation, and protect our lifeline Kashmir and get it back, if for that we need to wage a nuclear war, we should be ready for it."
I don't think I need to deconstruct the senility and unadulterated venom on display here. Neither do I think I need to say much about the massively questionable assumptions, prejudices, extrapolations and falsification / ignorance of historical facts and reality. I am not even going to question the titling of this balderdash as the 'Allama Muhammad Iqbal Memorial Lectures', which must, at a minimum, be making the scholarly and humanistic Iqbal turn in his grave.
All I am interested to know is why the Chief Minister of Punjab, Shahbaz Sharif, thinks it is a good idea to further inject such bile and poisonous hogwash into the educational system. Isn't the state of the curriculum pathetic enough as it is? Is this really his idea of a 'Teacher Training Workshop'?
If it is, God help the Punjab and Pakistan.
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