CEO and History Ayaz Shaikhzadeh,Metro Manila, Philippines

As a concerned Pakistani living abroad, I read a statement of the Chief Executive General Pervez Musharraf on September 12 with due attention. The General said that the 1971 tragedy was not only a military but a political debacle as well. True. Every Pakistani would ungrudgingly agree with this observation.

He then went on to say: “Let’s forget the bitterness of the past and move forward.

“Something happened 30 years ago. Why do we want to live in history? As a Pakistani, I would like to forget 1971.

“What happened then is nothing that any of us can be proud of. It was a debacle, not only a military but a political debacle. But why do we want to dig the past up?”

Come on General, you cannot be serious about this statement. Unless you have something to hide too (vested interest!). Coming from an army man it is all the more surprising. Is this how you tackle mission failures in the military schools? Forget the past? “Very good, carry on”. Is this the doctrine of our Army?

Any half-witted and educated person would ask, “How can we be expected to go forward, to progress, to forgive and forget, if we DO NOT learn from our mistakes”? It is not enough to know that we committed a deliberate mistake. To understand we must investigate, dig, rationalize, analyze, question, debate where we went wrong, how we went wrong, and who  went wrong. Only then we may come out of this situation, better armed with an understanding and knowledge to prevent such errors being committed by anyone again.

Without the information and experience thus gained we are cruising down the path of this “disaster waiting to happen yet once more”.