THIS is to share my thoughts on Amnesty International Director Rafia Zakaria's article (Jan 6). The writer has clearly defined the biased attitude of the US administration towards Pakistanis in general for enhanced security checks.

Toeing the same line, and adding my thoughts to the core idea of “... labelling entire nationalities as ....” I agree with these thoughts. However, I would like to add that the ground reality today in Pakistan is that we react when something like this is implemented in foreign countries, but ignore such incidents in our own country.

The Pakistani elite becomes touchy when other nations treat Pakistanis abroad differently and react to it immediately, but it does not give a thought to the behaviour being extended to ordinary Pakistani citizens by the people in power, by institutes and the elite themselves.

The elite class is fortunate to travel abroad, enjoy the privileges here, and is subjected to equal treatment like all Pakistanis. This makes the ordinary Pakistani feel bitter and humiliated.

Ms Rafia is toeing the same line. Please do not travel to the US if you do not like to be treated like every Ahmad, Moosa and Bashir of Pakistan. History tells us that we were measuring all East Pakistanis with the same moron yardstick, and the results were seen in 1971.

The same population has shown us today that it is better than its western brothers in today's competitive world. They even have a Nobel Prize winner to their credit - whereas we treat our scientists with humiliation.

Have our national leaders not shown the same tunnel vision on many occasions about the Sindhis and the Baloch? History is on record about the comments made by Zia, Musharraf and other members of the elite about Sindhis. Is it not true that one of the reasons President Zardari is being singled out is because he is a Sindhi and from the People's Party?

Have we ever given any thought what the MQM has done to Karachi? Why are all these thoughts not open to debate and projected in newspapers?

However, the US attitude, which concerns only a minority that travels abroad, makes headlines in Pakistani newspapers.

If we think there is any ambiguity in the above argument, read what Asma Jahangir has said on record about the treatment to the majority. This is noteworthy.

I would request Ms Rafia to correct our attitude first before pointing fingers at other nations and getting jittery about being searched. Getting searched at US airports is a minor issue and affects only a few.

NAZIR A. TUNIO
Karachi