Girls celebrate Independence Day in Pakistan.

On Friday, Pakistanis celebrated the country’s 62nd anniversary of independence from British rule, waving flags and singing songs. Security was on high alert in the conflict-torn nation.

Also on Friday, President Asif Zardari announced reforms that will allow political activities in Pakistan’s tribal areas, hoping to draw the lawless region closer to mainstream politics.

Worldfocus contributing blogger Bilal Qureshi describes the changes Pakistan has gone through since gaining independence in 1947.

People in Pakistan are celebrating Independence Day on 14 August. Pakistani flags are flying all over the country, national anthem is playing in every car, every shop, and on every television channel. The overall atmosphere in Pakistan is very patriotic and celebratory.

Good, this is what independence should be all about!

But, there is one question worth asking and exploring at this moment in Pakistan’s history. Why are Pakistanis celebrating this day with so much enthusiasm?

Anyone familiar with Pakistan’s history will definitely agree with me when I suggest that 47’s Pakistan was much better then 2009’s Pakistan. Back in 47, despite awful circumstances, people believed in the country, people believed that the worst was over and now the new country will be a land of opportunities, justice, peace and progress, not only for Muslims, but for everyone living within the boundaries of this brand new country, Pakistan. However, events proved to be totally different and we now know that hoping for the best doesn’t necessarily mean anything, unless people responsible for steering the nation towards stability are serious and honest and Pakistan is a textbook case of classical leadership failure. In fact, not only Pakistan’s leaders failed the country, but the masses too failed to understand what was going in Pakistan. So, what we have today is a country that is on the verge of economic, social and political collapse because of our collective negligence.

Today, when people in Pakistan celebrate Independence, they don’t really understand that the country was supposed to build on what the Brits left behind. Listening to a journalist who has covered Afghanistan for years, I was amazed by his observation and it is worth repeating here. The journalist said (and I am paraphrasing) that industrial revolution (modernity in other words) completely bypassed Afghanistan because Afghanistan was never occupied by the British, and Afghanistan is stuck in 18^th century. There is no reliable road network, there is no railway system, and there is nothing modern in Afghanistan even though the Western countries have been pumping billions of dollars in aid since 9/11. One reason for this backwardness is that the country never really progressed with the world when the world was changing in the last two centuries. Obviously, I am not suggesting that occupation by a colonial power is the only way to become modern, of course not. However, I am suggesting that if anyone looks at Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, and other countries that went through the experience of British presence, and compare their infrastructure to Afghanistan, one cannot escape the inevitable conclusion that Afghanistan really was at least two centuries behind when it is compared to rest of the world. So, going back to what I stated earlier, Pakistanis had everything when the British left — a superior and comprehensive road and railway network, an effective administrative set up to govern, a unique and modern postal service that helped people communicate with other and many other services that are still in use today. So, the country had almost everything that was required to start fresh and it was up to the subsequent leaders of the country to make Pakistan a country of hope and opportunities. Regretfully, Pakistan’s journey from 1947 to 2009 is a journey betrayal, failure, denial, greed and division. In all honesty, there is hardly anything in Pakistan that can be a source of pride for any serious Pakistani.

Yes, despite all the bad things that have happened, people of Pakistan deserve to celebrate independence, sure. However, it is also equally important to be realistic and we must look at Pakistan’s balance sheet for the last 6 decades. More importantly, the country should ask: what have we gained after independence? Are we really free? Are we really independent from foreign influence? Are we really self sufficient in any area? Do we have control over our destiny? Do we make our own decisions? Are all Pakistanis equal or is there a different standard for Muslim Pakistanis and another standard for non-Muslim Pakistanis?  (By the way, the recent violence against non-Muslims in Gojara, Punjab is hardly a sign of peace or progress in Pakistan. )

Despite terrible odds, the optimist in me believes that the country still has a chance to come out of this mess, if only the people in the country get united, demand equality, justice and honesty from their leaders, stop pointing fingers towards other countries for our own failure, stop looking for a ‘invisible foreign hand’ behind every failure, and realistically look for solutions to Pakistan’s problems. There is always a way out when it comes to problems and challenges. There is always an answer for every question. All we need is a sincere effort! And I believe that Pakistanis are, at the very least, fully capable of making a sincere effort!

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The views expressed by contributing bloggers do not reflect the views of Worldfocus or its partners.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user kash_if under a Creative Commons license.

Language has become a symbol of independence in Greenland.

In recent months, Greenland has taken steps towards self-rule. The changes follow a referendum last November, in which 75 percent of the electorate voted to take more control of their own land.

Cultural identity is also highly important to Greenlanders, and Kalaallisut — or Greenlandic — is now the official language.

Jason George of the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting writes that the language has become a symbol for national pride.

When Denmark gave up control of Greenland last month—ending 300+ years of colonial control—one of the first changes Greenland made was to declare Greenlandic the country’s lone national tongue.

For Greenlanders it was a point of pride to drop Danish off the list, but people here also wanted to symbolically declare that Greenlandic is central to the country’s future. They see nothing nostalgic or quaint about Kalaallisut, the most widely-spoken dialect, even if only about 55,000 people speak it.

At a popular internet café in the capital, local teenagers spend summer evenings playing computer games, chatting online in English with other gamers around the world. All Greenlandic students learn English in school and many are as comfortable with the language (and its locker room humor) as any American teen.

However amongst themselves these teens talk almost exclusively in Greenlandic, and there’s no evident pressure to ‘look cool’ by speaking English. In fact one 15-year-old gamer, Rasmus Nielsen, told us that when he moved here from Denmark 10 years ago the kids teased him about not being able to speak Greenlandic.

He learned quickly.

Of course learning a new language is easiest for kids. Professor Lenore Grenoble struggled to gain some grasp of Greenlandic before arriving here on Monday. Even with several tutoring sessions from her University of Chicago colleague Jerrold Sadock, Grenoble made little headway. “I’ve learned three phrases,” said Grenoble, who’s researching Greenland’s success at maintaining its language, despite strong outside pressures.

“It’s a very difficult language,” added Grenoble, who speaks several other languages herself, including one spoken only in the Siberian arctic.

Why’s Greenlandic so difficult?

Beyond its 10 cases, eight moods and four-person forms, Greenlandic is polysynthetic, meaning words are often made up of roots, affixes and suffixes. This quirk makes many words terribly long. In fact, some can be entire sentences, such as amaasiaarput (“They walk in a row”) and taamaaqatigiipput (“They are considered as equals.”)

Grenoble will travel today to Sisimiut, above the Arctic Circle, to begin the bulk of her work and meet with Carl Olsen, chairman of the Oqaasileriffik, the Greenland Language Secretariat. The Oqaasileriffik oversees how Greenlandic adopts new words, like qarasaasiaq for “computer” (literally “artificial brain”), and how it hopes to survive.

For the Secretariat and Greenlanders, maintaining their language is not just an issue of communication, but security and sovereignty.

To read more, see the original post.

The views expressed by contributing bloggers do not reflect the views of Worldfocus or its partners.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user stml under a Creative Commons license.

Greenlanders at a political rally in Copenhagen. Photo: Ben Piven

Multimedia reporter Ben Piven traveled to Denmark in 2005, where he photographed Greenlanders in the capital. That year, when record-high winter temperatures in Greenland exceeded 60 degrees Fahrenheit, Greenlandic political groups continued to lobby for their own state.

I read two weeks ago how midsummer’s day was the occasion for big celebrations in Greenland’s capital of Nuuk, a small town snuggled between fjords on the southwestern coast. Clad in sealskin boots and waving red and white Greenlandic flags, a procession of indigenous Inuit people reveled in their newfound autonomy. Greenland had just become an “equal partner” with Denmark, the former colonial power. And the Danish Prime Minister Rasmussen even proclaimed that Greenland could declare full independence whenever it wanted!

Greenland is a massive expanse towards the north pole that should have been called Iceland or Whiteland, since 81 percent of the world’s 840,000 sq.-mile island is covered with a giant, uninhabitable ice sheet. But Greenlanders will be sticking with the Inuit name, Kalaallit Nunaat, now that the landmass of fewer than 60,000 people is moving farther away from Denmark.

Irrespective of the political situation, glaciologists and environmentalists are very worried about Greenland’s main glacier, Sermersuaq. Containing about 10 percent of the world’s fresh water, it is melting at an alarming rate — having receded ten miles over the last decade. But scientists disagree on both the pace and the consequences of the melting, even as Manhattan-sized chunks break off from the island.

The population mostly lives along the south-eastern coast. Map: Creative Commons

Yet, some Greenlanders stand to benefit from climate change. In a BBC article from July 25, Prime Minister Kuupik Kleist was quoted as saying, “We understand that this is a global issue…but we see opportunities as well as challenges. I want a Greenland that is open to those opportunities.”

In the future, thawing glacial streams may provide ample amounts of hydropower. Yet, rising ocean levels and melting permafrost are flooding areas of settlement. At the same time, thawing glaciers have not been detrimental for many farmers.

More vegetables could supplement the traditionally fatty Greenlandic diet, which is rich in musk ox, reindeer, and scallops. At the same time, traditional dog-sledding is more difficult for hunters as the ice sheet disappears, and shrimpers lose out when the shrimp stocks move farther north in search of colder waters. The largest sector of the economy is the fishing industry — shrimp, seals and whales. These days, scientists are hoping to extract biogas from the Greenland shark, whose meat is actually toxic to humans.

Others are happy about the prospects of global warming facilitating a Greenlandic gold rush. The state-owned oil and mining firms, NUNAOIL and Nunaminerals, are hoping to cash in on potentially enormous underground deposits, which are now more accessible due to rising temperatures. So global warming is a mixed bag, promising greater economic independence as well as environmental hazards.

While politically a part of Europe since the 18th century, the increasingly autonomous Greenland is also reasserting its indigenous Greenlandic (Kalaallisut) language and culture. Similar Eskimo/Inuit communities of northern Canada and Alaska are also increasingly seeking more rights.

The flag of Greenland.

Just last month, Greenlanders elected Kuupik Kleist as prime minister. The head of the leftist Inuit Ataqatigiit (Community of the People) party wants full autonomy from Denmark. In the meantime, the Danish queen, Margrethe II, enjoys largely ceremonial authority over the island.

Since 1979, Greenland has enjoyed home rule. In 2008, Denmark transferred more responsibilities to the local government but maintained control over foreign policy, security, and finance. Recently, however, Danish media have lamented the possibility of being dragged into an Arctic arms race, as Canada, the U.S. and Russia also vie for resources.

Aside from global warming, the biggest problem for Greenland is how to wean itself off Danish support. Total annual grants are $633 million ($11,300 per Greenlander), which amounts to about half of Greenland’s GDP per capita. Greenland’s young government is hoping that nascent industries such as mining, energy and tourism will make up for the difference.

Socially, Greenland is plagued by high rates of domestic abuse, alcoholism, and suicide — especially for the 88 percent of the population who are Inuits or mixed Danish-Inuit. A small number of Greenlanders live in Denmark proper, and many of them are also plagued by alcoholism and dependence on the generous Danish welfare state.

In sum, ice-fishing and dog-sled races could start attracting more visitors in a tourist season conveniently extended by global warming. Bright red Air Greenland jets could be flying soon to an airport near you.

- Ben Piven

“Freedom of the moment:” An Estonian boy cries out at the apex of a climbing tower in Tallinn. Photo: Ara Ayer

Symbols of ethnic pride abound in the Baltics. Whether it’s Riga’s Freedom Statue, Vilnius’ Gediminas Castle or a little boy exalting on a climbing tower in Tallinn, no definitive monument stands to represent the ongoing struggle for independence in Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.

The Baltic states may have traded membership in the former Soviet Union for entry into the European Union and NATO, but they struggle to maintain their separate identities. That they exist at all is a testament to the fortitude of their people. Before the Soviet onslaught, empires of Poland, Prussia, Russia and Scandinavia all tried to incorporate one or more of the Baltic states.

Possessing a prized coastline — an approximate collective land mass of two West Virginias, Vermont and New Hampshire, with a population less than New York City — the Baltic states remain vulnerable. Producing stories with Worldfocus colleague Sally Garner, I found each country has different approaches to self-preservation.

Up until the global economic downturn, Latvia had the fastest growing economy in Europe. It quickly shed its communist past and looked for security and success in the credit and economic structures of the West. Yet rather than providing safety and sustainable growth, Western banking policies and an awakened Latvian consumerism exposed the country to excessive risk.

Now, Latvia teeters toward bankruptcy. Street protests, government instability and rising unemployment are the hallmarks of a once-proud nation. In our reporting, we spoke with a Latvian on the brink of losing his job. He said Latvia is failing because it forgot itself, its strengths and limitations, in the headlong rush to become part of Europe. Disenchanted with a dream deferred, he says he’ll join thousands of his countrymen leaving Latvia for a better life. With over 40 percent of Latvians being of Russian, Ukrainian, Belorussian and Polish descent, the loss of every ethnic Latvian puts the country in a quandary.

Lithuania and Estonia are in better shape economically, but not by much. The Lithuanian government is investing in language, specifically Lithuanian, to help preserve its national identity. Lithuanian is the official and sole language in matters of law, commerce, government and public life. If you are Lithuanian and speak Russian, Polish or German, check your ancestry at the door.

The Lithuanian government has empowered a language police corps to yank down foreign language street signs, correct publications and catch the nation’s newscasters in Lithuanian pronunciation and grammar mistakes. One wonders if such forced obedience will play out in a multilingual world. But then again, they aren’t trying to save the world — just Lithuania.

Estonia by and large is the most technologically-evolved of the trio. The country has placed its future in the digital age by building a “state of the art” civic Internet service. Via computer and phone, one can view everything, from a child’s report card to a live press briefing from the Estonian prime minister. A specially-encrypted Estonian identification card with an embedded digital signature allows Estonians to securely authenticate legal documents, vote, even pay for parking — all online. Estonians believe such Internet access makes for transparent government, responsible citizenry and better business — touchstones of resiliency in uncertain times.

No one can fault these small countries in their ongoing attempts to ensure their existence. Possibly the most important thing each is doing to protect themselves is participate in NATO, United Nations and U.S. coalition military missions. All sent combat troops to Iraq and all are continuing to send troops to Afghanistan. Though their collective deployment has never exceeded 2,000 troops per mission, their commitment to building modern armies and strengthening their ties with NATO cannot be questioned.

The reemergence of Russia as a world power has the Baltics — people, politicians and military men — on edge. Speaking softly but carrying a NATO membership may be the best defense and innovation in preserving Baltic identity and integrity yet.

- Ara Ayer

Tibetan monks study in Karnataka, India.

A group of exiled Tibetan leaders are partway through a week-long meeting in northern India that may chart a new course in Tibet’s struggle against decades of Chinese rule.

Years of failed attempts at conciliatory relations with China and recent statements by the Dalai Lama have left some Tibetans in search of a new, more aggressive strategy — including a possible declaration of independence that many youth support.

But this week’s meeting has highlighted a generational gap between Tibetans. The older generation prefers a more moderate approach.

A blogger at “Tibet.org” examines calls for new thinking on Tibet in the context of China’s changed motivations since the struggle began. The blogger argues that leaders must focus on Tibet’s economic assets rather than religious freedom or human rights.

Another blogger reposts analysis by a Tibetan Chinese person who expresses sadness at Tibetan riots and trumpets Chinese communism and its economic rewards.

Blogger “Mathieu Vernerey” writes extensively about differences and similarities between the “middle way” approach and those who call for Tibet’s complete independence, suggesting that both approaches can be reviewed and adapted.

The “Potala Times” Web site posts a letter from a Tibetan who believes the meeting in India will not see a full agreement, but who hopes Tibetans can retain their culture with or without autonomy and on a local level.

Watch events of the meeting in India here.

As the meeting commenced, China tighted controls on Tibet and a Chinese official stated that Tibetan separatism is “doomed.”

China has even taken the battle online, where the country has used Google ads to spread its own version of the conflict.

Tibet was essentially an independent country prior to invasion and occupation by China’s People’s Liberation Army in the 1950s.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user bluemoondream under a Creative Commons license.