One nation, one pride: Pakistan
I truly believe that all Pakistanis, including myself, owe a mountain of debt and gratitude to Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah for giving us this nation. Having said that, though, I would also want to venture a bit further to say that while it was (and still is) our solemn duty to establish the Pakistan of Quaid's dreams in 1947, it is perhaps time now to re-evaluate that aspiration and take a more realistic view of our circumstances.
In the intervening 60 years, the reality of Pakistan's politics and society has turned out to be everything but Quaid's dream. We, as a nation and as people, have wandered around aimlessly looking for an identity and a reason for our existence. However, our quest to find our destiny has often been hijacked by unscrupulous elements lending us with their own versions of Quaid's dream.
Quaid's message to the nation was "search your hearts and see whether you have done your part in the construction of the new and mighty state. It is now up to you to work, work and work and we are bound to succeed. And never forget our motto, Faith, Unity and Discipline."
I really do wish each one of us could ask ourselves if we have really honestly contributed in the development of our nation. Have we really done our part?
Yes, we have done our parts in forming garbage dumps on the road, we have done our parts in burning tyres and creating chaos in our city, towns, streets.
I don't claim to know what the Quaid's vision of Pakistan really was. But I do know this, that above everything else, the Quaid would have wanted us, all Pakistanis, to live in peace & harmony and would have been happy if we could decide for ourselves, today, how we want to live our lives.Quaid stated "Peace within and peace without" as the goal of Pakistan's policy.
He declared that Pakistan wished to live in peace and to maintain cordial and friendly relations with the world at large, and that it had no aggressive designs against anyone.
Far too often in the past, we have let the best become the enemy of the good with the result that in our desire to create the ideal Pakistan-the Quaid's Pakistan-we have ended up losing an opportunity to create a "good enough" Pakistan-a Pakistan that works for most of us. What Pakistan was supposed to be 60 years ago, never materialised in the first place. But it does certainly matter what we can make of it today, and it is our greatest duty to make the best of what we have. Learning about Pakistan's history and what the Quaid thought and did, and why he did it, is an important input into the process but the ultimate choice of what Pakistan needs to be rests with all of us, the people of Pakistan.
Ultimately, Pakistan should be what it's people want it to be and would be most comfortable living with, and not what an opportunist religious or political leader would like us to believe what it must be. In a very peculiar way, I have complete faith in the wisdom of the Pakistani people. Well, no matter how uneducated they may be, they do know what is best for them. The only unfortunate thing is that they don't want to do what is best for Pakistan because they don't feel Pakistan is part of them.Jinnah gave us a message of hope, courage and confidence, asking us to mobilise all our resources in a systematic and organised way and tackle the grave issues that confront us with grim determination and discipline worthy of a great nation.
According to Jinnah, religion had "nothing to do with the business of the State." While Iqbal believed that Islam itself was no less a polity, Jinnah declared to his listeners, "If you change your past and work together in a spirit that everyone of you, no matter to what community he belongs, no matter what relations he had with you in the past, no matter what is his colour, caste or creed, is first, second and last a citizen of this State with equal rights, privileges and obligations, there will be no end to the progress you will make"
We should work with this spirit of the Quaid and after a certain period of time has past, we will see that Muslims will cease to be Muslims, Hindus will cease to be Hindus, Christians will cease to be Christians, not in the religious sense of course, but in the political sense. When there will be no divisions of cast or creed but only one Nation, one pride, Pakistan.
In the intervening 60 years, the reality of Pakistan's politics and society has turned out to be everything but Quaid's dream. We, as a nation and as people, have wandered around aimlessly looking for an identity and a reason for our existence. However, our quest to find our destiny has often been hijacked by unscrupulous elements lending us with their own versions of Quaid's dream.
Quaid's message to the nation was "search your hearts and see whether you have done your part in the construction of the new and mighty state. It is now up to you to work, work and work and we are bound to succeed. And never forget our motto, Faith, Unity and Discipline."
I really do wish each one of us could ask ourselves if we have really honestly contributed in the development of our nation. Have we really done our part?
Yes, we have done our parts in forming garbage dumps on the road, we have done our parts in burning tyres and creating chaos in our city, towns, streets.
I don't claim to know what the Quaid's vision of Pakistan really was. But I do know this, that above everything else, the Quaid would have wanted us, all Pakistanis, to live in peace & harmony and would have been happy if we could decide for ourselves, today, how we want to live our lives.Quaid stated "Peace within and peace without" as the goal of Pakistan's policy.
He declared that Pakistan wished to live in peace and to maintain cordial and friendly relations with the world at large, and that it had no aggressive designs against anyone.
Far too often in the past, we have let the best become the enemy of the good with the result that in our desire to create the ideal Pakistan-the Quaid's Pakistan-we have ended up losing an opportunity to create a "good enough" Pakistan-a Pakistan that works for most of us. What Pakistan was supposed to be 60 years ago, never materialised in the first place. But it does certainly matter what we can make of it today, and it is our greatest duty to make the best of what we have. Learning about Pakistan's history and what the Quaid thought and did, and why he did it, is an important input into the process but the ultimate choice of what Pakistan needs to be rests with all of us, the people of Pakistan.
Ultimately, Pakistan should be what it's people want it to be and would be most comfortable living with, and not what an opportunist religious or political leader would like us to believe what it must be. In a very peculiar way, I have complete faith in the wisdom of the Pakistani people. Well, no matter how uneducated they may be, they do know what is best for them. The only unfortunate thing is that they don't want to do what is best for Pakistan because they don't feel Pakistan is part of them.Jinnah gave us a message of hope, courage and confidence, asking us to mobilise all our resources in a systematic and organised way and tackle the grave issues that confront us with grim determination and discipline worthy of a great nation.
According to Jinnah, religion had "nothing to do with the business of the State." While Iqbal believed that Islam itself was no less a polity, Jinnah declared to his listeners, "If you change your past and work together in a spirit that everyone of you, no matter to what community he belongs, no matter what relations he had with you in the past, no matter what is his colour, caste or creed, is first, second and last a citizen of this State with equal rights, privileges and obligations, there will be no end to the progress you will make"
We should work with this spirit of the Quaid and after a certain period of time has past, we will see that Muslims will cease to be Muslims, Hindus will cease to be Hindus, Christians will cease to be Christians, not in the religious sense of course, but in the political sense. When there will be no divisions of cast or creed but only one Nation, one pride, Pakistan.
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