The Trojan Horse of 21st century
Prof Dr Liaqat Ali
The classical epic of Greek mythology is Troy. The epic war tale describes how Greek soldiers were able to take the city of Troy after a fruitless 10-year siege by hiding in the Trojan Horse, a giant wooden horse supposedly left as an offering to the goddess Athena. This deception of mythological tale is still present in 21st century warfare that is called as hybrid warfare.
Pakistan has been in the center stage of this hybrid warfare for the last few decades when international media through social, print and electronic media created an environment of distrust among the state institutions of Pakistan. The hype of popularity of political actors have overwhelmed the loyalty for the state. The minds of youth have been poisoned by malicious propaganda using deep fake technology against the core state institutions like Pakistan Army.
There is a plethora of several if and buts among academia about strategic mistakes in the past, but it does not give the right to anybody to make the rifts between the ranks and officers of the institution on one hand and trying to make cracks between the public and state institutions on the other hand.
Being an academician and researcher, I self-reflect question in reasoning any political narrative to solve any problem or issue. Following are the narratives on social media against our state institutions when they try to work under constitutional mandate.
The first narrative is that the state institution wants unrest in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan. Here, the research question is: Why would the army of any country wants to have unrest in its own country when it is facing external and internal threats of geographic sovereignty of land?
The second narrative is that the state institution wants to control the national resources and treasures beneath the earth. The research question here is: Hypothetically speaking why would an institution like to dwell the treasures in war setting. The national reserves are the property of the provinces and through them of the federation. The unfolding of treasures and mineralogical resources in a peaceful country will uplift per capita income and welfare of all the citizen. The NFC award and constitutional amendments along with a vibrant judiciary are there to answer the uncertainties.
The third narrative is that the state institution wants to create division in the country on sectarian and linguistic basis. Here, the research question is: Is not looking insane that the army whose own matrix is made up of pleural inductions in all the ranks, and it will not feel the heat of that divide in its own ranks?
Truly speaking, the Trojan Horse has entered the ideological and geographic boundaries of Pakistan. This hybrid Trojan Horse is carrying disinformation, hate, sectarianism and deep fake technology to harm the ideological and geographical boundaries of the homeland. Keeping in view the fact that the importance of ‘One Belt One Road’ vision of CPEC and the expenditure of Rs 2,300 billion from NFC award since 2013, why would non-Balochis try to harm Balochistan who have shared their piece of bread with their own Baloch brothers.
Well, every nation has to learn from history. The example of Syria, Lebanon and Palestine is in front of us. As they were rubbled in weeks due to lack of a strong army, so, we have to learn metaphorically and change the history this time by opening the tummy of Trojan Horse and let all the curses flew from Pandora box except the hope for a united, prosperous and dignified Pakistan. Here, I will end this column with the prayers of Imam Zain-ul-Abadeen who always prayed for the soldiers performing duties in hard terrains.
The writer is an internationally recognized urologist, academician, researcher and medical educationist, based in Peshawar.
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