We Are Pakistanis

Category: Articles/Opinion
Written by: Taimoor Masroor (on January 12, 2008 - 07:03 PM)

E-Mail Article to a Friend

On October 8^th, 2005 the northern areas of our country was hit by major earthquake. There was irreplaceable loss of property and life but the earthquake was not the only major thing which happened that October. The people of our country poured out of their homes to help our brothers and sisters in need. Everyone contributed to their maximum potential. During the first week of the quake the PAF Museum, on Shara-e-Faisal, Karachi was swamped with all sort of vehicles bearing supplies and scores of people helping around with those supplies. Among those helping hands there were no class divides, there were no ethnic divides and there were no religious divides. Everyone was a Pakistani, working together to help the Pakistanis in need. The majority of those people were the youth of the nation, they were my generation of Pakistanis.

Today as I turn on any of the local news channel everyone is talking about Sindh, Punjab, Baluchistan and NWFP. Analysts are going on and on about how some provinces feel bereaved while others just don’t seem to care about why there is a growing schism between them. The politicians with their short-term goal of winning the February elections are alienating other province in their campaigning. Call me naïve or call me ignorant but when these are the general elections for “Pakistan” why is there a provincial split there to begin with? Why are we still localized and can’t have a collective thinking for the greater good of the nation? It’s been 60 years, how many more do we need?

This is what I know. The youth is beyond schism. We don’t socialize or refer to each other depending upon the ethnicity we belong to. My grandfather moved to Pakistan in 1947, I don’t even know where to pin U.P. on the map of India, hell I don’t care either. I am home, why should I be bothered about finding some other place for identity? Same goes for the majority (if not all) the people I interact with. Of course there is a sense of belonging and endearment to the place you live at but at the end of the day we are a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural group of Pakistanis.  In sixty years, Pakistan has been able to produce a generation which belongs to Pakistan and which might be able to carve a new path for it in the future. Irony is that the major threat we have is the unity fracture among the previous generations corrupting us.

Take this as a request, take this as an appeal but let us remember the unity the entire nation displayed in the events following October 8. Let us turn that tragedy into a day of unity. Let us all take inspiration from the young and the inexperienced.

Share your thoughts by posting a Talk-Back: