KARACHI: “A lot of negative thinking plagues this country. Blanket statements that unless certain issues are resolved the country cannot sustain and progress, are mental traps that we get caught into which block us from thinking out of a situation,” said Moazzam Husain, at the launch of his book Putting Pakistan Right: Stand­points on the War on Terror, Energy, Transit Corridors & Economic Development.

Two major mindset shifts are needed in the country, Mr Husain emphasised. “One is that this country belongs to the people of Pakistan and not to an appointed establishment that has assumed for itself the role of becoming custodians of our ideology.”

Another paradigm shift needed in the country is to rid itself of all “phobias that the rest of the world is out to get us”.

Mr Husain also spoke about the differences between existential threats and everyday issues.

“One of the existential threats to this country is from religious extremism and terrorism. There is an ideology here that wants to either take over the state, wants to overthrow the state, or wants to destroy the state. There are some groups that want to seize the state intact. There are others who want to destroy it,” he explained. Such threats should be eliminated immediately with the help of a comprehensive plan of action.

“Corruption and kickbacks are not existential threats,” he said.

The keynote speaker of the evening, Abdullah Hussain Haroon, Pakistan’s former ambassador to the United Nations, began by highlighting the table of contents of the book. One of the chapter names he read out was ‘Do we know the enemy?’ to which he said: “Everyone here will have an identification which may not tally.”

He lamented the degradation of the state on the macro and micro levels. One such example was of how cities were becoming loose representations of the way they were in past. “Cities are sort of sponges that keep absorbing everything you throw at them. However, no one seems to be worrying about how cities should be going into the next millennium; we just think of how we can utilise, and plunder.”

The refugee crisis the country faces today was also discussed by Mr Haroon, who read out portions from the book to enunciate the lack of direction, and actions the government of Pakistan could be rightly accused of.

Arshad Zuberi of Business Recorder shared the surprise he felt when reading Putting Pakistan Right. After researching his previously published writings, Mr Zuberi said he felt that the author had shown an innate ability to perceive the political standing of Pakistan on a global level. The author, he believed, had made several important observations.

From the issues of Kashmir, registration of the Afghan refugees, jihadists on Pakistani soil as well as raising questions about the establishment, Mr Zuberi spoke about how Husain, in several of his newspaper columns, was far ahead of his time.

The book launch ended with a Q&A session.

The search for a strategy, a way out for Pakistan, makes for a riveting discussion, especially if the debate ends by raising more conundrums rather than just providing a simplistic conclusion. And the book launch of Putting Pakistan Right scored high on that front.

Published in Dawn, September 23rd, 2016