Wednesday, April 06, 2005

Losing my religion

[Started March 23 - also see Finding my Religion]
Just a small note-

Isn't it a tad difficult to speak up agianst what we consider wrong? Be it uncle cha-cha ji's corruption, or the society general degenerative trends - I often find myself on the wrong side of prevalence. As in, in the minority that neither practices nor feels happy about what they consider wrong - and are hapless. No objection; no action.

Now if I am to avoid any bias of recency or latency, the dominance of "wrong" isn't something I haven't seen since childhood. But there's a definite difference this time.

I feel the (young) Pakistanis are actually living in interesting times. [Aside: Chinese Curse - May you live in interesting times!] All too quickly, we are dealing with ideologies that are:

1. not our own

2. conflicting with our long held beliefs

3. perhaps better than our own, but are we included in the change process? Where's our change management plan?

Anyway. So that's the issue. It's kind of becoming fashionable to say: Zia did blah-blah and therefore we didn't have any ideology and ID and blah-blah and now let's just accept whatever comes our way otherwise oh no we are retarding back to Zia's era. Fine.

Me thinks first Zia put a blanket on everything. Now, we must tolerate and accept everything. No questions asked. What is it, the swingin' 60's of Pakistan? And who are we Pakistanis anyway? Talibani, Osami, India's-broken-offees, progressives, tolerantos, thoughtlessos, idiotos? First someone tells us, cover up. We do. Then someone tells us, open up. We do. We weren't thinking then, are we thinking now?

My issue isn't with the goings-on. My issue is the way goings-on are going on and the clear absence of a decent change management plan. And yes, I bring myself to say it with a degree of apprehension of being misunderstood - but some of the 'developments' aren't that right either and I am NOT being a bigot. Exposing Pakistan to the world and the world to Pakistan is a bit like wedding off a 12-yr old girl. Heck, we have to mature as ourselves and have our own ID before we can rush to embrace.

3 comments:

  1. The more I find myself and my "identity", the more I explore my existence, the more insignificant and passive the world seems to me.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yes! U said it all, man. THIS is the dilemma we're in right now...indulging in all kinds of identity debates without devising ways to deal with the crisis. Havent read the other related posts though.

    Would love it if u suggest something real positive..and let me think of something too..lets DO something. lets BE rather than SEEM.

    ReplyDelete
  3. "Anon:"

    I did happen to have insinuated what I think is the singular most positive suggestion for humanity: THINK WITH YOUR OWN MIND.

    We might end up doing the same things, but to have thought of and accepted them - to have chosen them - makes all the difference.

    ReplyDelete