Cultural Invasion
- Hassan Farrokh, Islamabad

ON Feb. 5, precisely on the day we marked a day of solidarity with the Kashmiri people, private Pakistani television channels aired the Asian Bollywood Awards.

It was a show that brought together major artistes from across the border, who sang and danced in an effort to bury the Indo-Pakistani hatchet. Most of the Indian artistes, directly or indirectly, kept attacking the two-nation theory — and, thereby, the very basis of Pakistan.

They described the separation of the two nations as cruel and a great tragedy. The Pakistani artistes either nodded foolishly in apparent agreement or, in some cases, harped the same tune.

The Indians always promote such “confidence-building measures,” while continuing their bloody genocide in Kashmir, murder Muslims, acquire massive military hardware and try to sabotage our water resources.

We may be sharing the same culture, as almost everyone in the show proclaimed, but this is only true with regard to singing and dancing. We, the Muslims of the Subcontinent, chose a separate lifestyle, and achieved independence in 1947 after decades of struggle. It hurts that some of us have forgotten that.●

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