good morning welcome to mosaic i am ron swisher. as we know pakistan has been in the news my co-host and producer, dr. hugh burrows just returned from pakistan. welcome hugh. >> thank you good to see you. >> you couldn't have timed it any better. >> thanks for the opportunity to talk about that. it is timely not always in a good happy way but gail and i were over there on a private trip to see friends, visit hospitals and schools and college that belong to the presbyterian church that we hat gooden back it is -- had gotten back it is a point inapt experience to be in pakistan. >> you have done this before. >> for 15 years we hasn't been

back for 3 or iv years i think -- or four years i think we had helped some pakistani pastors to come to the states we hasn't gone back we didn't think it would be helpful to our pakistani brothers and sisters to ferry us around. we thought e with had a nice window in which to go and we were there during the raymond davis events, which i can go into and sequenced into the tsunami in japan and is thank you for the opportunity to come on because with the events of this last week with osama bin laden we thought it might be a good time to draw on it. >> what drew you to pakistan. >> i was chair of a property committee and going back into the recent, 20, 30 years ago,

zea one of the dictators, nationalized everything in pakistan, when nasser and neru socialism the schools set up there since 1850s, 1860s were nationalized as well and just took awhile the get them back, the experiment didn't really work and so we learned it is much better to have the schools we think in private hands this is more accountability. i am here to talk about pakistan. where do you want to start? can i start with geography? >> most of us have not traveled there, for vacation. >> right. well, i always say if you take your left hand you can have pakistan in your hand and you sort of just put it like that, put your fingers together and put your left thumb out to the other side tilt up and you have pakistan in the palm of your hand down here, is the indian

ocean, and karachi and over your left thumb becomes balukistan sticks ott over afghanistan in the -- out over the afghanistan and in the middle, fehr tiff plains, -- fertile plains, like kansas of the punjab. up here where your thumb is that would be islam ma bad and on up here the mountains, the great hindu kush going up to 24,000 feet and then down to sea level. >> that is an interesting way -- >> that is a way to understand pakistan this is cause because this -- the indian subcontinent is measuring into asia causing mount everest and these sort of things, so india, pakistan, one

entity on the east, the great jungles that lead into burma. so you know can't go that way. on the west afghanistan with the fierce tribes and down below the great desert so natural protection and you can't go over to nepal and that way, that is really tough so there they are and pakistan as you will remember, became a country 1947 when the raj wassenedding sort of an accident he was beating the table and saying we muslims need a separate country he put it out and low and behold they won in no small part due to some christian minorities. everybody was surprised there is pakistan and we will pick it up from there. >> we will remember that, one date after my birthday. >> office pi house to say the least. >> incredible geography i don't think we will need map qwest. okay please join us as we talk

to hugh burrows about pakistan. thank you for being with us

if you just joined us we have been talking about pakistan with hugh burrows who just returned we left off 1947 when they became a nation. >> right as you may recall pakistan and india were one country, and it was fairly isolated the persians would occasionally come over there were some great mogul rulers who were muslim but it was left to itself and there was a great religion, animism was there and hinduism and then 500 bc, buddhism and then some christians sailed over, thomas and then 500, a little later,

of course, the muslims came in and the muslim rulers came in overlaid and so during that time, it comes the again back to 1947 the british had been there, for about 250 years and the great raj and the british arrived with the east india company, a trading company, and then they had to bring in the army to enforce this thing that was part empire part agreement with the local sultans and so on lasted 250 years and just 1947 after the war, the british left and so that is when there was the great election and pakistan was born as a muslim state taken out of india, and the boundaries were determined by a guy sitting in london, never been to india, just took a chart and drew it right down there. >> wow. >> and so for instance, lahore one of the great cities of the

world in punjab is 30 miles or so from the sikh capital but different countries so it divided families there is a great migration of people back, hindus and muslims going either way the greatest migration in the world so 1947 you have a state that was formed, with basicically nothing in common other than they are now pakistani they have a flag, their own government and the two leading lights, one mr. jana, he was an english speaker he died and then the cofounder of pakistan died there they were two years into this great experiment with no leaders and so in this land, very fertile land, but then this were about 50 million people maybe now -- >> 100 and something.

>> 180. >> tripled in the land size and lahore to islam ma bad is like driving san francisco to l.a. >> how did you practice the different religions? >> part of what happened, the zea who came in, moved the government officially toward being an islamic state and at the beginning, janaa saw it as pakistan was muslim with a lot of rights guaranteed to other religions but more and more it moved officially to be a muslim state, and so everyone has to attend classes on islam and so on and so on there is a small christian minority, 5% perhaps of pakistan is christian centered mostly in the punjab. there are a few hindus but not

nearly as many, you have to remember in indian there are more muslims in india than there are in pakistan. >> true. >> and so -- but religious minority persecution is huge even within these different sects of islam,. >> with that being a central location what i hear how is education handled? >> education is handled primarily through state owned schools but you are required to take classes in islam, and now you can sort of exempt out if you are christian, but very very few buddhists there, although that was up in the north where the center of the buddhist civilization was years and years ago through king asoka but now the press is

muslim, suni and sia there are different parts within that, it is difficult to say but the majority of pakistanies are alleyed with the saw diarabian faith mostly so -- saudi arabia faith mostly. they feel very hemmed in p pakistanies, it is important to understand small country, a lot of pressures, india they fought war after war they feel everybody is against them but they have to make it they are a proud wonderful people they have done maizing things. >> back to the geography or climate last time i talked to you about it, the temperature was outrageous. what is it like and. >> if you are in lahore, punjab in the summer, it is -- it can be 110 with 80% humidity, it is

pretty brutal and when the british went in, a lot of people simply died from heat pros ration or disease to be acclimated so you can imagine langore is there and what happens people some times just go berserk from the heat. we will come back to more. it is fascinating hearing this history most people don't know about it please join us in the next segment with hugh and all that is happening in pakistan

welcome back to mosaic. we have been talking about pakistan with hugh burrows. >> obviously there is a lot of talk in the news about the american pakistani relationship and why should we bother what in the world are they doing why aren't they doing more. this and this and this. so to understand it, let's go backpack stan created as a state 1947, carved out of india, great migrations, artificial nation in some ways that slopes from the mountains to the sea. but it is a tribal society and each of the tribes, the sin in

the south and punjabs in the middle and over the wild balukis and northern territories above islam ma bad they will ask you how are things in pakistan. and you say well, you are in pakistan and they say not really. some body showed up and said now you are a pakistani. but they all speak different languages, i said somewhere maybe back in switzerland the valleys were so steep you could talk to the next valley but you lose the language so their tribal areas, each of which spoke a different language, so then there was this great made up language called urdu kind of arabic kind of per january kind of this and -- persian kind of this and that but you can

imagine if the baluki's couldn't speak to the sindhis and they couldn't speak to those in the north english became the language in which things were officially conducted. and so particularly -- and then it is caste system remember hindu is india and it is vertical -- i mean horizontal you are born in this caste you stay here you are born up here you stay up here. then islam comes in and it is horizontal. ghandi was always trying to say no, like untouchable it is time to do away with this caste system so islam comes in and there is a brother hood, horizontal but at the same time the hindu caste system sneaked in so you have tribal systems

with an overlay of islam and some caste systems has to do with land ownership and then who speak it is local dialect and who speaks urdu and english and educational differences on top of that so you have local people come together within the tribe, and they say okay who did what to who and they sit down and figure it out and say this is the judgment here is what you got to do. used to be everything would be settled giving young girls to the other tribe. this has been is to bed for the most part but -- this has been stopped for the most part. it is a barter system we will give you horses or money and that works fairly well but then sharia the law mohammed put in to pass fie the tribes in the

saudi peninsula came over that and we are talking gave more rights to women on that then english came in and put another series of laws on top of that. but not the jury system because they figured no body would get that but that is exactly what the local justice system does get together and talk it over so you have three layers of justice none of which really work and then people speaking english in the english law courts but whatever the advocate says has to be written by somebody but he is such a high caste he cannot do the writing so he has someone else write it who doesn't understand english so well the whole thing is this mesh on top of this along with a bunch of people who came from india who now really want the western law. >> that person would never pass

the bar. >> well, those who pass the bar, wear suits and are very proud and they are a special interest group so interest groups there, so the government is particle meantry but as people may remember -- particle parly meantry but as people may remember, after awhile the army steps in and the army has it for awhile and they operate like a corporation bunch of generals at the board of directors then they turn back to another elected official who lasts for awhile and then there is a coupe there is sequencing of this, some more islamic, some more secular but all from a very narrow ruling class. >> complex picture is becoming clearer and clearer. >> yeah, it is maizing and. >> 2% of the people pay income tax. >> wow. >> there is no income tax so

how do you get things infrastructure made. >> might want to move there after all. >> some people call it a bribe it is a way of doing business. fees associated. so very much -- the people of pakistan are very proud of being pakistani enormously hospitable. it is just amazing that it works as well as it does and the army, the reason the army is so good after the mute any in the army, the brits through everyone out they went over to the punjab and repopulated the army and so 1850, so when it all fell apart 100 years later the army was basically pakistani. became pakistani so it works well but the civilian government, that is not the taxing power just fascinating.

>> it is. >> fascinating. >> i think so. >> you raised the question earlier we want to cover this in the next segment, is why does pakistan matter of course with osama bin laden happening, we will finish up with that. >> okay. >> i know people are thinking of that also. >> we will talk about that. >> please join us in our last segment with hugh burrows our co-host

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welcome back to mosaic. we have been talking pakistan with hugh burrows, why is pakistan so important and why did osama bin laden hide there? >> the raw fact is that they have nuclear weapons and so does india. >> that's right. >> and if those nuclear weapons get into the hands of the wrong people, or even some of the

material, i think the big fear is that a dirty bomb could be made. >> with all those tribes how would did they get the nuclear weapons. >> the educated elite is a guy's name i can't get now he was a professor somewhere here in the states and england so he had circles, as a scientist and resources and basically when india got the bomb, all of the pakistani elite said okay buddy your job is to go out and get us the bomb too. so it is kind of humorous because they say well, the bombs are hidden where no body knows where they are. everybody knows where they are. you can drive outside of islam ma bad and they are over there. and so that i think drives it, where they are with afghanistan, so close to persia and the u.s. interests there,

and if the u.s. leaves china there is a road to china and china and pakistan do a lot of business. it is kind of -- the roof of asia is a little north of there. >> i heard senator feinstein say a few days ago that pakistan is still ground zero for terrorists. >> yeah, i don't know. i don't know. there are so many wonderful people up north if you are talking about there, you go up into the mountains right on the border of afghanistan, again it is a boarder some body drew, it is not a real boarder it is amazing that it is so remote and the people are really hospitable and the brother hood of islam is sort of real and they will kind of leave you alone how it got rooted up there i don't know because my job was to deal with schools and education, and so on, but that is a really rugged area,

incredibly beautiful. >> do you think that the people there, supportive of osama? it is hard to answer that i know >> these are people who basically were cut off from the outside world and these terrorist people moved in so i think in the beginning they probably didn't have much awareness of what was going on and why but that area, if you want to talk about ibadabad, where he was captured, it is sort of on the road to nowhere there is islam ma bad in the north and then you go over some big mountains where the hill stations are and look up this great enormous valley a water shed and the road dead ends above it in the mountains so it is a place where you wouldn't

wake up in the morning and say i got a great idea ron let's spend a couple days up in ibadabad there are other places more beautiful it is out there by itself. >> i see. >> so to -- it is interesting that hiding in an urban place, would be there. so i don't know when you go into the northwest frontier, the whole world changes but again i have no idea, i have never dealt with any -- >> we always have a tendency to look at the world with our eyes. >> exactly and the pakistanies, even the educated pakistanies perhaps they have been to a western school perhaps their english is terrific but the mind set is different. for example, the concept of honor and this is so important, this is why you go in and it is

formally you sit down and you have a conversation and ritualized cups of tea you have to be very careful and aware of a person's honor because once that is offended it is a wonderful delightful people >> i hate that we have come to the e. i know if i want to go any place -- end i know if i want to go any place in that country i want you as my guide. >> schools, hospital, education, over 9 to% of the people are illiterate, education is the deal health care is the deal. >> thank you hugh. >> thank you ron. >> thank you for joining us i am sure you were informed about pakistan i am ron swisher i have been talking to hugh burrows thank you for being with us