Last night, on the way back from the barbeque party given by my uncle at my grandma’s house, I had to cross the Five-Star roundabout at Hyderi. My cousin had warned me already to take off early before 12 a.m. since it’s a tradition for all young boys and men to ride their motorbikes wildly and gather at 5 star chowrangi by 12a.m. on 14th August so that they can shout out over there at the top of their voices and fire in the sky with their pistols. According to me, this is synonymous to illiterate behavior. Over the span of 66 years of independence, the Pakitsani nation has reduced to what? I’ll tell you. We have reduced to just decorating our houses with flags on 14th August and firing away when the clock strikes 12, boys and men speeding in their motorcycles at night shouting out loud, countless road traffic accidents,people getting shot due to this recklessness and what not. This is the reality of our nation now. Ever since we’ve been granted independence, we have happily walked down the stairs to our deterioration.
Every year, on 14th August, people go to the Quaid’s mausoleum, paint geen and white, the colours of our flag, on to their faces. They dress up in green, wear Pakistani flag badges, watch those utterly useless morning shows which are a complete waste of time, sing national songs and this is how the day ends. The surprising thing is that the youngsters of our society can easily and fluently chant along to the lyrics of the Strings band song “Hai koi hum jaisa” but nobody can remember all the lyrics of our national anthem. Another surprising thing is that they can also fluently sing India’s national anthem, Vande Matram, which they’ve learned by heart from Indian movies that they all watch with reverence, but they will get stuck after singing half of their own national anthem. People encourage and appreciate the youth of Pakistan but I say that shame on the youth if these are their standards. Is this how we should celebrate our independence day? Has the importance of it gone down to branding the colours of green and white once a year and then proceeding to engage in our daily activities of drowning the name our country in mud?
From the upper most class to the lower most class of our society and in each and every kind of profession, we see corruption littered throughout, in each and every post. Favours being granted in exchange of rishwat (bribes) which is actually forbidden in Islam and we call ourselves a Muslim nation. In my opinion, Pakistan is the reason why Muslims are wrongly considered to be terrorists throughout the world. Firstly, we don’t attempt to negate this false accusation by our actions, and secondly, I guess most of us don’t care about how our nation is portrayed world wide. They’re mainly busy in eating up Pakistan’s revenue and satisfying their personal hunger. We happily give up our stars like Dr.Aafia Siddiqui when the West asks for them. We happily throw dirt on our true patriots like Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, who made us the first Muslim nation with atomic power, when the West asks us to. What kind of a sorry nation are we?
What do we celebrate this day for and what should we be celebrating? Do we have any reason to be happy and excited this day? Yes, we got independence from the cruelties of the Hindus and the British but what now? To stay away from them in a piece of land that has poverty, scanty electricity, corruption, increasing theft and rape rates, declining economy, beggar-natured people, shameless, pro-West men and women, un Islamic attitudes- was that the purpose of Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah’s valiant efforts? Are we living up to our Quaid’s expectations or are we proving to be the results that indicate that all his struggles had gone awry?
Think, dear Pakistanis, think! What are we doing?? Reality check, already!
