Living in the past?

It is time we focused on the present

August 14, 2014 was Pakistan’s 68th Independence Day. On this day the cream of the crop portrayed Pakistan in their commentaries and annotations as Edhi’s philanthropy, Arfa Karim’s brilliance, Afridi’s exuberance, Miandad’s sixs, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’s vocal chords, fastest growing IT industry, four weathers, second highest mountain, 8 of 20 highest peaks, seventh nuclear power, fourth nation to build cruise missiles, the largest salt mine, a state that broke Soviet Union, symbol of hospitality, epitome of resilience and one of the few bravest nations of the world.

I’m ambivalent to the fact whether people with above-stated optimism-carrying paragraph are enthusiasts, patriotic or just illiterate. The reason of my waver is that everything mentioned above is too old stories to be discussed, and have we neither produced anything worth mentioning since long nor have we retained our ranks achieved at that time. Instead we are making all efforts to meet the requirements of being a true Third World country. The question that pops in head here is why do we relive the past in our national and personal discussions? Is it because we get overwhelmed by anything patriotic that surfaces in front of our eyes, putting us in a daydreaming mode, or maybe we are not at all patriotic and it is our guilty conscience that compels us to share it? My vote goes to the latter.

Here’s an eye opener to optimism-carrying Pakistanis: there is nothing optimistic going on in the country at present or for the past few years. All that was positive in the past is down the drain. We are no longer the champs of cricket but we are known for match fixing. Proud enough? We aren’t champs anymore of hockey, snooker or squash either. Most of our talented singers have moved to India because India actually has an industry and they pay handsomely, indulging them like legends despite the fact that both states still don’t get along.

Having K2 and seven other highest peaks are of no use when mountaineers from around the globe are dread at the thought of visiting our beloved motherland because they think it as a warzone where non-nationals are in jeopardy. Pakistanis living overseas may relate to this better. If you google Pakistan from an IP (internet protocol) of UK, USA, Canada, etc, you’ll get different search results than you’d get from a Pakistani IP.

And we didn’t break Soviet Union wasn’t; it were the Afghans who were trained by the American and who used American weapons. We were just a gateway between the two and we cashed in on that. On the other hand, allowing refugees to pour in our country from that war has made our economy go down from which we are still trying to recover.

I cannot help but wonder why can’t people state the facts for once? For instance, how about political corruption? Individual corruption? Departmental corruption? How about lack of clean drinking water for the poor? How about providing inedible flour to the poor as Ramazan package? How about electricity outage? How about patriarchy and feudalism? How about honour killings? How about terrorism? How about strikes of the doctors? How about mistreatment of minorities? How about inflation? How about no jobs? How about CNG outage? And the list goes on and on.

Our country is facing endless problems. These problems aren’t just because of the system, they are also related to our mindsets as well. Lack of good governance is one of the major problems of the country; it is engraved in society in a way that one can easily find its germs in every sphere of life and in every institution of the state. Though we keep on listening enthusiastic debates and lines asserted by our prominent leaders, the reality is different and harsh because institutional flaws prevail in the society.

Positive vision is necessary for bringing stability in the society and public institutions. We ought to work for our rights, we ought to think about the rights of the people. If we want to rise again, we need to stop reliving the past, accept our present and eradicate the foes within. This downfall involves each and every one of us, not just bad governance.