good morning, welcome to mosaic. i am ron swisher. as you know pakistan has been in the news. my co-host and producer hugh burrows has just returned from pakistan. >> thank 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 really to the presbyterian church that we had gotten back so it is a poignant sort of experience to be in pakistan. >> you have done this a number

of years. >> 15 years but we hasn't been back for three or four years i think, we helped some pakistani pastors to come to the states to be in residence here. >> i remember that. >> but we hasn't gone back we didn't think it would be helpful to our pakistani brothers and sisters, to ferry us around. so we thought we had a nice window in which to go and then we were there during the raymond davis events, which i can go into and sequenced into the tsunami in japan and so thank you for the opportunity to come on because with the events of last week with osama bin laden it might be a good time to talk about it. >> what drew you to pakistan first? 15 years ago. >> the reason i went there, was i was chair of a property committee and going back into the recent -- 20, 30 years ago,

zea one of the small dictators, nationalized everything in pakistan one of the times when socialism -- so the schools which had been set up there since 1850s. 1860s were nationalized as well so it just took awhile to get them back. the experiment didn't work. it is much better to have the schools in private hands. much more accountable. can i start with geology? >> that would be a great place. 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 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 karache and over your left thumb becomes balucastan which sticks out below afghanistan. in the middle you have the fertile plains of like kansas of the punjab, the punjab and then up here right about where your finger joins the little bumps that would be islam ma bad the new capital and then on up here you get the mountains, pakistan, the great hindu kush going town 4,000 feet and then down to sea level. >> well, that is an interesting way. >> that is an interesting way to understand pakistan of course this is caused because the indian subcontinent is mushing into asia, causing mount everest and these sort of things, so india, pakistan, one

entity, on the east, great jungles that lead into burma. so can't go that way. on the west, afghanistan with the fierce tribes and down below the great sis earth. so -- desert, natural protection and you can't go over to nepal and that way. that is pretty tough. there they are. pakistans you will remember became a country in 1947 by a mr. jinaw when the raj was ending. he was beating the table and said, we muslims need a separate country. they won in no small part due to christian minorities everybody was surprised. there is pakistan. >> we all remember that, one day after my birthday. >> auspicious to say the least. >> incredible geography i don't think we will need map qwest. please join us as we talk

to hugh burrows after pakistan. thank you for being with us what will you do when you hear your calling? will you ignore it? or will you listen? peace corps. life is calling. how far will you go?

if you just joined us, we have been talking about pakistan. we left off at 1947. >> as you may recall pakistan and india were one country. persians would occasionally come over and some great mogul rulers were muslim but it was left to itself. great religion, animism was there and then hinduism was there and 500 bc buddhism came in and then some christians sailed over, thomas by tradition and then 500, a little later of course, that

the muslims came in and the muslim rulers came in and over laid so during that time, comes back to 1947 the british had been there for 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, sort of to enforce this thing it was part empire, part agreement with the local stall tons and so on lasted 250 years, and just 1947 after the war, the british left and so that is when there was a great election and pakistan was born as a muslim state taken out of india s the boundaries were determined by a guy sitting in london, never been to india took a chart and drew it right down there. >> wow. >> so for instance, lahore one of the great cities of the

world in the punjab is 30 miles or so from the sikh capital but they are different countries so it divided families, remember there is a great migration of people back -- hindu's and muslims going either way. the greatest migration in the world, 1947 you have a state formed, with basically nothing in common other than they are not pakistani they have a flag, their own government then the two leading lights, mr. jinaw an english speaker he died, and the cofounder died and so there they were, two years into this great experiment with two leaders. and so in this land, very fertile land, but then there were about 50 million people maybe. >> 100 something. >> 180 would be the number, it

tripled in the land size and lahore to islamabad is like driving san francisco to l.a. >> how free are you to practice the different religions is this. >> part of what happened, the zea who came in, moved the government officially toward being islamic state and at the beginning, jinaw saw it as pakistan was muslim but with a lot of rights guaranteed to other religions but more and more it moved officially to be a muslim state, and so you have to -- everyone has to attend classes on islam and so on and so on so there is a small christian minority, 5% of perhaps pakistan is christian, centered mostly in the punjab, there are a few hindu's, but

not nearly as many you have to remember in india there are more muslims in india than there are in pakistan. >> that's true. >> 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? >> through primarily state owned schools. >> mm-hmm. >> 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 really the center of the buddhist civilization, years and years ago through king asoka but now, the press is muslim, it is

suuni and shiite. it is difficult to say but the majority of pakistanies are alleyed with the saw diarabian faith mostly so -- saudi arabian faith mostly so they have a different sect around them. the pakistanies feel hemmed in, small country a lot of pressures, india with which they fought war after war after war so they kind of feel like everybody is against them but they've got to make it. they are proud wonderful people they is done amazing things. >> going back to geography or the climate last time i talked to you about it, 3 or 4 years ago the temperature was outrageous. >> if you are in lahore in punjab in the summer, it is -- it can be 110 with 80% humidity

it is pretty brutal when the british went in, a lot of people simply died from heat pros ration or other disease much more than any battle. so to be acclimated, you can imagine, langor is there some times people just go berserk from the heat. >> we will come back with more on pakistan. most ofous 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. well, 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 in 1947, carved out of india, great migrations, artificial nation in some way that slopes from the mountains to the sea but it is a tribal society, and each of the tribes, the sin in south and punjab in the middle and over in balucastan the wild balucis and up in the northern territories above islamabad, if you go up there they will ask you how are things in pakistan. you say well, you are in pakistan they say not really. just some body showed up and said you used to be here now you are a pakistani. >> news to them. >> they all speak different

languages. somewhere maybe back in switzerland the valleys were so steep, you could talk to the next valley but you lose the language. their tribal areas, each 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 balucis couldn't speak to the sindis and they couldn't speak to those up 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 hindu is vertical i mean horizontal you

are born in this caste you stay in this caste you are born up here you stay up here. then islam comes in. >> ghandi was always trying to deal with that. >> ghandi was always trying to say no, like untouchables, it is time to do away with the caste system. so islam comes in there is a brotherhood it is horizontal but at the same time the hindu caste system sneaked in there so you have tribal systems then with an overlay of islam and some caste systems, that has to do with land ownership and then you have who speaks the local dialect and who speaks urdu and who speaks english then you have educational differences so on top of that, so you have local people come together within the tribe, and they say okay who did what to who they sit down and figure it out and say all right then this is the

judgment here is what you got to do. now it used to be pretty much everything would be settled giving young girls to the other tribe. that was -- this has been stopped for the most part but it was a barter system we will give you horses or money. that works fairly well but then sharia the law mohammed put in to pass fie the tribes in the saudi peninsula came on over that and we are talking women's rights, gave more rights to women on that. then english came in and they put another series of laws on top of that but not the jury system they figured no body would ever get the jury system but that is exactly what the local justice system does they get together and talk it over so you've got thee layers of justice none of which really work then you have people speaking english in the english

law courts but whatever the advocate says has to be written down by some body but this advocate is such a high casee he can't actually do the writing he writes it down who doesn't understand english as 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 because that is all they -- >> that system, a person would never pass the bar. >> well, those who pass the bar, wear suits and are very proud and are a special interest group. so the interest groups there, so the government is particle meantry, but as people may remember -- particle meantry but as people may remember, someone is elected and it is from the ruling families, clans and then after awhile the army steps in kicks the dictator out, then the army has it for awhile and operate as a

corporation then they turn it back to another elected official, who lasts for awhile and then there is a coupe so there is this sequencing of this, some more islamic some more secular, but all from a very narrow ruling class. >> complex picture is coming clearer and clearer. >> yeah. it is maizing and 2% of the people pay income tax. so 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. a way of doing business fees associated. so very much -- the people of pakistan are very proud of being pakistani enormously hospitable. just maizing that it works as well as it does and the army, the reason the army is so good is that after the mute any in

1850 and the raj the brits throughout everybody in the army and 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, but the civilian government doesn't quite -- that is not the taxing power. it is just fascinating. just fascinating. >> you raised the question earlier and i think we want to cover this in the next segment, why does pakistan matter. with osama bin laden happening we will finish with that and i know people are thinking about that also. >> sure we will talk about that. >> please join us in our last segment with hugh burrows our coproducer and co-host

welcome back to mosaic. why is pakistan so important and why did osama bin laden hide there. >> i think in terms of importance, the raw fact is they have nuclear weapons. and so does india. 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. >> but all those tribes how do they get the nuclear weapons? >> well, the educated elite is a guy whose name i can't get now, he was a professor, somewhere here in the states and england, and 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 bad and they are over -- islamabad and they are over there. that i think drives it, where they are with afghanistan, so close to persia and u.s. interests there and if the u.s. leaves china, there is a road the china now and china and pakistan do a lot of business. so it is kind of the roof of asia is north of there. >> i heard senator feinstein say a few days ago pakistan is still ground zero for terrorists. >> yeah, i didn't know. i don't know there are so many

wonderful people but up north, you go up into the mountains right on the boarder of afghanistan and the border some body drew it is not a real boarder, it is amazing, 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 really know my job was to deal with schools and education, and so on. but that is a really rugged area, incredibly beautiful. >> do you think the people there supportive of osama and why he was able to guide -- it is hard to answer that i know. >> these are people who basically were cult off from the outside -- cut off from the outside world and i think in the beginning they didn't have

much awareness of what was going on and why but that area, if you want to talk about ibadabad for instance where he was captured, it is sort of on the road to nowhere. there is islamabad in the north and then you go over some big mountains where the hill stations are and you look up this great enormous valley, which is a water shed and the road dead ends above it in the mountains, 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 a lot more places kind of beautiful. it is out there all by itself. >> i see. >> so it is interesting that it is hiding in an urban place. so i don't know, when you go into the northwest frontier, the whole world changes but

again i have no idea, never dealt with any terrorists. >> we have a tendency to always look at the world from our eyes never in the shoes of the people -- >> exactly for the pakistanies even the educated pakistanies, perhaps they have been to a western school, english is terrific but mind set is different. the concept of honor, for example. this is so important, that is why you go in and it is formal you sit down and have conversation, ritualized cups of tea and this sort of thing and so you have to be very careful and aware of a person's honor because once that is offended, but it is a wonderful, delightful people >> i hate that we have come to the end but i know if i want to go any place in that country i am going to have you as my guide. >> schools, education, over 90% of the people are illiterate,

education is the deal and health care. >> thank you. >> 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

i think someone at my friend's school has this thing called autism. my friend's brother's son has autism. my neighbor's son has autism. my son has autism. announcer: autism is getting closer to home. today, 1 in 110 children is diagnosed with autism-- that's a 600% increase in the last 20 years. learn the signs at autismspeaks.org.