Crosswind Landing at Allama Iqbal International Lahore

Status!

I feel sorry ...

I feel sorry for myself, and my fellow countrymen ....

When the suicide bombing phenomenon started a couple of years back, it used to make headlines and would haunt everyone of us when going out of our bunkered houses. Those incidents used to leave deep impressions on our minds. Almost being the topic of conversation for so many days among family members, friends, colleagues etc. But then everyone would again get busy with usual day to day activities. Another bomb would detonate, with thick clouds of smoke and fear to hover on minds and skyline for another sometime.

We are a nation with an interesting history. We rose from the ashes of Decca, we got away with the barbaric military rule of '80s and so on. We've a history to suffer, but also have a history to take it in our stride. Pakistan's largest city Karachi has always been the battlefield of ethnicities, various sects, various ideologies, but somehow the society has managed to make progress despite all this.

In my view, thats the problem. We may call ourselves great for it, but I think it'll be stupid to call ourselves great. We're positive, and always positive which is the best thing. Hope is what carries us. But we're not great. Know why? We have always turned our face away from problems. Problems that have affected our country, nation, ethnicities and all segments of society, we've been putting them under the carpet. This was the lesson we got from our forefathers, but the problem now is that British Raj is over. At least in books, yes its over. Putting issues on back-burner and by staying away from them, we've let those problems grow into full-scale national issues. They've grown as cancer, and we couldn't treat the cancer in earlier stages. So, all this doesn't make us a great nation, rather stupid enthusiasts. We can do anything for Pakistan, but don't know what to do! Having energy and no direction is much worse than having direction and no energy.

We learned to suffer from our forefathers. We have never acted responsibly to stand up and fight for what is right. Fight to make the issues identified which continue to haunt us. We have lived a life of denial. Sab achha hai! Our forefathers were first the subjects of a kingdom which had hardly any contact with the public. So, we learned to suffer and act as everything is fine. Then came the Farangi! I mean British. They had an agenda, and continued to do what was important for them while living in cantonments away from general public. The distance has always been there between the ruled and the rulers. This is the truth of our society. We inherited this distance. Only that the distance increased with every generation.

Few people along with police and district administration have beaten two brothers to death in Sialkot last month. When I heard the news, it was a little shocking, but then I didn't pay much attention. Its been appearing in the news but I hardly paid any attention. Now, its established that the brothers were innocent and had not done anything to have been subjected to such a brutality. My question for myself is , why did it not shock me in the first place when I heard all the detailed news report? I think I've a clue. I'll have to admit that I've become insensitive. Insensitive at violence of any type.

I feel sorry for myself, my countrymen that we're so insensitive and blind to what is right or wrong that everything is fine with us now as long as it doesn't come hit us. I don't feel like living in a human society, it seems more like a jungle ....