The strings of the violin are broken. One cannot sense a rhythm. No one acts like one cared or you cared. The casual attitude of time is taken insensibly. The tide that was stuck behind the humongous wall of cemented egos is finally seen cracking. The phrase ‘Mitti say mahahbbat’ has lost its meaning.
Considered as a major stakeholder in the Muslim world, a self-proclaimed keeper of Islamic values and leadership, it will not be unfair to say that Pakistan is fighting for its existence today. The instability for the past has brought the institutions and the torchbearers of peace down to their knees. Inflation is at its highest, the poor class feels abandoned, the youth seem utterly disappointed, the unemployment index has skyrocketed. Where does hope find its place in between all this bitterness?
‘Pakistan is nearing default’ is a common phrase nowadays, like we are waiting for a miracle in the form of the rain, looking towards the sky desperately and wistfully, after burning our own house in a wasteful effort to start afresh. We started from “a place where one can practice freedom and breathe openly” to thinking twice before expressing ourselves. Minorities are finding it hard to sustain themselves within the so-called Muslim majority.
The difference between the elitists of society and the working class is growing further apart with each passing day. The middle-class? No, they just need enough problems to keep them indulged in their thoughts, making them believe a solution to these problems ain’t far enough, so that a problem without any plausible solution would be tackled by one bigger than that. It’s simple.
Women are not safe. Everyday is a new struggle for their rights. When it comes to giving opinions and narrating plights of the ordinary man, we become experts on the matter. The talented youth has lost its voice among this deafening silence. The battle of egos continues and there seems to be no end to that. The foreign reserves are at their lowest with no prospect and plan to cope up with that except to pile up the IMF’s money. All what we are able to do in these immensely trying times is to label others as traitors, and create a bull-fight scenario for an international spectacle. The humiliation we have gained from the world is another debate. Very few of us realise that internal wars and lack of unity has made us a laughing stock for the world. There is no bigger purpose at the moment. Our policy-makers and those in governments are delivering lengthy lectures on how important Pakistan is to them and for their survival but no one actually mean it.
Any spectator would be flabbergasted by the current trends being followed and propagated in the country among all the hustle. You should not allow anyone to speak because it is a new cool. Have we really made following the new cool trends our standards? Is it a new cool to follow your connections everywhere leaving the merit in tatters even after spending million-worth of time and efforts? Is it a new cool to think one has to survive even if the ship is sinking, without knowing the reason of your existence has been the ship all along? Is it okay to not allow the children of your fellow countrymen to study in the same school with children of patriots and nationalists only because they do not belong to your religion? When did Islam set such difficult boundaries that has made tough for humans to breathe?
It is a challenge for the political leaders to unite the nation in such turbulent times and to make something out of this mess. Rather than blaming and mudslinging each other, it would have been better if the nation is made to gather once again under a flag of hope to reassure promises and dreams. We cannot just wait and trace steps from the landscape of past in a manner that is both diminishing and misleading. Moving forward is the only option left for us, that too, if the sole purpose is to see the soil thriving and the nation flourishing.
