This isn’t funny anymore. I can’t keep a smiling face and honestly tell people that everything is okay. I can’t keep looking out the window when I drive through Karimabad, Nazimabad and Lyari at the numerous shops that go without electricity every day. I feel guilty when I turn on the air conditioner of my car.

I hate the voice of the people on television and radio who talk about the budget and the cost of living, when they have no idea what is going on. How can you create a public-friendly budget when you don’t know what the life of the average member of the public is?

I still see the young beggar boy, Babar, who used to sell cloth pieces at the FTC traffic light before the flyover was built and has since moved to the PIDC area, who I still end up giving a few hundred rupees a month because I once heard him say how hungry he was. Each time I bite into a McDonalds, I feel horrible because I, with all that God has blessed me and my family, have never experienced hunger like what I saw in that young man’s eyes.

I drove to the Paradise Super Store yesterday evening and bumped into the sales lady from Solo. For those of you who are unaware, there is a TON of development work being done and as a result, they have dug up the complete service road right infront of Solo and a lot of other commercial shops. How can these shops survive? Please don’t take me wrong. I am thrilled at the pace of the development work that is being done in the city. For the first time in the short, stunted history of this city, has the political party exhibited so much of its own vested interest in line with what is actually good for the rest of us. Why we are bent upon putting businesses through so much pain and misery because of poor planning and lack of knowing how to divert traffic around to places so the the few people who run businesses that continually attract foreigners, can be salvaged. Read more »

There is no way to censor or control the flow of information. It’s like saying you are going to block roads and not let people move around. There are always alternate channels, nooks, crannies, alleyways and openings. Believe it or not, it’s not a free world, but it has immense flexibility for us to work with.

I have a comment involving the manner in which people tend to protest and wanted to share it on this forum.

Dancing lawyers on the television don’t make much of an impacting statement. In fact, they make me want to change the channel. Riots make me feel frightened of change and feel sadness at the loss of life. But I’ll tell you a kind of protest that I will willingly participate in.

If the Government attempts to control the flow of information through newspapers and newsreaders, why won’t publishers just print blank pages where there SHOULD have been news? Why won’t producers produce the same program and air a segment without sound? That’s a silent, peaceful protest involving millions of people. Imagine the impact it can have. What would happen if one print run covered NOTHING about the Government? If Institutions wish to exert control over information ABOUT them, then I think we are ignoring the fact that the Daily News companies own the presses and pages where this information is ultimately printed on.

We tend to forget that as much as the Institution needs the media platforms as much as we need them. It’s a perfectly unhappy marriage filled with hatred and deceit. I’d imagine if our media platforms were strong enough, they would call for these drastic measures in these drastic times.

Pakistan is at the start of a Media Revolution - We just need to use these openings more effectively.

And so here I was, in the US for what is my first real time with interacting with people (as opposed to Mickey Mouse) and discussing issues that plague so many of our communities, when I got this email with the subject of “Take Back Pakistan” - And though I was eager to plug it in my spam folder without really paying too much attention to it, I’m glad I actually made the effort to read it. While I wait for the battery of my laptop to die out, I’m going to make a quick attempt at jumpstarting an entry on this forum, and want to voice out what I think -

I’m hardly a patriot. I grew up studying European and American history and culture so it wasn’t until recently that I could actually identify who some of the people were in the black and white photographs that I sometimes see in the newspapers and online. I do, however, sit through the painful exposure to a confused identities and mixed culture all around me on a daily basis.

There are many things wrong with us. There are many things wrong with the way our government runs itself. There are so many things wrong with so many things, I’ve joined the clan of people who stopped counting a few decades ago. And then I find myself in the US with the opportunity to talk about the few rights that we have at home. I’m in the US on a 2-month fellowship to go around America, meet with people and help to establish links with Pakistan - help point people’s vision in the direction of Pakistan…

So the question is - with all the wrong things that are happening, who the heck would want to promote Pakistan? The answer is simple. It’s us. This generation. If we don’t do something now, we won’t have much of a country to live in. Okay - So Pakistan hasn’t given its citizens much in return - but then its citizens have used that as an excuse and driven us into the ground. When does the vicious, childish cycle end? I say we put an end to it now.

While the bigger questions such as our raison d’etre and existence make thinkers around the planet engage in discussion that brings history and culture to life, there is a more important question that intrigues me.

Our identities are our visual and sensory barcode amongst the array of humanity. Traits specific to our upbringing and cultures have found themselves evolving who we are. However, what is our identity? What defines who we are? Is it the tangible artifacts such as a flag or a national anthem or is it the common belief in a supreme being and links to a type of lifestyle? In the creation and acknowledgment of a national identity, the idea that there be more commonalities than differences amongst the people, seems to play an important and natural component.

It can be argued that while there exist so many diverse cultures across the earth’s massive landmass, the fact that their histories have evolved from the same point of origin, defies the struggle for self-determination. Looking at the real estate around the world, will give the onlooker a good idea as to whose efforts have been initiated by which individual. When names such as “John Hancock” and “Trump” and “Sears” become avid descriptions for landmarks, man’s overwhelming desire to make his “claim to fame” be known publicly screams painful desperation for self preservation.

In considering the possibility that the amount of philanthropic work that is initiated around the world, one cannot overlook the strong link individuals maintain with the desire to be remembered. The entire concept of “Corporate Social Responsibility” is all about giving back to a society when it will make an indirect impact to the stock value of a company.

People fight for freedom of a group of people from oppression, leaders that sit far from the frontline, strategizing policy and diplomacy, also do so in the name of preservation.

Where does this desperate need for individual identity come from and how come we aren’t more human and global in our approach? One can’t recall where the Dutch Nun who found her calling in the slums of Calcutta, splashed her name around the walls and parks of the city in exchange for her services.

Back in early 1940’s, when Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the eventual founder of Pakistan, was struggling to realize his dream of a land for the Muslim population in India, the thought that he would be one of the first and few to be the leader who negotiated a land for his people, must have crossed his mind. But the fact that the ideology of the country is based on religion and the cultural heritage that we share with India is so far from the ideology, provides the basis of an extremely confused identity that has evolved over time. Read more »