Pakistanis, are we?

SIALKOT: In this age of social media, with polarisation of the magnitude never seen before, there is a desperate need for us as a nation to ponder as to what actually went wrong, and why and where. Any meaningful progress without realising our mistakes and learning from experiences is nothing short of a foolish dream.

The easy answer to the above query could be the lack of political elite’s ability to deliver what’s expected of them at important times, which in return forced people to choose what they think is good for them primarily in the form of their political identities.

Now we’re well-placed at a stage where everyone is either a nooni, a jiyala or a khiladi. The question that arises here is: why has our leadership failed us and forced us to think just as a nooni, a jiyala, a khiladi or a jamaati — and not as one nation? The answer to this question is not a simple or straightforward one, neither does it have to be.

I think we, as a nation, have a bad habit of catching the wrong train at the most important time. At a junction where we needed the saner elements to lead us through, we went for the not-so-competent ones, giving way to the ‘wrong people’ into our system who didn’t teach us to think like Pakistanis as they had their own interests.

The ‘wrong people’ is not just a term, it’s a sad reality of our sorry state of affairs.

The day we, as one people, stop giving way to these ‘wrong people’ into our system would be the day we find answer to the question — Pakistanis, are we?

Hassan Ijaz

Published in The Express Tribune, January 3^rd, 2019.

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