let's not continue to mess up the one country that we have! and let's not vow to stay the vacuous people that we have come to be! there are things we can do on a personal level that aren't the stuff of revolutions, yet they matter and they bring about a subtle slow change not only in our speech but in our thoughts and eventually in our actions.
For the love of God let us do something right once. And, you my fellow country men would ask me what that 'right' thing is and why after 60 odd years should we be concerned about it? the thing is we can continue on this disastrous path that we have chosen for ourselves and soon enough make sure that we do not leave an inheritance for our children - make sure that we deprive them of a place to call their own by birth and by an inalienable right!
Preaching and sermonizing are two things I detest from my heart and are needed the least by all of us here in Pakistan, we must make a decision on our own to be good, to do right and I believe that every sane human being and even at times insane ones do in their heart of hearts know whats right!
But, and with me there is always a but, I'd like to share what my rights are that I feel we need to do to make our sole and only country a better place to live and raise children that grow up to be good humans and not be self-destructive as most of us have become today. And, my love of lists taking me over here I go....
1)We can try to be humble and modest.
Almost all Pakistanis suffer from a delusional sense of 'self-importance' and are a little too smug and self-satisfied, we love to bitch and complain about others who are clone copies of us yet we lack the depth to realize the same weaknesses in ourselves! they say that we criticize others on things which we hate about ourselves. That to me sounds like a truism if there ever was one. We are quick to condemn and that's fine but we are at the same time very quick to take offence at any finger pointed to us! How unfair is that!!!!! We need to be a little less high on ourselves and see ourselves as others would or do see us!!! that would be a crash course on landing back to planet earth and staying there!!! In every party, at every gathering, at every dinner I am forever hearing and overhearing men and women wax lyrical about how they were first to do this and that, and how they first started this trend and now have a bevy of followers, or how generous they are to their families, their colleagues, their neighbors, their servants! also how wonderful an aesthetic sense they have and have designed their house form foundations on up to the second floor, women, on how wonderfully they design their own clothes, are perfect cooks, look this gorgeous way at 6 in the morning as well, on kids doing exceedingly well in school here or in some foreign shore, so on and so forth. If every other person is so good and women so perfect and kids so right why?? in the name of God are we in such an awful mess????????????????
2)If only we try to get our children off the streets and into safe homes with an education thrown in
We have millions of small children say under the age of 10 on the streets in every city of this country and that is a fact we all should be ashamed of! assuming that half of these kids are orphans why can't they be adopted by rich and affluent people living in palatial houses? and not adopted as in feeling sorry for someone and doing them a favor but, yes why?? can't we each of us bring one child home? to love as our own? Children are pure, they love you for no other reason except that you may love them, I know its not easy to do this but why not? when one thinks about it its not impossible??? all of us who can afford adopt a child and take him off the streets? isn't that being a good human being to another? isn't that humanity?? But, we are small hearted, myopic people - me - topping the chart. We will worry about biggies like, whats his blood line? as if we ourselves have descended from the bluest of blue bloods. We will say the oft quoted phrase and suddenly become all Islamic by professing that adoption per say isn't allowed in Islam (as if all other injunctions we follow in word and spirit.)
3)We must teach our children to be good human beings, educating them to think for themselves and not to be merely apprentices to a trade
Education today in our country is geared only towards one thing and that is to get a pay-check home at the end of the month. That is also an essential part of training and learning to be able to acquire a skill, to be useful and productive as labor in the society. But we must also in our education system make kids into confident, self reliant, and thinking individuals who must know from their own experiences and understanding as to what is good and what isn't. They must be able to question! we shouldn't try to get our kids to 'listen' to us all the time so that they lose all sense of self and are unable to make decisions for themselves or can be brain-washed easily. We must teach the correct history of our people whether flattering or not, to be able to understand our place in this world, we must make them read and research Islam for themselves so they don't turn out to be that most dreaded of things ' a flock of followers'.
to be cont................
Comments
Post a Comment