KARACHI, Oct 8: In Pakistan, people are afraid to talk about certain important matters. On the one hand they visit American food chains while on the other they tend to think that the US is their enemy. Only Pakistanis will have to resolve these issues if they’re to dispel the perceptions associated with them.

This was the essence of a brief speech delivered by noted German journalist Ingrid Muller at the Karachi Press Club on Monday.

The event was organised as part of the German cultural programmes that began last month with a musical concert. German Consul-General Dr Tilo Klinner was also present. Media person Ghazi Salahuddin moderated the programme.

Ms Muller said Pakistan was a big country having a population of 190 million. The perception of the country in the outside world was that it was to do with things like terrorism, extremism, the Taliban, and no rights for women etc. It was about ‘us’ versus the ‘other’. “Who is the other?” she asked. She said she had found out that 95 per cent of the people wanted to live in peace and wished for a better life. Only five per cent were the ‘bad’ people (some suggested to her that in Pakistan it was not five but 20 per cent). She said the bad people carried weapons. She told journalists that in her country no one had weapons. She said the Pakistanis were nice people as only the day before she had been to a music concert (Tehzeeb Festival) and had discovered a lot of good things.

Ms Muller said visiting Peshawar was different to visiting Karachi or Lahore since it was difficult to travel to Peshawar, whereas in Germany she could roam around freely anywhere. She reiterated that most people in Pakistan wanted peace and in democracy, the voice of the majority was heard. But only Pakistanis could answer as to why peace had been elusive. She mentioned that in Pakistan many badmouthed politicians saying they ruled the country as if it was their property. “You elect them,” she remarked in an ironic tone.

She said people in Pakistan were afraid of what the others thought about them. She argued that in her country you could agree to disagree without the fear of being persecuted.

Talking about the problems faced by Pakistan, she said in Germany the public went to court if something went wrong because there they had a system. Out of the 80million population in Germany, 40 million paid taxes, whereas in Pakistan, only 1.9 million were tax payers. In such a situation, she added, issues related to education, health and basic infrastructure were hard to resolve.

She said some wise persons could be called upon to develop a national strategy to make relevant laws so that their problems were sorted out. Quoting a Karachi-based town planner, Ms Muller said it was not a fight between religions or religious people; what had happened in Pakistan was that the old order had disappeared and the new hadn’t arrived.

On the subject of education, she said while in cities such as Karachi a decent number of girls were acquiring education, the ratio was just 17.5 per cent in the tribal areas. She highlighted that there were American eateries in the country liked and frequented by many, yet America was thought of as enemy. She said it was important to know what the youth’s ideas about the whole situation were.

She rounded off her speech by suggesting it’s not about ‘who are us or who are they’. We were all nice people with a lot of things in common, she added.

Once the floor was opened for a question-answer session, the contradictions that Ms Muller alluded to became clearer because journalists counter-questioned her assertions. One suggested visiting American restaurants shouldn’t be set as a standard for judging things, and that the Americans were killing innocent people. To this, Ms Muller said drone attacks were military decisions and reasserted that only ‘you can solve your problems’.

Prior to Ms Muller’s address, Dr Klinner showed a two-page spread on Pakistan with Ms Muller’s article in a German newspaper. He said apart from Pakistan, the distinguished journalist had been to many conflict-hit countries (Somalia, Haiti, Afghanistan, etc).