PAKISTAN ZINDABAD

As mentioned in my previous posting its Pakistani day (celebrating the lahore declaration) today...a day for me that is a mixture of pride, love, heartache and disappointment. Its an oxymoron of feelings tumbling around inside.

As a young Pakistani growing up in the UK my affiliation with a country that I have not seen since I was a teenager and who's ways I sometime really don't always understand might seem a little strange to some, but what you have to understand for us here this is the land from where our parents/Grandparents came. Its a land that brought up the most precious person to me my mother. A land so far away but still had a hand in creating me.

I remember as a child and even to this day the stories I was told about my mothers childhood, the distant memories painted in vivid colours, the way she would talk about her youth I could almost smell the air, almost hear the hum of traffic and almost taste the food from the street vendors. Even my own memories of Pakistan although so old are like bright splashes of colour on a painters canvas...Pakistan has that affect, once you have been there it lingers with you for an eternity.

So what you have to understand is that although England is my home, Pakistan is me..its my history and my heritage...it's soil is mine even though I barely remember the feel of it. She is part of what makes me the woman I am today.

So you may wonder why I am not out at some party or hanging out in Southhall or Green street with my green and white flag flowing in the breeze. Why I am not screaming at the top of my lungs to celebrate the cricket win by my land against the West Indies?

To celebrate today is too much for my soul to bare...How can I celebrate when I know the land I call Pakistan is suffering that her soul is weeping and her heart breaking. How can I celebrate when what is the essence of my country is being drained away on a daily basis...

Pakistan is 64 this year a baby of a country, so young in her newness so naive in her dreams. It was only 64 years ago that Jinnah stood there in front his people telling us that we were now home, only 64 years since we had a place to call our own after the brutality and the bloodshed. Only 64 years of love and belonging.

Yet her youth and her naivety have been used against her...you just have to look at the situation in Pakistan today to know that in only a few years the dream that Jinnah had created for us has become a nightmare. We are plagued by corrupt government after Government, each one worse then the last. Each one taking a little piece of Pakistan for themselves, selfishly stuffing their pockets with our blood sweat and tears.

We find our selves sold to the Americans for a fistful of dollars, Pakistani publications are full of stories of westerners stopped in cars containing arms and ammunition..to have them arrested and then for them to be swept away by their embassy in just a few hours. Even with the highly publicised case of Raymond Davis we stood back shocked when our own judicial systems set free a CIA operative accused of killing 3 innocent men.

While their CIA operatives roam our land freely with more power than they should be afforded their drones keep crossing our sovereignty and killing 100s of innocent Pakistanis. In 2010 alone there was approx. between 700-900 recorded deaths by drone attacks now times that by the 7 years that they have been using these drones. How many times do I have to read that a wedding party was attacked, a funeral procession, homes, schools, and all the time only 2% of those killed were even militants. What price to pay for Americas secret war against us, backed by our own government.

Pakistan is drowning the influx of western influence has no also opened the door for extremist groups such as the Taliban to now get their foothold in. When you have a people caught in a firing line of a an illegal war, whose homes are destroyed, whose children are murdered whose government supports these murderers, they will leap in to the arms of anyone that opposes them and offers an alternative, so now we live under the threat of extremism from groups that want to peddle their own twisted truths.

You see how can I laugh and rejoice when the literacy rate amongst adults in pakistan only stands at 54% when the gulf between the rich and the poor is ever increasing, how can I be merry when I know that at least 80% of our natural resources of gas and minerals have been siphoned off by American companies such as uniclo...when I know that this country of  poverty and pain is in fact rich enough to refuse all the IMF loans and handouts by the Americans administration, how can when I know what we are being presented with is a farce.
When corruption eats away at the very core of pakistan like a poison threatening to destroy us from within.

Yet secretly silently I am wishing pakistan a happy Pakistan day because regardless of all these things that are set against us I have faith that there is still hope. I will not write off my beautiful land just yet...because regardless of the pain and the suffering, regardless of the greed and the corruption there is something strong and stoic about pakistan. So many of us lost our lives to build this nation and I know that we will not let her slip through our fingers so easily...I see despite the hardship the smiles in my peoples faces, despite the hunger the love in their eyes, despite their loss and I see their strength.

So today I offer up a little prayer to my people and send a little love knowing that we will fight to make this nation strong, and although I am far away in another land a piece of my heart is forever Pakistan

PAKISTAN ZINDA BAD