In his historic Cairo speech, Obama never used the word "terror" in his 55-min speech, but used the word "peace" so many times. That is how one reframes the issues toward reconciliation.
In contrast, I was listening to S.M. Krishna (India's new foreign minister) and to Advani (Leader of India's Opposition Party) an hour ago, and they were obsessed with "terrorism" and the release of Hafeez Saaed, supposedly the mastermind behind the Mumbai attack. This approach of focussing on the negative and using blame only makes the other side dig its heels in deeper. Of course, the Pakistani politicians do the same thing and are obsessed about "Kashmir", and bring it up all the time. The lay media on both sides also keeps the conflict swirling by taking nationalistic stances. Unless there is a real shift in tone and spirit, the pissing match (pardon my language) between the two countries will go on for ever.
Somebody on either side (it does not matter which side) needs to rise above all this meaningless pettiness, show courage and boldness, and start reframing the issues in a positive way......."Let us talk peace, let us develop friendship, let us solve common challenges, let us open trade, let us promote people to people exchange, let us develop our rich cultures and history together, let us meet our common destiny together, let us show global leadership together........."
When that happens, real progress toward peace will happen. The 1.2 billion people of India and 170 million people of Pakistan deserve the peace and friendship. Will the politicians on both sides rise to that challenge?
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