Hope

I am big fan of Jim Morrison and maybe this is the end in Pakistan or atleast in the most minor sense, it is a parting of the ways. Writing about the present political situation is never easy, because having lived through some very poignant events in our common national history and remembering what came of the promises, I would have to sadly agree, with what the famous poet Faiz Ahmad Faiz said that this might be another false dawn.

Having lived in Pakistan makes one into a cynic and the depression of the soul is never in doubt, but the disappointments of wishing and not actually realizing your dreams, also makes one into a realist and pragmatic about the nature of events. Even forgetting the abused dreams of my childhood and ignoring the vistas of seeing the developments in Pakistan, from afar, the hope for this nation; of a new re-birth never dies despite all the acculmative evidence of failures, which have been heaped upon the mantle of this nation and its people. There is really no point in blaming or seeking to blame unless, we are willing to blame ourselves for our apathy, which has played crucial part in the overall national failures associated with Pakistan.

This sojorn into romanticism, is alien to my nature, and I will soon step out of it, but like Rick in Casablanca, there is a part of me that yearns to hope but dares not, because of the memory of the last hope that was sacrificed upon the altar of hypocrisy. I am too old; too weary and too sad to pin my hopes again in the idea of seeing another dawn and maybe, I will not live to see the real dawn, when ever it break over this land and its children of the midnight. For a nation, that was germinated in the red fires of hell, the fires still hover all around us and burn us and it seems that they will never fade from our existence and we will remain forever burned.

The future may shine bright in the eyes of a child, but it has lost its shine in the eyes of those, who have seen and lived the events of the past, which have asundered this nation and changed its people. I am a professional cynic par excellence, who scoffs at notions of idealism, but even I, have to make a gruding admission that had it not been for the idealists of the world, I would have appeased my sanity a long while back to the forces of hopelessness. In all the darkness, which surrounds me like a bottomless pit, in the words of the old poem, I shall not cringe or wince under the blows of chance. I may not be the captain of my soul or the master of my fate, but I do see the wisdom of those, who continually place their faith; for this nation and themselves in the guidance of Jinnah.

Jinnah to me is a historic figure and as I deal with the problems of living in a nation that he created, he has no place in my thoughts as I pass his portraits each day lost in my own thoughts. In those thoughts, when his name crosses in my mind, I respect his memory not for his politics or his achievments, but because of his sense of duty and loyality to a cause regardless of how we may judge that cause. His is the only memory, which I can recall that was true to this nation and its people. This is the only grace, which allows for my hopes, about this nation, to flicker.

This nation, will be a better place and would be less confused if it started to pay attention to the character of Jinnah; not in his politics, but in his personal life and learn, what seperates him from the rest of his successors and why, despite the hardships and the disappointments, the people still remember his memory and that too, with respect and fondness.

The distinction is that the people of Pakistan, to their core, believe that Jinnah believed in them and all those who followed Jinnah to rule and lord over this nation, did not believe in the people but in the stars of their own glory. It is this sentiment that gives hope to an ordinary person, when confronted with the daily spectacle of dispair in Pakistan that the dream of this nation will remain alive as long as the memory of M. A. Jinnah remains alive in the heart and the minds of the citizens of a nation he created