Exhausted and bruised, we enter 2015

This time last year, I wished Pakistan would achieve more electoral transparency in the year 2014 — considering the fiasco that was the general election. Little did I know that (almost) the whole of the second half of the year would be consumed by sit-ins and protests over the issue, with little or no constructive headway.

The preceding year witnessed its fair share of depressing news, with some incidents serving as grim reminders about the dark days ahead. As expected, the polio count increased. A point of grave concern is the anti-polio monster rearing its head in Faisalabad, the heartland of otherwise ‘safe and secure’ Punjab. In my view, only when the army owns the problem and decides to fight the ‘war on polio’, will we be able to counter this disease.

The Peshawar school carnage was no doubt the single-most horrific incident of the year, but there are several others of varying nature which need reminding. At a professional level, the year was perhaps the darkest yet in terms of media operations. As a young journalist with some background in the field, it was heart-breaking to witness the ‘media wars’, complete with the levelling of blasphemy allegations and claims of ‘unpatriotic actions’ against each other. The industry’s division hurt journalists the most as certain sides were chosen for them. I hope the media industry unites to confront common challenges rather than striking each other in the back.

Another area where we took several steps backwards is with regards to blasphemy. The killing of a man by a cop inside a police station in Gujrat and Junaid Jamshed’s ‘acceptable’ U-turn after some controversial remarks prove that this issue is becoming all the more contentious. How many more people have to be killed on the basis of mere allegations till the state decides to take a stand?

Lastly, and much naively, I wish our rulers manage to become leaders this year. I hope the government comes up with detailed ways of defeating terrorism and extremism. Double standards in defeating terrorism should have no place in 2015. About Peshawar, a city perpetually under-siege with targeted of Shias and Sikhs, as well as bombings of varying scales, and on whose metro desk I spent half of last year at our newspaper, a poem penned in the ‘80s by Ahmad Faraz, a native of the province, is even more apt today: “Sukhan dard ka ab kaha jaye na/ Kaha jaye bhee toh sunna jaye na/ Hawao mein kya zehr ghola gaya/ Ke ab saans bhee toh liya jaye na/ Mein jis shehr ki geet gata raha/ Ab uss shehr mein kyoun raha jaye na”.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 2^nd, 2014.