September 22, 2002	Sunday	Rajab 14, 1423

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PARIS, Sept 21: In a documentary to be broadcast tomorrow (i.e.,Sunday) on French television, Pakistan is referred to as an “explosive kaleidoscope,” a quintessentially complex country which is perpetually on the verge of a social explosion, where the head of state, General Musharraf, is quoted as saying he “yearns for the day when he will be able to leave power and go play golf.”

The film, by veteran French newswoman Martine Laroche- Joubert, is based on a recent three-week trip to Pakistan, during which she says she was able to visit all parts of the country, from Karachi — characterized as “one of the most dangerous cities in the world” — to Lahore, by way of the Karakorum Highway to Kashmir and tribal zones near the Afghan border, to Peshawar, and the estate of the Bhutto family said to be “a symbol of the decadence of Pakistani life.”

Her visit, says Laroche-Joubert today, “is a journalist’s dream. Pakistan is a kaleidoscope of sorts. It’s a country made up of many different regions, each of which has its own personality, with each region quite different from its neighbour. If the regions have anything in common, it’s their extreme complexity, their difficulty in being understood.”

“There’s everything in this country,” she continues. “There are those who were educated in the best British schools, there are the fundamentalists and other extremists, and then there are those Muslims who practice a tolerant brand of Islam. There’s also the FBI, the secret services, the members of Al Qaeda.”

“I was given a free hand to see what I wanted and meet whomever I desired, with some of my subjects never having been interviewed before, and who as a result when on camera show obviously that they hardly know what television is all about.”

As for the explosive nature of society, Pakistan is a tinderbox ready to flare up, says Martine Laroche-Joubert, who notes that part of the blame for this situation can be attributed to General Musharraf, part of it can’t: “Musharraf is certainly one of the most benevolent dictators in the history of the country, but he hasn’t been able to solve many of its problems, which remain impressive. It’s a situation only partially of his doing, though, for he finds himself caught in the crossfire between his allegiance to the United States and the internal pressure brought against him by a political opposition that favours democracy.”

With regards to the excessive presence, physical and moral, of the United States in Pakistani life, Laroche-Joubert’s film quotes Ahmed Rasheed, described as “the best-known journalist in Pakistan,” as saying that “the Americans appear to want to support the continuation of the rule of the military, although in doing so they go against the will of the Pakistani population which evidently desires a return to democracy, in any case a better sharing of power between the military and the political parties — something which Musharraf obviously isn’t ready to give them.”

Another principal figure of the documentary, Nusrat Jamil, described as an intellectual and opposition leader who is also “a militant for a better social political development of the country,” says, for his part, that “luckily, in the end, there are some Pakistanis who reflect and who think.”