Salute to Tribal Leaders

 Who says we have no leaders? If we have the MIR Jaffars like Hussain Haqqani, Rehman Malik [read it Dakait] Zardari, Gilani , Asfandyar and Nawaz Shareef, we have Tipu Sultans also. Prior to attacking the patriotic tribal by Meerasi General Parvez Musharraf on the direction of the military and political leadership’s masters in Washington the people of Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) were considered the protectors of the rest of Pakistan. Now they have “reportedly” picked up guns against the “state”.

It’s not the story we are discussing here, however the Lawmakers from same FATA have showed up some self-respect in Washington, the things which we all have been desperately expecting from our government.

According to Dawn “Miffed at being asked to undergo a full body scanning at an American airport, a group of Fata lawmakers cut short their visit to the United States and flew back home.”

The six-member delegation, which included both senators and members of the National

Senator Abbas Afridi, Kamran Khan, hafiz Muhammad Rasheed, Sajid Hussain Turi, Jawwad Khan and Akhunzada Chattan

Assembly, boarded a Kuwait Airways flight at Washington’s Dulles airport after the dispute.

They had come to the United States on Feb 28 on a 15-day visit.

On Saturday morning, they were scheduled to fly to New Orleans as part of their tour.

But when they arrived at the airport, two of them were marked for random checking, which included a body-scan.

They refused to accept the demand, saying that they would rather go home than submit to the proposed scanning.

Senator Abbas Khan Afridi, a senior member of the delegation, later told journalists that other lawmakers backed their colleagues and told US officials that they too would go home if their colleagues were not exempted.

US State Department officials, who were travelling with the delegation, took the lawmakers back to their hotel in Washington where Pakistan’s deputy chief of mission and other senior US officials joined them.

Dawn reports that Pakistan’s Deputy Chief of Mission tried to persuade the lawmakers to change their minds, telling them that all passengers in the United States had to go through random checking.

Mr Afridi said that the lawmakers considered the scanning order an insult to the parliamentarians of a sovereign country and decided to call off their visit.

Some would term it point scoring and others would call it publicity stunt but to me it’s a demonstration of self-respect. To this day our governments, also include military leadership, have given out the message that we are the only nation on this earth with no word of sovereignty, dignity and self-respect in our dictionaries. The actions like this at least help us prove that we are state with people who care self-respect and that Pakistan is not a sold-out nation. Guys I am proud of you. And you need red carpet reception at Pakistani airport.