Let’s love Pakistan: A new resolution (II)
In September last year, I took up the challenge of making a list of 65 reasons why I love Pakistan, the poor broken country, we have begun to take for granted. The idea was simple, but it’s execution not so much, which is why it’s taken me four months to come up with the second set of reasons. I plan to compile the list by August 14, 2012—Pakistan’s 65th Birthday. Here’s a short excerpt from my previous blog to establish the idea behind this otherwise puerile exercise: I’m going to try to complete the list (of) reasons – some small; some serious, ...
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One dozen provinces, please
Recently, the voices calling for the division of Punjab have been getting louder and louder. But do we really need to? What will the consequences be? What are the advantages? My personal view is that many people are demanding division for their petty agendas, but the step is not in the larger interest of Pakistan. Keeping personal interests aside and treating the matter without bias we have come to the conclusion that: Pakistan has certainly developed but not uniformly, many smaller cities have been overlooked (not only in Punjab but in all provinces) Facilities are not provided equally to people of all regions A ...
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Of laptops, marriages and Nawaz Sharif
For sometime now, I am really concerned about the recent claims by Nawaz Sharif that only his political party can save the country and solve all political, internal and security crisis. He also stated that 20 precious years of both his life and the country’s progress have been wasted by external and internal enemies and had he remained in power, he would have made Pakistan an Asian Tiger. Apparently, truth is more powerful than falsehood and often time becomes a catalyst to prove it. I am talking about a man whose choices (of both words and decisions) have proven to ...
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We need domestic violence legislation…now
Pakistan is considered to be the third most dangerous place for women to live in, according to the Thomson Reuters Foundation poll 2011. Despite the fact that the majority population in Pakistan is female, it is still a strictly patriarchal society where women are sometimes killed for something as personal as choosing a husband. In the West, women liberation now means fighting for tax payer funded abortion; in Pakistan, we are still advocating the treatment of women as equal beings who deserve the basic rights to life, family, freedom from torture and inhuman treatment. While there is some progress on the ...
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Our poisoned education: Shia clothes and Sunni textbooks
When I was studying at university, during a discussion over an economic issue, my professor (a PhD) uttered these words: “Alhamdulillah, I am a Sunni, I am a Muslim.” These words took me and many other students by surprise. The bizarre logic of uttering those unnecessary words in the midst of a discussion, especially when the class comprised of students from diverse religious backgrounds, was unfathomable. Even if she considered it essential to make a reference to the Islamic economic system, she could have easily done that in a mild tone without boasting about her own religious and sectarian affiliations wrapped ...
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Where criminals are secure, and innocents die
Once lucky, twice confident, thrice dead, goes the saying, and more often than not, it does play out that way. Unfortunately, as far as Rana Sarwat is concerned, somebody else did the dying. The convicted kidnapper and under-trial murder accused managed to evade death for the third time in the face of James Bond/Ethan Hunt-inspired assassins, only for two innocent women, the mother and sister of the cabinet secretary, to lose their lives in a hail of gunfire as a pair of gunmen entered the supposedly secure VIP ward of Pims and managed to leave after the incident without any ...
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Hypocrisy and defenders of democracy
Hypocrisy may be the tribute vice pays to virtue but Pakistanis take it too far. Those who have appointed themselves as the defenders of democracy, the protectors of our military or the guardians of an independent judiciary have entered a Bermuda Triangle of political argument, where a black hole sucks in whatever logic once existed in their brains. Let’s start with Mansoor Ijaz, or rather his critics. Here is the man who sparked off the crisis that threatens to engulf the PPP and so he is obviously an enemy of all that is decent and democratic. As a colourful businessman ...
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Let’s make Pakistan polio free
With all this talk of anti-polio vaccination drives, I feel it is important to educate people about this disease. What is polio? Polio is a viral disease which can affect the spinal cord, causing muscle weakness and paralysis. The polio virus enters the body through the mouth, usually from hands contaminated with the stool of an infected person. This virus is more common in infants and young children, and occurs under conditions of poor hygiene. Paralysis is prevalent and more severe when the infection occurs in older individuals. Polio spreads when the stool of an infected person is introduced into the mouth of another ...
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LUMUN or competitions that turn into a losing game
Two weeks ago, Jinnah International airport was deluged by nervous yet excited parents. “Kya aap ki beti bhi LUMUN ja rahi he?” (is your daughter going to LUMUN too?) they cried as they bumped into each other. School teams kept arriving in jam-packed buses, students streamed through security checks in their uniforms and blazers. They were headed for Lahore University of Management Sciences Model United Nations, an endeavour that consists of night-long research marathons on different countries, eating too much at Hardees, and chilling out at the free concerts. It is also incidentally a convergence of some of the country’s brightest, sharpest ...
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Seraikistan is our right
Seraikis are not ‘south Punjabis’, just like Pathans aren’t ‘north Punjabis’. Stop calling them southern Punjabis; it’s in bad taste. Having one’s cultural identity reduced to a geographical variant of an alien ethnicity is unpleasant. People should realise how incredibly offensive it is when they claim that Seraiki is just a dialect of Punjabi and not a different language. Seraiki is an ancient language, rich with heritage that represents its people. Some even argue that linguistically, Punjabi may be a relatively recent relic of the Sikh invasion, while Seraiki, with its original Sanskrit script, might be significantly older. It’s ironic how a ...
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