Begin to Think, Pakistan! Declared, though nothing official about it, the most dangerous place on the globe Pakistan stands taller than all of the contenders for this not really coveted position. It had never a hope to emerge as a nation ever since it was born. But dubbed as moderate Islamic nation by the West and always a stooge of America, its flirtations with democracy gave it a status of reformable delinquent. Pakistan enjoyed this label of ‘mischievous’ to hog the spotlight that helped to save it from the neglect it stood to face against its historical archrival but big and truly democratic neighbor.
60 years for a country is not good enough a period to settle down as a nation if Pakistan is a testimony. It stands at a more critical juncture than it was on 14TH August 1947. All the turmoil and bloodshed it saw at that time had at least one thing that is conspicuously missing today. And that was hope. Pakistan has no hope in hell today.
Everyone in the country, from its President to a pan-vendor is unsafe. Pakistan is on the brink of disintegration. Adding insult to the injury, it has a nuclear arsenal, making with itself, the world a dangerous place to live in.
Pakistan, and to be straight, Pakistanis have to blame themselves and no one else for the hell they have made for themselves.
A nation lives in the minds of its people. Relationship with the outside world is just a reflection of the body –nation. The Pakistanis in general and their leadership in particular believes in import of everything, from thought process to systems to institutions. The current turmoil was an opportunity to take charge of the destiny. But as a Pakistan-watcher I have no doubt in my mind that the opportunistic leaders, to the chagrin of the optimistic commentators, will brazenly share the spoils soon after the counting begins. Those who are seeing an emergence of democratic dissent as hope will have to chew their words. We shouldn’t forget that the nation those are forces to be reckon with today started at some point their process of thinking as a nation. Pakistan has yet to begin.