27th March 2016. Another black day is added to our history.
This month has seen many terrible, inhumane acts. A few days ago, the people of Brussels were caught in the fire of terror. Yesterday, Pakistan lost its children, when terror visited a park in Lahore. Every human being condemns these horrific acts.
The event of Brussels, bought the attention of the whole world and rightfully so, but did Lahore manage to get the same attention from the rest of world? The Huffington post did tweet with the hashtag #PrayforPakistan and the Omni Dallas Hotel in US displayed the Pakistani national flag on its facade. CNN also gave a few minutes of coverage to the terrible act, but that was it. I do not intend to build on hatred or present a conspiracy theory, but just to tell the world, if we continue to discriminate between those who die here in Asia and Middle East, with the people who die in Europe or America, we, and I say this with great dismay, will never win this war.
To defeat this monster, we need to change ourselves. The change needs not to start on the higher scale, but slight changes in how we spend our daily lives, how we talk, how we think about the other individuals that are with us, how we treat the elders and the young ones, how good we are to people who do not share the same religion we do, or do not speak the same language, or belong to a different city, town or village. If we, as a neighborhood, society and as a nation, could reform ourselves a touch and learn to trust and compromise in our daily lives, we can achieve greatness.
Our enemy has no ideology, but a strategy. The strategy is to use our weaknesses as a society against us. Why do young men and women go to the mountains and fight against their own soil? Intolerance and illiteracy. Educating this country is a long term plan, but removing intolerance is something, individuals together can accomplish.
We need to break many walls that have been built inside our cities and towns to divide this nation. It won't be easy and it won't be quick, but we have to. How? Small baby steps would do. As a state, we have made some. Holi was declared a public holiday, which is a very big achievement. However, many more need to follow. If we could start talking, if the people of Pakistan could start discussing issues, with an open mind, with the objective to achieve a rational conclusion, after listening carefully to the other persons point of view, this nation could achieve great heights.Conversations make relationships. For us to break the walls between our people, talking has to flourish.I understand that any talk on nationalism, sectarianism, provincialism, on ethnicity, race, culture, likes and dislikes, one's profession, is bound to invoke a rush of blood, but we need to develop control over that. We need eradicate the fear of not discussing issues that are directly related to us and this will only be possible if we build our lives on truth and compromise. The day we, as individuals, start being fair to others, the day we treat them the same as we treat our families, Pakistan will prosper.
Pakistan Zindabad.
This month has seen many terrible, inhumane acts. A few days ago, the people of Brussels were caught in the fire of terror. Yesterday, Pakistan lost its children, when terror visited a park in Lahore. Every human being condemns these horrific acts.
The event of Brussels, bought the attention of the whole world and rightfully so, but did Lahore manage to get the same attention from the rest of world? The Huffington post did tweet with the hashtag #PrayforPakistan and the Omni Dallas Hotel in US displayed the Pakistani national flag on its facade. CNN also gave a few minutes of coverage to the terrible act, but that was it. I do not intend to build on hatred or present a conspiracy theory, but just to tell the world, if we continue to discriminate between those who die here in Asia and Middle East, with the people who die in Europe or America, we, and I say this with great dismay, will never win this war.
To defeat this monster, we need to change ourselves. The change needs not to start on the higher scale, but slight changes in how we spend our daily lives, how we talk, how we think about the other individuals that are with us, how we treat the elders and the young ones, how good we are to people who do not share the same religion we do, or do not speak the same language, or belong to a different city, town or village. If we, as a neighborhood, society and as a nation, could reform ourselves a touch and learn to trust and compromise in our daily lives, we can achieve greatness.
Our enemy has no ideology, but a strategy. The strategy is to use our weaknesses as a society against us. Why do young men and women go to the mountains and fight against their own soil? Intolerance and illiteracy. Educating this country is a long term plan, but removing intolerance is something, individuals together can accomplish.
We need to break many walls that have been built inside our cities and towns to divide this nation. It won't be easy and it won't be quick, but we have to. How? Small baby steps would do. As a state, we have made some. Holi was declared a public holiday, which is a very big achievement. However, many more need to follow. If we could start talking, if the people of Pakistan could start discussing issues, with an open mind, with the objective to achieve a rational conclusion, after listening carefully to the other persons point of view, this nation could achieve great heights.Conversations make relationships. For us to break the walls between our people, talking has to flourish.I understand that any talk on nationalism, sectarianism, provincialism, on ethnicity, race, culture, likes and dislikes, one's profession, is bound to invoke a rush of blood, but we need to develop control over that. We need eradicate the fear of not discussing issues that are directly related to us and this will only be possible if we build our lives on truth and compromise. The day we, as individuals, start being fair to others, the day we treat them the same as we treat our families, Pakistan will prosper.
Pakistan Zindabad.
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