Oh Karachi

Karachi is on a knife’s edge. Or is it?

A friend of mine currently settled in Dubai, had the following to say about his recent trip to Karachi (his hometown) over Eid:

“Karachi used to be called the city of lights, but recently the stench of death and destruction had extinguished these lights. This Eid, it was great to see Karachi being back to its normal self. Apart from the occasional frustrating traffic jams, it was good to see so many people out on the street enjoying the festivities of Eid. It felt like the old Karachi. It gave me hope.”

“Watching the news and reading newspapers from outside Pakistan, I had started to feel that Pakistan had turned into another Iraq or Afghanistan,” writes Mr. Naqvi. “But this Eid, I realized that this wasn’t the case. Watching so many people out and about; visiting parks, malls and other recreation spots, spending money & enjoying themselves. It never felt like these people were depressed about their future. People didn’t seem that worried.  It felt like there was even a hint of optimism. It felt good. It didn’t feel like being in a failed state, things in Karachi have been bad, but we’re still some way away from being a failed state.”

I agree with most of my friend’s conclusions but I would like to challenge the premise of his argument. The Pakistani people turned out in large numbers to celebrate Eid not because we have a lot to celebrate but because we’re a resilient nation. We needed a break from the doom & gloom and that’s exactly what we were trying to do at Eid. Even the terrorists & KESC took three days off from giving us our daily dose of relentless bad news.

But they returned with a vengeance. Twin suicide bombs killed 24 in Quetta today.

My friend correctly notes that we have some way to go before we become a failed state. The question is… are we headed in that direction or away from it?

Waiting for a Messiah to save Pakistan

We should outsource Pakistan’s governance to China for the next 30 years, argued a close relative at a recent dinner table conversation. “China can turn around our economy and restore law & order in the country,” he said with a straight face, without a sniff of sarcasm. “We could never do this on our own”.

Pakistan’s troubled history is no match for the resilience & resourcefulness of the Pakistani people, many of whom believe that Pakistan can be saved if we’re able to find the right “savior”.

This is how death & hope co-exist in Pakistan; as long our own loved ones don’t die, we fool ourselves into believing that we’re just bidding time until our chosen savior comes to rescue Pakistan, waves his magic wand and makes all our problems go away.

Our life is made all the more easier because there are so many saviors vying to save Pakistan.

We can pick our favorite savior from an open buffet of options. The business elite prefer the stability & security of military “saviors”. Elements of the religious right prefer the “Shariah based justice system” & “freedom from American hegemony” that the Taliban “saviors” promise us.   Disillusioned youth believe a new face like Imran Khan is the answer to our problems, arguing that a new leader could change Pakistan’s future just like a new ball can change the outcome of a cricket game.

This pervasive savior mentality didn’t just drop from the sky in Pakistan. We’ve been taught to believe that only our leaders can help us; that we cannot collectively help ourselves.

Let me engage in some historical blasphemy to make my point.

Whenever we talked about the unfortunate death of Quaid-e-Azam during history class in school, our teachers would almost always wistfully remark that Pakistan would have been a different place had Quaid-e-Azam lived longer.

There is an almost universal belief among Pakistanis that Quaid-e-Azam would have saved Pakistan (from our future problems) had he lived longer. We need to shatter this mental barrier to realize that one leader cannot single handedly change the fortunes of a country, not matter how honest & intelligent he may be. It’s only when a nation collectively decides to improve their fortunes that true progress can be made and honest, intelligent leadership can flourish.  

For over 60 years, this “savior mentality” has wreaked havoc in our country by diluting our sense of responsibility as citizens.

“You shouldn’t pay taxes in Pakistan,” were the words of wisdom I received from a friend, right after I filed taxes for the first time in my life. “The money’s only going to end up in some corrupt official’s pocket,” he argued. “The system is corrupt. The system should be changed first”.  

Unfortunately, the onus of changing the “system” is conveniently placed on our “savior” of choice so we don’t have to take responsibility for our actions. This helps us sleep at night: I don’t pay my taxes because the system is corrupt. When the system changes, I’ll become an honest man. And the system will change when (insert savior name here) comes to power and rescues the country from the mess we’re in.

As a nation, we find ourselves repeatedly clinging to the mirage of a promised savior, who’ll make our problems go away with minimal effort of our own.

The hard truth is that Pakistan doesn’t need saviors; Pakistan needs its citizens to take responsibility for their country. As a society, we can’t put off doing the right thing in our daily lives (honesty, obeying laws etc) until our chosen messiah descends from heaven (or Washington) and decides to change the “system”. We must do the right thing now and consistently if we want to genuinely save Pakistan.

No one else will save our country, with our best interests at heart, unless we take responsibility for this beautiful, broken nation that we call home.

Conversations from Pakistan

The feedback to my last blog post was overwhelmingly critical.

A close friend slammed the post as overly sensationalist and not representative of life in Karachi. “Unfortunately, much of the local media people have used cheap tactics to gain sympathy and build a reputation for themselves at the expense of the country,” he commented on Facebook. “Karachi is not a war zone, millions of people live and work here.”

I wasn’t attempting to be sensationalist while writing my previous post but a critical mass of people felt it was unrepresentative of life in Pakistan. My original intention was to raise questions about our lives in Pakistan and whether we’ve grown too accustomed to the “abnormal” being our “normal”. Since that didn’t quite work out, I’ve decided to dedicate this post to sharing a montage of diverse experiences and conversations from Pakistan over the last 30 days.

The purpose of this montage is to offer an insider’s glimpse into a country that is clearly misunderstood. The purpose of reporting anecdotal news is not to hide the bad news that emanates from Pakistan but to place that news within some context instead of adding to meta-narratives about militancy, illiteracy and poverty in Pakistan.

Young businessmen bullish on Pakistan’s future: An overwhelming number of young Pakistani businessmen I’ve met are excited about business prospects in Pakistan. They point to the market fundamentals: a large young population, a consumption oriented society and an out flux of the business and intellectual elite of the country.

The majority of the 180 million people in this country aren’t going anywhere they argue, no matter how many bombs go off in a day. These people need to be fed, housed and clothed. Those businessmen who stay back in the country will do very well because they’ll be in a position to leverage these market fundamentals to their advantage, with less competition from other businessmen.

F-16 versus Youngsters: I was recently mentoring a group of school children in Muzaffarabad (Capital of Azad Kashmir). The kids, aged 9-12, wanted to play something fun so I taught them how to play hang man.

When I asked them to split into two teams and propose names for their teams; the first team unanimously named themselves “F-16” without even discussing it between themselves. The second team also wanted to be called F-16, but had to settle for another name; “youngsters”. I always thought shiny, unaffordable fighter jets had a constituency within the military only, but I was wrong…

When I asked the children what they wanted to do when they grew up, they said they wanted to become Doctors, Politicians, Scientists, Engineers, Imams and Army men. One encouraging common theme in all their discussions was a well articulated and visible desire to serve their country.

In search of good news from Pakistan: As part of the feedback to my previous blog post, I was advised by many friends to highlight and report good news from Pakistan. There are many significant and insignificant positive stories that can be reported from here. For example, there is a bustling new food street in Karachi doing roaring business, which shows the resilience of Karachi-ites to go out and have a good time despite the lack of security, electricity and water. There is a gleaming new 3-D cinema in Karachi as well, playing to packed audiences.

In more significant positive news, the security establishment is being held accountable for the first time in the country’s history by political leaders like Nawaz Sharif, who are saying the unthinkable out loudly (how much longer will he be allowed to speak up before he's silenced forever?). The media has rightfully made a lot of noise on Saleem Shahzad’s case. And heads have rolled (or atleast been transferred) for the appalling murder of a man in broad day light by the rangers. This is certainly progress and a positive affirmation of the strength of the civil society in the country. After all, that’s how things progress in Pakistan; one step backward, one and a half steps forward!

The decency of the Pakistani people:

While driving into Islamabad airport, the incredibly relaxed security protocol at the entrance forced a friend to comment that our country was surviving only on God’s grace. There used to be a popular saying that Pakistan was surviving only because of three A’s: Allah, America and the Army. The Army and America are struggling to assert their influence on the country right now. God’s grace is continuing to help us survive. But another factor helps keep this country together; the decency of the Pakistani people.

Think about it. We’re a proxy play ground for the great ideological battles of the day. Militant ideology spread & funded by the Arabs is wreaking havoc in our country via suicide & non-suicide bombings. We’re simultaneously fighting a war against these militants, funded by the US, which helps the militants justify their attacks on us.

On top of this, we have all the usual problems of corruption, illiteracy, poverty & lack of basic amenities like electricity. And yet, the overwhelming majority of Pakistanis remain law abiding citizens who try to make an honest living instead of taking up arms or resorting to violence. This is a remarkable testament to the decency of the Pakistani people. 

As my uncle jokingly says; God will arrange a special VIP line for Pakistanis on the Day of Judgment. “You’ve been through enough stress in your lifetime,” God will announce to Pakistanis. “Today, I’ll let you off easy for all your trouble.”

Between appearances and reality: Life in the most dangerous country on earth?

After spending a year in New York, returning to Pakistan has been a pleasant experience that exceeded all my expectations. The only thing that threw me off this week was a near death experience that brought the country’s security situation sharply back into focus.

After a year of reading bad news about Pakistan from a distance (frequent suicide bombings, OBL’s hide out, Raymond Davis, attack on PNS Mehran), I was itching to find out for myself how much the country’s security situation had worsened on the ground (as opposed to perceptions from a distance).

Before I share my thoughts on the security situation in Pakistan and my near death experience today, I can’t help but recalling a funny and relevant conversation with a cab driver in California, who was dropping me to Disney Land. My cab driver was a folksy middle aged man with a long white beard.

“Where are you from?” he asked innocently with a thick country accent.

“I’m visiting from New York,” I answered, not wanting to reveal that I’m originally from Pakistan to avoid the usual list of questions about security and life in Pakistan.

“Oh… New York,” he said. “I’m afraid of going to New York because it’s not safe. I hear there are lots of muggers outside Central Park.”

“Yeah… it’s bad but not as bad as they say it is,” I replied with a smile, thanking God that I didn’t tell him I was from Pakistan. If he felt New York was unsafe, Karachi would have freaked him out even more. And I didn’t want that discussion to get in the way of my uncontained excitement about visiting Disney Land for the first time in my life.

Later, as I boarded my return flight to Karachi from JFK, I told myself the same thing about Pakistan’s security situation for re-assurance: “it’s bad but not as bad as they say it is.”

I was excited about coming home. But my operating principle was to arrive with low expectations so I’d be pleasantly surprised when my expectations were exceeded.

For example, I expected there to be no electricity at home when I arrived because of power shortages. But I was pleasantly surprised when I had electricity and power shortages in my neighborhood were not as bad as I had expected (my friends warn me not to say this out loudly, lest our area gets jinxed - fingers crossed).

The security situation in my area has actually improved because of a new security check point in my neighborhood. Petty & serious crime has come down (in my neighborhood). This was great news I thought. Things are much better than I had expected.

And then reality hit me far quicker than I had expected.

Karachi’s security situation took a turn for the worse today. I was driving home and crossing a bridge over a neighborhood that is susceptible to ethnic violence.

As I ascended on the bridge, I could see a fire and smoke in the distance. But there were cars behind me and in front of me. So I kept moving.

A few seconds later, I realized there were tires burning in the middle of the bridge but no immediate indication of violence. That’s not too bad I thought. There was enough space for my small car to cross.

And then suddenly out of nowhere, a speeding caravan of rangers came racing up the bridge, driving full speed on the wrong way. The rangers came to a screeching halt 20 feet from my car. I heard four loud outbursts of gun fire.

At that moment, it was my turn to cross the burning tires.

My first emotion was confusion. Usually when you encounter such scenes (mostly in movies), there is music to cue you to duck your head or keep driving.  But there was no music playing in the background. I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do because I couldn't identify which direction the shots were coming from.

I tried to make eye contact with the rangers to ask if I should keep driving ahead of the burning tires. But they were too busy trying to take their positions on the bridge.

If the rangers were going to engage with gun fire from the neighborhood below, I felt it was best to keep moving instead of being so close to them. So I kept moving.

Once I crossed the burning tires, I could see traffic was moving normally at the other end of the bridge. Fortunately, the rest of the ride home wasn't so eventful.

I’m not sure if this qualifies as a near death experience because amidst all the confusion, I didn’t trigger what should be an intrinsic reaction to say a prayer when I was actually unsafe for a brief few seconds.

In any case, the reason I’m sharing this incident is so that Karachi people take precautions when driving today and over the weekend.

Stay safe Karachi. Stay safe Pakistan.

The President’s Speech (that wasn’t)

Assalamualikum,

I speak to you today as Pakistan finds itself under siege from an extraordinary set of

internal and external challenges. By now, all of us have heard about the dramatic US

operation that led to Bin Laden’s death in Abbottabad.

I would like to begin my address today by apologizing to the people of Pakistan. As

President of the Islamic republic of Pakistan, I personally let this country down by not

speaking out when the country needed its leaders to stand up and clarify Pakistan’s

role and position on Osama’s death. 

With this speech, I hope to change all that.

The truth is that my advisors warned me against publicly discussing Pakistan’s role in the hunt for and eventual death of Osama Bin Laden. I was warned that Osama’s death could spark a series of spectacular terrorist attacks in Pakistan that could result in the death of hundreds if not thousands of civilians. This was a decision that I could not take lightly.

You will all remember that I lost my wife to a terrorist’s bullet. I know the pain of losing a loved one and I didn’t want my people to suffer the same.

But today, we face a collective choice as a country. We can bury our heads in the sand or we can stand up to the challenges that confront us. I’ve made a decision that we can no longer afford to bury our heads in the sand.

I have always argued that democracy is the best revenge and I refuse to keep you, the citizens of this country, in the dark about your government’s actions.

The truth is that Pakistan is at war with militants who have declared Jihad on the Pakistani state apparatus and by extension, the Pakistani people and our way of life. We did not start this war and we don’t want to fight this war.

It’s not easy for any of us to see the Pakistani military killing fellow Muslims, no matter how violent their ideology is.

After the attacks on 9/11, America declared war on Al Qaeda and Taliban in Afghanistan. Pakistan chose to side with America in this war, without any significant conditions attached to our loyalty.

If I could go back in time, I might have been firmer in my negotiations and not compromised our sovereignty in a wholesale deal. But we can’t go back in time… I can only deal with the cards I’ve been dealt.

Today, Pakistan is at war with militants who threaten our way of life. This is partly because we chose to become allies with the United States in its “War on Terror.” And partly because our state has been playing a strategic double game; supporting militants who could become our allies in a post-US Afghanistan and confronting militants who are directly threatening Pakistan’s security. 

Our double game has been criticized by many “experts” who observe it in isolation, without historical or regional context.

Today... let me publicly reveal why we started this double game. Our security establishment calculated that the US is a fickle partner and would leave Afghanistan and the region at a timeline determined by their domestic political considerations. The US has done this before when it abandoned Afghanistan and our region in the late 80’s, leaving Pakistan to clean up after its mess. We didn’t want to be caught off guard when history repeated itself.

Unfortunately, our double game has back fired.  

We had never expected these “Muslim” militants to start blowing up Pakistani girls in their schools or open fire on teenage boys as they prayed Juma in Rawalpindi. We had never expected the militants to attack the Sri Lankan cricket team, our country’s official guests.

These militants have used Islam as a cover and America’s occupation of Afghanistan as a justification to orphan our children and turn countless Pakistan women into unaided widows.

Enough is enough.

As I told the world in my Washington Post article, more Pakistani soldiers have died in the war than all of NATO’s casualties combined. Two thousand Pakistani police officers, 30,000 innocent civilians and a generation of social progress in Pakistan have been lost in this war.

Despite our country’s sacrifices, the Americans didn’t consult us when they chose to take out Bin Laden. We were later told that this was because the US didn’t fully trust Pakistan. They were worried that some elements within the Pakistani state might tip off Bin Laden.

We have no one to blame but ourselves for this spectacular demise in our international credibility.

And while there is plenty of blame to go around, as the democratically elected President of Pakistan, the buck stops with me.   

The time has come for us as a nation to raise our heads from the sand and confront head on the task that lies ahead of us.

Today… I’m announcing the news of an all-parties roundtable summit to be held later this month in order to build consensus on how together, as Pakistanis, we can fight the challenges that confront us.

I’m also inviting members of the civil society, the academia and our business community to contribute their ideas and take ownership of a counter militancy strategy that has a strong emphasis on economic empowerment, education, an end to double games by our security establishment and re-calibrating our relationship with the US.

Pakistan has paid a very heavy price in this war, with our blood and with our livelihoods. I don’t promise that I have the capacity to solve all our problems. But I do promise transparent decision making in our government.

I would like to end my address by remembering the 30,000 Pakistanis who have lost their lives in this ugly war. Let us make a promise to them today… that we will not let their sacrifices go in vain.

From now on, no more cover ups and double games. For better or for worse, your government will be honest and transparent in its communication. Come what may, we are in this together.

Pakistan Khappay! Pakistan Zindabad!

P.S. The idea for “The President’s Speech (that wasn’t)” was inspired by a blog post

written by my friend and class mate Ahmed al-Omran titled “The King’s Speech (that

wasn’t).” Ahmed blogs on Saudijeans.org

Re-envisioning a Mosaic of Shattered Dreams

Pakistan’s obituary has been written more times than Kamran Akmal has dropped catches. But this country continues to solder on, despite the dropped catches, the odd terrorist hide out and a multitude of other problems.

Take the case of Pakistan’s economy. Our economy is a beautiful mess; it’s too weak to survive without IMF bail outs but resourceful enough to prevent wide-spread hunger or large scale food riots, even after a devastating flood that displaced 20 million people.

On the security front, our country is held hostage by a similar set of contradictions. Bombings & blasphemy are an everyday occurrence but most of us can go about our normal lives without even noticing that we are at war with ourselves.

I remember a particularly revealing conversation I had with a friend in LUMS (Lahore University of Management Sciences). Both of us had grown up, relatively sheltered, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. We were about to graduate and it was time to choose between going back to Riyadh or staying in Pakistan.

“I prefer living in Karachi because it has more freedom and opportunities for younger people compared to Riyadh,” I remember telling him.

“But what about the bombings?” he asked.

This was the spring of 2008, when Musharraf was clinging to power and there were daily bombings in the country, targeting urban centers with lethal force.

“The timing of my death has already been determined by God,” I told him like a good Muslim boy.

“I’m not worried about dying,” he shot back. “What if I lose my hands or legs?”

That was a good come back. I was genuinely caught off guard by his honesty… since most of our discussions were usually arguments for the sake of arguments that went nowhere.

Fast forward three years and it’s time for me to move to Karachi again. Things are slightly better back home but the situation is still pretty grim.

What gives?

Why isn’t there anyone in Pakistani society outlining a vision for the type of Pakistan that ordinary citizens want to live in.

Usually, political leaders in a society outline competing visions and the citizenry makes a choice between these visions by voting one of them into power. The irony is that Pakistan actually has a civil society strong enough for politicians to tap into and champion their vision but we don’t see that happening.

Historically, our political leaders have tried to inspire us by talking about Pakistan generically as a “modern” “democratic” “progressive” “Muslim” state. Even our dictators have used the same language to inspire us.

But there is a fundamental disconnect between those words and my life.

If a magical genie were to appear all of a sudden and grant three wishes for what I wanted to change in Pakistan… what would I wish for?

Granted this is an exercise in naivety, but lets cloak it under the garb of escapism and indulge ourselves. Afterall, this has been a tough week for Pakistan, even by our standards.

What would you want to change about Pakistan overnight?

This is my wish list:

1) An end to senseless violence. From stray bombs to the bullet of a mobile snatcher, I don’t want to call up family and friends after a bomb to ask if they are okay.

2) A mutual respect for differences in opinion. I want conservative and liberal Pakistanis to argue and fight, without anyone getting hurt in the process. Once we learn to respect each others opinions, we can finally have a candid discussion on our problems, rather than indulging in conspiracy theories.

3) I want people to pay their taxes and be rewarded with a responsive, transaprent government.

Now for the reality check. No genie is about to magically appear in front of me… but the exercise of forcing myself to write the top three things I want to see in Pakistan helped me understand what really matters in life, as opposed to the jargon and ideologically lofty positions I usually take.

What if our political leaders were to talk about divisive and conspiracy theory generating issues like militancy, Osama's death or blasphemy in simple, non-ideological terms like breaking the culture of violence and helping people feel safe again?

I’m not sure if this would help us solve our problems but it certainly wouldn’t hurt to give it a shot.

Why America is losing the battle for hearts and minds in Pakistan

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has spent more than $5 billion in Pakistan over the last decade to build schools, provide safe drinking water, fund earthquake reconstruction and other projects aimed at wooing Pakistani public support for America. But open any Pakistani newspaper and you’re unlikely to ever find even a sentence of praise for this aid. Instead, the message of America’s good deeds is drowned out nearly every day by relentless press criticism of America’s policies in the region.

“US mocks Pak demand with fresh drone strike,” declared a typical headline this month in Express Tribune, an English language Pakistani newspaper affiliated with the Paris-based International Herald Tribune.

“USAID can spend billions of dollars to build infrastructure in Pakistan,” said Lawrence Pintak, dean of Washington State University’s College of Communication. “But one drone attack can undo all that good will.”

Pintak, whose academic research focuses on journalists in the Muslim world, recently completed a survey of 395 Pakistani journalists to study their attitudes toward America.

Pakistani journalists have often been blamed for stoking anti-American sentiment in the country. But Pintak’s survey reveals that, contrary to popular perception, most Pakistani journalists – 76 percent of those responding to his poll – actually hold a positive view of America and the American people.

What they don’t like, according to the poll, is American foreign policy.

For example, in the questionnaire, which was administered locally by Pakistani newspaper editor Syed Javed Nazir, 84 percent of Pakistani journalists said they believe America is “unjustly meddling in Pakistani politics.” And two-thirds of those who responded defined the controversial U.S. drone attacks – which are meant to target militants in tribal areas but also can result in heavy civilian casualties - as an “act of terrorism.”

“It’s the policy, stupid,” said Pintak, who argues that “Pakistani journalists are not inherently anti-American but are fed up with America’s policies in the region.”

Umar Cheema, an investigative reporter for The News, an English-language daily published by one of the leading media groups in Pakistan, said coverage in papers like his reflects the public sense of “imperial arrogance” in U.S. policies. “We only get to experience the hard power of the US,” he said. “We are not treated as human beings.”

No U.S. policy draws greater fire from the Pakistani media than the drone campaign. More recently, media have also lashed out at a covert deal that resulted in Pakistan’s release of Raymond Davis, a CIA contractor who was arrested in Lahore earlier this year after shooting two Pakistani men in broad daylight.

“Imagine what would happen if the situation was reversed,” said Cheema, the investigative reporter. “What if a Pakistani murdered two Americans in broad day light? You would expect criminal proceedings. But these standards are not applied when it comes to Pakistani deaths.”

The day after Davis’s controversial release, a U.S. drone attack killed over 40 people in Pakistan’s tribal areas, giving Pakistani media a fresh angle for their anger.

“Drones celebrate Raymond release by killing 41,” complained one stinging headline in The News. An editor at the paper, Ansar Abasi, described the timing of the two events this way: “Within 24 hours of the shameless release and handing over of the American double murderer Raymond Davis to the US, Washington gifted Pakistan with one of the deadliest drone attacks in North Waziristan, killing more than 40 innocent tribals attending a Jirga.”

At Dawn, another prominent English-language paper, columnist Khalid Aziz wrote with similar frustration: “Just when patience was needed for the Pakistanis’ anger to subside over the release of Raymond Davis, we heard of multiple drone strikes that killed more than 40 persons attending a jirga in Datta Khel, North Waziristan.”
Civilian casualties in drone attacks serve as a regular news hook for Pakistani journalists to express their anger at America’s policies in the region.
Things get even more complicated when the media write about the increasingly unpopular Pakistani government’s close ties with the U.S.

“I fail to understand how these drone attacks occur without approval from the Pakistani government,” said Hassan Chaudhry, a national pages sub-editor at Express Tribune. “There has to be an under-the-table deal between both governments. I don’t know… maybe money is being exchanged too.”

Chaudhry is echoing a growing belief that U.S. drone attacks cannot occur without covert support from the Pakistani state apparatus. But the Pakistani government does not reveal the exact nature of the deal that allows the U.S, to conduct drone attacks deep inside Pakistani territory. Publicly, the government continues to demand that the U.S. end drone strikes in the country.

Cheema, who received an award at Syracuse University this week for investigative reporting that has often angered the Pakistani government, argues that Pakistani journalists simply mirror the views of their fellow countrymen, who happen to be vehemently anti-American despite the large amounts of U.S. aid poured into Pakistan.

“Why do so many Pakistanis hate the U.S.?” Cheema asked rhetorically. “Because money isn’t a substitute for self-respect. We don’t want to feel that we receive dollars one day and the next day some of our countrymen are killed in return.”