Pakistan, get over yourself

Ever since I was a child, I have been hearing the words ‘foreign agencies’ whispered in hushed tones.

Conspiracy theories and passionate rants about how we are God’s chosen people and how the unethical and the immoral are out to get us. While countries do have foreign policies and Pakistan does appear extensively on a few, we give ourselves way too much credit than what we deserve.

It is common knowledge that every time there is an unexplained pregnancy, every time the TV remote stops working and every time your mother picks up the phone while you were online using dial-up, the CIA is behind it. What is less commonly known is the fact that the CIA has a larger fiscal budget than our entire country. It is safe to say that such a department would have bigger issues than the 200 million headless chickens in this country.

If you are gasping in indignation at being told that we, as a nation, are worthless, then count, on your hands and toes, our global achievements in any field of science. Chances are you won’t work your socks off – no apologies for the pun.

Further evidence can be seen in our heroes. Hangu schoolboy Aitizaz Hasan and the forgotten bonded labour martyr Iqbal Masih make up a huge chunk of all we have had to celebrate in the last couple of decades – two brave warriors in a land of cowards, too young to know any better. We have the blood of Alexander the Great – the man who conquered the entire world at the age of 30 and Genghis Khan – the man responsible for Baghdad’s demise and the rise of Europe. In war, we celebrate the shaheed and forget the ghazi, sometimes forgetting the two can coincide - so used to defeat that victory is barely recognised, even ignored.

As our national poet said “Jin ko aata nahi dunya main koi fun, tum ho. Nahi jis qaum ko parwa-e-nasheman, tum ho.”

Published in The Express Tribune, February 18^th, 2014.