We have a flag. It is a beautiful flag. People would kill if that flag were to be threatened by outsiders or attackers. Yet, we treat that flag with so much disrespect and contempt that we don’t deserve to be called Pakistanis. If there is one thing that I firmly believe, it’s this: when you don’t respect your national flag, then you don’t respect your country.

In Pakistan, we don’t care if the flag hangs properly outside our homes or offices.

In Pakistan, we hang our flags upside down and say “it doesn’t matter.”

In Pakistan, we hang torn and dirty flags because we can’t be bothered to clean it before we hoist it above our homes.

In Pakistan, we treat the flag with the same contempt that we treat other Pakistanis….. ever think about that?

When the majority of your populace is only mildly educated, it’s quite easy to fall under the spell of money. Those who have it are in positions of prestige, power and (what we think) success. Those who have it are also able to wield unstoppable power over government officials, industry leaders and politicians. Thus, those who don’t have, believe money to be the only way to get that power…. and there begins the journey.

When you only understand money to be the defining factor of value in a human being, things like education, civic sense, law abiding go out the window. “Money is and money will be.” And we both know that when you stop worrying about your conscience, you can make money in a variety of immoral ways… welcome to modern day Pakistan.

I know that sounds harsh… but it’s true. In Pakistan, the only goal is to get more money, no matter it be by honest or dishonest means. The traffic police take bribes to not write a citation. The city police take bribes to register cases, real or false. Politicians take bribes in the guise of aid donations to their party to continue to support someone’s agenda. Bankers take bribes to draft false documents for visa submissions. Business managers take bribes to appoint people to jobs. Where does it end?

We have created a society of criminals that feed on the honest Pakistani until they just give up and give in.

When a country is not educated, how does it make it’s decisions about social, economic and civil development? Better question, who makes the decisions? This has been one of the core problems that all Pakistanis struggle with. In Pakistan, education is provided like a business, not a national service.

Our government schools are a complete farce. In our government schools, teachers come to school infrequently at best, read the paper when they are there, rarely teach anything to the students and spend most of their time talking to other teachers about current events. Even worse, many of the government schools are just shells for the distribution of money to people. Government teachers that don’t come to work are still paid their full salaries because of special relationships (read bribes) with the right government authorities. As a result, most of our population can barely write their names in Urdu, forget English, and reading Urdu… well, that will get better over time.

On the flip side, the private schools of Pakistan are nothing more than country clubs for teachers. I have briefly taught at one and have friends/family that currently do. See, wealthy Pakistanis are bastards! They are dirty, money loving bastards that should be castrated so their future generations don’t pollute this planet! Let me tell you why….

Wealthy Pakistanis like to open schools, because there is no other business model in Pakistan that pays more for no investment. So they rent a school, hire a few people to teach (notice I did not say teachers), decide on the components of the uniform, books and steal the curriculum from any school they think is a good standard. Yes, I said steal. I have yet to find a wealthy Pakistani that will take the time and money to determine the best education standard for their school, without saying “English medium schools earn more money.” After deciding all of these things, they will go out and rent a building that can be used as a school. Now, I need to stop here for a second and clarify the definition of school in Pakistan, because it is not what you are thinking:

School (n):

An extremely small building located in a residential area unable to support the amount of traffic and parking required

Can not have a playground, activities area or anything that would allow the children to enjoy their time outside the classroom

A canteen, not cafeteria, will be provided to students with items that cost 4 times the price of the market outside the school and are completely unfit for the child to be eating

A School bus will be provided to transport your children to school but will be driven by a suicidal man who won’t treat your children with any respect unless they give him money. Also, you should be aware, the bus driver doesn’t have a license nor is he able to read

All school supplies (books, notebooks, uniforms) will be sourced from the most unreliable vendor so that the costs of getting the required materials are more than sending your child to Harvard for a semester

Teachers will be taken on an availability basis and not assessed for knowledge, ability or temperament. Leave your children at our school at your own risk

We will not assess your children fairly, but pass them every year so that you don’t complain and, much worse, stop paying us for the shabby education that we impart to your child

Due to our useless teaching standards, you will be required to place your children with an after school tutor otherwise they will never learn anything. The cost of the tutor is not included in the cost of the school fees

We assure that once your child graduates from our school they will be worse off then they would have been if you had kept them at home

Suffice it to say, these private schools are breeding the destruction of the nation, while these same wealthy Pakistanis send their children to private schools in other countries to assure that they will continue to be bastards.

“A Nation Without Heroes is a Nation without hope.” When you look around the world, every country has heroes that children look up to, that mould their characteristics as a person.

Can you think of your childhood heroes? Can you think of the people that you model yourself after as an adult? Why did you choose them? What characteristics do they embody that makes them worthy?

For those of you that are Pakistani, can you name our national heroes? Jinnah, Iqbal, A.Q. Khan (whether you like it or not), a host of cricketers and media personalities? How many of them do you want to be like? How many do you know about, studied about in school, who are they?

There are no identities, as Pakistanis, that influence us more than the personalities and celebrities from around the world. We as Pakistanis are no longer Pakistani. We spend more time watching Indian televisions shows and movies than we do watching our own Pakistani ones. What has been the driving factor in this loss has been the marginalization of the national language, culture and literature. Pakistanis no longer think Urdu is either fashionable nor spoken by anyone who is anyone, which explains why everyone and their driver are trying to speak English. As we all know, when you stop learning your national language, you lose your link to the culture, traditions and values espoused by that language. The loss of the national language has also led to the growth of regional languages that have their own values and traditions. Now, Pakistan is made up of Pathans, Punjabis, Sindhis and Balouchis, each speaking their own languages and practicing their own traditions leaving no room to be Pakistani.