There is nothing to celebrate on 23rd March anymore. The termination of the Pakistan Day parade has stripped this day of its glory and it has now become just another public holiday. No more soldiers march smartly on Constitution Avenue, saluting the President, followed by armoured vehicles and tanks. There are no F-16 fighter jets in the sky breaking sound barriers (or so it seemed to me when I attended the parade as a little girl) as the crowd cheered and clapped below. Everything is gone. The colourful provincial floats are now history and the present is littered with police, rangers, barbed wire and road blocks. Since 9/11, we are paying the price of the, so called, War on Terror and it seems the stakes are getting higher each year.
But today we celebrate. A nation plagued by inflation, recession, corrupt rulers, taxes, minimal facilities, lawlessness, killings and fear found solace through our cricket team. Today’s victory has made us forget, momentarily, the madness that surrounds us. Hopes have filled our hearts. We are dancing with joy because we want to tell the world: you may shun us, bomb us, label us but we have the capability to rise against all the odds and achieve the impossible.
Or am I being too optimistic, too soon?
great write!
ReplyDeletePerhaps we should not be nostalgic about the North Korean style jingoistic displays with soldiers, missiles and tanks being paraded in front of the nation. Perhaps these parades were symptoms of all that was wrong, which then led to the inevitable mess that we find ourselves. Guns, tanks and missiles do not bring glory. If only we had celebrated knowledge, civil society and respect for other beliefs with such gusto!
ReplyDeleteFarheen yar loved this one. The last part touched my heart. Jazba jaga dia. Thanks a lot:)
ReplyDeletewell i disagree with Mr/Ms Anonymous... Celebrating knowledge is all together a different thing.. and yes that is more important..but the country we come from.. we get proud of what we have.. and having the parade.. showing Guns, tanks and awesome aircraft fly above you.. that brought out the patriot in every one of us.. it gave us the strength to show the world.. that we are second to none.. it made educated people to send their children to armed forces and to took pride in that...now we are just scared puppets, trying to hide behind barbed wires and big walls..claiming our country is a unsafe place so we all should live abroad.. without this patriotism.. there wil be no strength left in any of us to celebrate knowledge, civil society or even respect others belief...
ReplyDeletevery nice farheen! (tashi)
ReplyDeleteAbbas,
ReplyDeleteWe have enough guns, missiles and many nuclear bombs. So why are we finding ourselves in the mess that we are in? Its surely not because of not enough pride in our armed forces or not enough investment in defense. In fact, as I tried to say earlier, its exactly the opposite...it is because of too much emphasis on the military, and not enough on all the other things that make a country strong. Armies don't make a nation strong, its the people who do that.
nice write-up I like your blog
ReplyDeleteI've just come to realize that the most comments I have on any blog post are not on the book reviews, or other random stuff I wrote earlier but on this post which talks about politics, terrorism and military. This is what we want to read, watch and talk about - current affairs, politics and the army.
ReplyDeleteHeartbreaking...