Sheikh Rizwan Javeed
“…so that’s the real issue but the irony is many don’t know about it”
“Yeah, this is what always happens in politics, you are never aware of the real thing”, replied Bruce to the long speech that I had just finished. With a smile he turned his attention to the road and I reclined in my seat, my arms folded against my chest and thinking whether I had done justice to my story.
We were on our way back to Green River Community College in Auburn Washington from a day tour of the capital of the State of Washington, Olympia. It had been a political day – not in the sense that we were involved in political discussions or practicing politics; on the contrary it had been just wonderful. We visited the Temple of Justice, the State Senate, the legislative building and the Governor’s office as well as talked to the Chief Justice, Special Secretaries to the Governor and the staff of the various facets of the Government there.
Dressed in my traditional attire I took off the Qaraquli cap and looked at it with thoughts of Kashmir in my mind. The program I had been selected for was the Study of United States Institutes which incorporated an over-all study of United States of America and training prospective leaders from amongst the young generation of the developing countries. My group included students from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh who were at that time busy in singing popular songs from Indian movies. As we zoomed past heavy traffic on a speedway, I recalled the story I had been telling Bruce – our program director.
Bruce had been all ears to the reminisces of Kashmir’s history in my twenty minute speech. I had tried my level best to deliver what little I knew, and yes I don’t feel proud to mention that I know little, as most of the young Kashmiris, of my nation’s own history. It was strange though that a man of his calibre and understanding had very little knowledge of the ‘Kashmir conflict’ – something that every Kashmiri grows up with.
I was not surprised though because in my two weeks stay in America I had understood it very well that a common American was least worried about what happened outside America. Frames of a video that I had seen on YouTube just a week ago were flashing in my mind where many Americans didn’t know where Iraq and Afghanistan were on the globe. I had snickered that day when one of the interviewees of the video pointed his finger towards Australia when asked where Iraq was on the world map.
The thought in my mind was very clear, “Most of the common Americans have little knowledge of America’s two major adversaries let alone the Kashmir conflict which doesn’t even tickle its politics indirectly”. However, I was amazed when I had realised that even students from India and Pakistan, parties to the conflict, had very little knowledge of it and even of Kashmir and its people. “How do you feel when you hang that fire-pot around your neck in winters?” had once remarked one of my friends from Pakistan to which I had replied, “It feels warm!”
I had been eager all through the program to talk to as many Americans as I could about Kashmir, its history and its conflict. In all my interactions I found the other to be unaware or scarcely aware of the subject. Most of them were busy trying to live their life to the fullest and why should they have cared about what was happening in the ‘outside world’. I had been longing to hear President Obama make a comment on Kashmir conflict in his Cairo speech but then again it was not the burning issue.
The car turned round a corner and we entered the college marking the end of the Olympia tour but not of my thoughts. I was wondering that why we are eager for a comment or an initiation of some sort by a developed nation like the United States on an issue which is not its direct concern. Maybe it is because of America’s supremacy in world politics but at the same time aren’t the parties to the conflict themselves capable of actually coming to a solution. The thought that made me uncomfortable was the fact that we lack not only the actual knowledge of the entire Kashmir conflict but also the confidence to share and explain it to the world.
As I flung myself on the bed to retire I assured myself of a peaceful sleep by taking an oath – an oath that I should have taken long ago. I vowed to do a deep study of the Kashmir conflict not only for my personnel knowledge but also for educating the world about it. Of course if we think of a change by making people around the world understand the problem; we ourselves have to be well versed with its details. Else we would just end up as another example of the famous Kashmiri couplet:
“What am I to do with the five, the ten and the eleven…
Who stirred the pot, scraped it and left.
Had they all together pulled the rope…
The eleven would not have lost the cow”
The author is a student of law at Kashmir University. He spent two months in the US on a student exchange trip in 2009.
