Do We Understand What Is at Stake?
By Zain Jeewanjee
CA
As is well known, I am mostly an optimist.
The founders sacrificed to buy us a piece of real estate, they gave us a piece of land with an absolute open book to do as we please and design the architecture of our new home and to shape it in any form, with as many stories as high as we could vision, color the exterior dark or bright, and paint the interior with strong colors, humbleness, kindness, with any paint be it white, black, yellow or brown, invite guests of any race, and live as we wish with our neighbors.
Celebrate with lights from all walks of life, and create rooms where the elder and the young would live in harmony. Protect it with a fence around in any manner that we desire, as weak or strong as we needed and furnish the entire home with brand new furniture, design its gardens, plant the fruits, its like building your dream home, what an opportunity, and we were gifted this on a platter by our founding fathers...
But, I have to be a realist now.
We built nothing of the fruits of our founders’ sacrifice. We took the land and selfishly furnished each room that we individually occupied, and we furnished it by squandering the resources available from within our boundaries. In 60+ years we have created little and destroyed and looted the wherewithal of what was our home.
I must add that I just returned from a visit to both India and Pakistan, and it is unmistakably apparent that we (Pakistanis) have regressed significantly, and I am not referring to economical and industrial growth alone, but human and intellectual standards. We cannot claim to be civilized by universal standards, a question that we must start addressing.
Where India and Indians have progressed and continue to evolve, we have regressed. I could guess like everyone else, but it’s possibly due to our smugness, egocentric, selfish, non-Islamic, double-standard lifestyle.
I hold myself just as guilty, for I have done little for MY PAKISTAN.
Think about this, as we see the fire engulf, our home, our city, our land, and possibly us all ... do we understand what is at stake?
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