As a part of the subject project, I was wondering which country to choose and when asked for suggestion, I got an answer – Pakistan. The initial reaction was, “Yes, this sounds interesting, for I have many friends from there and this a country which is the most troubled one”. So, when it came to thinking on the issues on which I had to write and the next day, when Ma’am asked us individually as to what are we going to cover in terms of topics about the country, I had said, “Regionalism, separatism, sectarianism, political instability, radicalization, and economic slump down.” To this I’d gotten a reply, “a classical example of how international media reports third world countries, representing it as full of isms”. We were then asked give opinions about what we think when we talk about various countries, regions, political parties, issues to talk, for instance, our natural reaction on Pakistan, on Islam, on Hindutva, on Mayawati, etc. More often than not, the views that we held for each of them, are not false, but are slanted in a particular way, always leaving a room empty for the other side which is not even explored.
Thinking on these lines, I have had almost all the negative stories about Pakistan, for it is often perceived as a nation which is facing seemingly unending lists of negative headlines/labels of - terrorism, corruption, drone attacks, natural disasters, poverty, a deficit in leadership, discrimination against minorities, mistreatment of women, attacks on freedom of speech, mass tax evasion, match fixing, the murder of judges, politicians, union organizers and journalists - and that is just the tip of the iceberg and at the end the analysts would either talk about political instability and a military coup, painting again a picture of weaker democracy and perpetuating the idea of a country ruled by military. This being the last blog post, I wanted to present the softer side of the nation, which really has to offer more than just a bunch of negative headlines. We all know that Pakistan is a fucked up nation, and when asked, everybody holds the same opinion, but as much as deaths occur every day, there are some parts where life is still going and the people are still living, studying, working and a nation is progressing under a democratic government, fragile though. Pakistan is like every other normal country. Give a name of the country which is corruption free, where there are no deaths, no internal conflicts, and no pluralism in opinions of political parties. The fact that all the countries are not perfect, but in an age of global competition, each of them has to have a positive image and media plays a great role in branding any nation globally. It is not that there are no problems faced in US, but each time it is balanced off by the success stories of Apple, Google, Facebook and Microsoft, not that India is corruption free and there are two Indias- India and Bharat, but it still manages to make its name in one of the BRIC nations, also with the human development index of 127th by reporting of the Ambani brothers’ success or by the positives of the growth of the IT and branding it as “Incredible India”. All the countries promote their identity; we have seen tourism ads of many countries, why not of Pakistan? Pakistan is a beautiful and culturally rich country.
It is only through blogs and small sites, which are again very hard to find that provides some positive stories of Pakistan. Ask the Pakistani youth on Facebook about the state of the country and you’d be tongue tied with their immense knowledge, and think in the hindsight about the stereotypical image we have of them. There are social activists, online forums which are doing MUCH to provide us with a different light on the country, but hardly does it gets covered. There’s this one social activists group called, ‘Pakistan Youth Alliance’ (PYA), which initially had organized protests and rallies but quickly became more active. Its core premise and mission statement is to take a stand, to get as practically involved on the ground as possible and to exemplify the change they seek through their actions rather than merely proposing it on paper. Their main goal is to create political and social awareness among the youth of Pakistan and to unite them irrespective of their religion, ethnicity, caste, race or language on an unbiased platform through which they can engage with one another and contribute practically to building a more progressive society in Pakistan - whether through protest, social and relief work or the arts. Earlier in 2011, the group was instrumental in organizing counter protests to the hate filled ones celebrating and glorifying Mumtaz Qadri, the killer of Salman Taseer, the governor of Punjab who was murdered in January over his stance on Pakistan's blasphemy laws and his ardent defence of religious minorities like Christians and Ahmadis. Ali says he did this because: "This is not what the founder of Pakistan and 'Father of the Nation' Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah would have wanted for this country today, especially as he repeatedly stressed the importance of inter-faith unity and religious harmony." Stories like these and others bring about something much needed in international news these days - a positive, hopeful narrative against the odds, showcasing some of the good news stories coming out of places like Pakistan, which often go unreported and deserve a spotlight too.
There’s also an initiative in terms of website by brothers and social entrepreneurs Majid and Mahmood Mirza who aims to emanate good stories from Pakistan and therefore they came up with a website titled Good News (www.goodnews.pk), which focuses solely on positive developments coming out of the country. They describe the idea behind the website via Skype as being "to highlight amazing, awesome and inspirational news stories coming from Pakistan, as opposed to the usual negativities that steal the headlines". Some of the stories/facts which we never knew about Pakistan have been well told by this website. For example, the international or the mainstream media in Pakistan never reported that Pakistan has become only the sixth country in the world to map the human genome, joining the ranks of the US, the UK, China, Japan and India, which have all successfully sequenced it. Or, how about the fact that Pakistan has the largest volunteer ambulance organization in the world started by "living saint" Abdul Sattar Edhi in 1948. Today, the radio-linked network includes 600 ambulances that work in every corner of the country. Or how about the recent news that Dr Umar Saif, an associate professor at the School of Science and Engineering in Lahore, has been recognized by MIT Technology Review as one of the top 35 innovators in the world - joining an elite group of researchers and entrepreneurs selected over the last decade, which includes Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the co-founders of Google, Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, and Jonathan Ive, the chief designer at Apple. Now who has heard of those stories? Then there are serial entrepreneurs like Monis Rahman, who just four years ago set-up Rozee.pk, which is now Pakistan’s largest jobs website, with 500,000 unique visitors a month; or Karachi-born freelance designer Vakas Siddiqui laying to rest the myth that Pakistani students are limited to excellence in science and the humanities by being selected as one of the top 28 designers in the world; or filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy who has just been shortlisted for an Oscar in the 'best documentary short' category for her film Saving Face.
Not only this, when I tried to find some more good/positive stuff about the country and asked one of my online friend, he said to me to write about charity in Pakistan. A highly intelligent LUMN alumni, working in Australia, when he told me about this, I was like, “the country is politically unstable and already facing economic crisis, how the hell even the question of charity arise”? Choosing to not believe him, I had my own views on the country until I seriously came across this, which changed my perception and it should be said that no TV channel has ever given coverage to the excellent work that some charities are doing in Pakistan. No other country in the Third World has so many non-profit organizations that help the downtrodden in so diverse fields and on such large scales, about which I found from the country’s newspaper’s blog, blogs of dawn.com. Everyone, at least in Pakistan, knows about the great job the Edhi Foundation is doing in different spheres – from running cancer hospices and ambulance services (Edhi Foundation has the largest fleet in the world, as the Guinness Book of Records mentions) to providing shelter to battered women and education to poor children. Mr. Edhi, who deserves nothing less than a Nobel Prize for Peace, is everywhere despite his old age. Wherever there is a calamity, he rushes to the site to provide help. If an unwanted child is left in one of his centers, he (and his wife, Bilqees) is there to take the infant under his protective wing.
In this age of global competition, all the countries have a need to grow economically, this happens through many ways, one of which is also through global partnerships. When a country is projected in a negative way, the economy is viewed in a negative way due to negative reporting the country is seen un unreliable one. There are about 180 million people in Pakistan, of which 65% are under the age of 25. The youth of Pakistan is its strength, it is like a sleeping giant. When we think that India is a booming nation. A stop and a second and look at Pakistan, could have much more to provide to the countries and to itself given a little help from the western world, Pakistan can become a dominant economy. I think such positive unreported stories along with the courage and creativity shown by young educated middle class Pakistanis, does reflect a phenomenal idea about the nation portrayed by them, who are increasingly globally minded and are using alternate media make their country get rid of its negative global representation and carving a path for a brighter image.
Well, that brings an end to blog posts. I’m a Hindu and an Indian by nationality, but I was told that my family had migrated from Karachi. Now, when I actually did this research about the country, I somewhat felt emotionally connected to it, may be because my forefathers belonged from that country, and this is somewhat weird but even nice, that I actually got a great feeling, like the one that I have had always get when I hear and sing the Indian National Anthem, or when India wins, a similar feeling of being a part of nation (though I’m not), when I had heard Pakistan’s National Anthem played by the sufi rock band from Pakistan, called Junoon, at the UN General Assembly. So, I’m going to end it with that!
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