By any standards - extremely! We as a people, as Pakistanis are very stupid, bordering on ineptitude and heavy inefficiency. We have displayed our lack of common sense time and again, our history is chock a block with incidents of our dearth of intelligence and forethought. We act impulsively and then sit back to ponder, albeit without any fruitful results, on what we have done.
Our beginnings are replete with events at the national level that were limited in prospect and cost the country dearly - I mean our leanings towards USA in diplomatic forums, why the hatred towards Russia and communism? why did we need to take sides and choose? while India from that time onwards have displayed great wisdom and integrity in remaining 'non-aligned'. Where has our love affair with US gotten us? On the verge of a virtual civil war? we are armed to the teeth literally! at the national level and at individual level and yet we are one of the most dangerous countries to live in with travel advisories issued by every other country to avoid us as a destination.
Our politicians and leaders have behaved with absolute disregard of good form and grace. Our politics are provincial and our visions myopic. We are still thinking in terms of Punjab and Sindh, and our regional languages, and who gets what from the federal government. We bank on our ethnic roots whether they exist or not to garner votes for we have nothing of what is called deep character.
Our public is as silly. We behave inanely, without any decorum. We rally at the first call of any new leader that comes on the horizon... just see the masses gather and flock at dharnas of Imran Khan! Now he is hailed as the saviour of this forsaken country and its destitute people! none of whom have bothered to read his party manifesto, none of them have ever questioned his alliance with the out-lawed Taliban, what of his giving in to the fundamentalists, and hard-core people who may spew venom against America and the west.
We have killed our most promising leaders. from Liaqat Ali Khan, to Zulfiqar bhutto to Benazir we have been silent as people when those leaders who might have given something to the country were slain and to date we stay silent.
We let one half of our country slip away because we have our own insecurities and a thirst for power which when mixed with little intelligence and cunning becomes a most lethal concoction.
Our gross stupidities were quite manifest on the international level at the fiasco of Osama hiding away under the tutelage of the army in Abottabad, our handling or should I say mishandling of the CIA agent's case in Lahore, our failings at every step in history in bettering the lot of our women, and our self-failing policies. Our expenditure which has no relevance to our GDP, our misappropriation of aid, of what we can and cannot raise as tax revenues and how they are put to use.
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