Recognising heroes

Few Pakistanis command the kind of adulation that social worker Abdul Sattar Edhi does. Pioneer of the world’s largest ambulance service, Mr Edhi has devoted a lifetime tending to the needs of those seized with misfortune — the ailing, the destitute, the orphan. Words fail to catalogue the gargantuan humanitarian work he has done across the length and breadth of the country. Until laid low by frail health in recent years, his had been a ubiquitous presence at the site of a natural disaster, a bomb blast or a major road accident, leading an army of volunteers in the relief effort.

Is this not the stuff national heroes are made of? True to bad form, Sindh’s textbook authority has woken fairly late to consider bestowing the title of a national hero on Mr Edhi and including a full-length chapter on his life and time in the books taught at schools. Better late than never, as a spokesperson for the Edhi Foundation aptly put in his reaction to the development. We cannot agree with him more. For far too long people with a larger-than-life personas such as Mr Edhi, have not been given the importance that they deserve. We should know the difference between who our true heroes are and who are not. The Sindh Textbook Board appears to have finally grasped this difference, for it not only has included Malala Yousufzai and Arfa Abdul Kareem in the league of national stars, it has also decided to “purge” the textbooks of references to “non-democratic heroes”. Which means that former military strongmen, General Ziaul Haq and General Pervez Musharraf, will have their eulogies erased. This is hardly surprising. A political dispensation, led by the PPP in this case, can arrogate to itself the right to black out its adversaries from the school textbooks, but cannot expect it to be welcomed wholeheartedly by all shades of opinion. But when it honours men of such undisputed calibre as Abdul Sattar Edhi, it is bound to earn the gratitude of all.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 31^st, 2014.

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