Would Someone in the Diaspora Lessen My Pain?
By Naveed Khan
Pleasanton, CA
The senseless carnage in Peshawar, and before that mayhem in many places across Pakistan, has shaken me beyond words. I cannot describe the feeling, nor do I have the words to share the profound sense of failure and helplessness. I feel equally responsible for the state of affairs in Pakistan. I feel ashamed, I feel hurt beyond my threshold. I cannot describe my feeling of dismay and agony.
I owe a lot to Pakistan. It nurtured me, it nourished me, it educated me, it loved me and now I see the most precious, the most delicate of Pakistan people, young, innocent children being callously butchered. I wake up at night and ask myself what have I not done, why have we let this happen to our dear country. Every child of Pakistan is precious. They all are to be loved and nurtured so that they become great citizens of Pakistan. Every woman of Pakistan is honorable. Women are our mentor, they are our fortress, they are our strength. Why have we faltered, why have we led ourselves to a situation where remorse, regret, pain, penitence are not adequate words to express the excruciating pain? I cry at night and I cry during the day on my failure, on my inability on my helplessness in preventing such atrocities, such oppression. I ask myself every minute: why and where have I failed? I have no answer. I request your readers, the Pakistani diaspora, to help me understand why have we let our country bleed? Why as expatriate Pakistanis we have not done more in the past and what we could do now? I am at a loss, I am overwhelmed, I am dumbfounded, I have no answers. I have no way of alleviating my pain, I have no way of lessening my angst. I am writing this in the hope that someone would help me.
