Loyal to Pakistan? Why?

Mr. Ahmad,

I read your article again to get some good points out of it, but unfortunately there weren`t any, even your reply later on it pretty foolish and dumb! You said that women have no rights in Pakistan. Sorry to say, but whatever you might have seen in your family does not hold true for all Pakistani. You kept on saying that women are treated like dirt. Again, I would say that what you may have in your family does not hold true for Pakistanis, who give respect to all women. Also, if you have ever watched news in your life, you`d find out that Pakistan had a female Prime Minister in Bhutto. As about your land of opportunities, name me one women who ever ran for the PResidential elections in more than 225 years of history of this country. As far as the respect of women goes in your land of opportunities, they are getting blowjobs in the Oval office!!!

And as far as the government not giving ``s h i t`` about women, I`d say that there are a lotta things that the goverment is not doing that it should do, but that does not mean that everything that happens in America is perfect. Talk about controlling racism in the US, I bet you`ve heard about the white male who recently went on killing spree, killing colored people, then why the hell US govt control racism??? Gun control is the bottom level in this country, USA, and you can tell that by Colorado shooting and also by the fact that a couple of boys in thier early planned a shooting in the year 2001 in California!! Aids is sky rocketing!!! More than 50% of the marriages end up in divorces! So much perfection!!!!!!

So the point is, nobody or no country is perfect!! So if you can`t find an identity for yourself, don`t blame Pakistan and the imperfetions in that country for that! I`ll tell you, if you ever go to Pakistan, it`ll change your whole attitude.

As far as sticking to one`s own kind, I see there is nothing wrong with it. Over here in the US, Pakistanis stay closer with Pakistanis and pretty much all the communitites keep in touch with their people. And the same goes for Americans in Pakistan. Two of my anuts are from America. One has lived there for almost 30 years, the other for more than 10 years. Yet their closest friends are Americans over there and I see nothing wrong with it and don`t you think I`d be absurd to critize American community for being that way. Instead they would feel pride that they stick together even thousands of miles away from home.

And over here, we feel the same way. WE ARE UNITED, that`s why we stick together in the USA, and you`ve a problem with that!!!

At the end, you are one confused person who doesn`t know where he belongs, you want to be American. Unfortunate for you, you are an American (Citizen), but you`ll never be American!!

Ahsan,

I am wondering what motivated you to write this article? It could not have been a critique of Pakistan, because you feel no attachment to it. People are obviously going to get angry, when you criticize them and their country, and then claim you have no contacts with that country.

Another thing I fail to understand is that if you hate Pakistan so much, why did you use a Pakistani passport to get an American citizenship?

If you did not like standing in long lines with a Pakistani passport, then you should have gotten rid of your Pakistani passport. Would you have been able to manage without it, at that time?

If you do not like Pakistan, then just detach yourself from it. You live in America, become an American completely. But why put Pakistan, and Pakistanis down. This is racist.

Don`t blame Paksitan and Pakistanis for your own insecurities. This is the fault of the people who did not allow you to settle in one place long enough to establish an identity. Pakistan will leave you alone, if you leave Pakistan alone.

Mr. Ahmad,

When you don`t care about our country, then why the hell are you ``waisting`` your time in telling us what should we do. It`s our home, let us deal with it!!

It`s like I come to your house and point out at every signal nasty unethical thing, including you living with your so-called ``beautiful`` fiancee before marriage, and then I tell you how to live. But I don`t live there right, so it ain`t my business!! So this time around, why don`t you shut up and go back to your merry making in a land that has never been your`s and never will be!! I feel pity for you! Na idhar kay, na udhar kay!!

I am glad that people like you are not in our country. But the way, you`d be a disgrace to a country you`ll come (And I am glad it can`t be Pakistan).

And next time around, keep your smart ass comments and evaluations to yourself!!!

Mr. Ahmad,

When you don`t care about our country, then why the hell are you ``wasting`` your time in telling us what should we do. It`s our home, let us deal with it!!

It`s like I come to your house and point out at every signal nasty unethical thing, including you living with your so-called ``beautiful`` fiancee before marriage, and then I tell you how to live. But I don`t live there right, so it ain`t my business!! So this time around, why don`t you shut up and go back to your merry making in a land that has never been your`s and never will be!! I feel pity for you! Na idhar kay, na udhar kay!!

I am glad that people like you are not in our country. But the way, you`d be a disgrace to a country you`ll come (And I am glad it can`t be Pakistan).

And next time around, keep your smart comments and evaluations to yourself!!!

re:Studebaker

Thanks a lot for your understanding and your encouragement:)

re:rkhan

Yes,go ahead man!Infact, I`d be the first one to kick the butt of those who degrade our country!Nice to know u feel so strongly!

re:aahmed

well,u r definitely one confused identity less ostritch!!I`m not going to mince my words this time around!!

you write a reply and then you write again...I wonder from where all that venom is oozing from.....

What I really can`t fathom, as someone else has rightly pointed out, is that when you don`t even own this country,why are you bent upon telling us all this....we don`t need those self proclaimed pundits who-know-all.. who just know how to sneer and leer at our homeland and who just know how to crtisize and that too with negative tones accaentuating their each and every word......

Live with your beautiful fiancee in a beautiful home in a beautiful neighbourhood on a beautiful road in ur beautiful `land` which you may call as your own but ironically,you will never be owned by that cherished and revered land.........(a second class citizen,huh?)

but u know what??

Those who betray their own...those who mock their own...they are always haunted by their darkest fears and hunted by those to whom they don`t belong.....this is your fate....and you will reap the bitter harvest of your own sarcasm and disdain when at the end of the day all you will be left would be a new set of lies and delusions...you can never be accepted into that society no matter how much u degrade us....

and yes, it was me who called you an escapist and it was me who said that I can lay my life for my motherland.....

atleast I have got something to live for and something to die for...

what about u...??!!!!

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I would like to say one more thing, whatever may be wrong with me, I may be going through an identity crisis, I may be an ``escapist``, I may be Benedict Arnold, but that doesn`t change the current state of affairs in Pakistan. Why pounce on me? Cuz it`s easy to pounce down upon, and point fingers at a faceless being. Why don`t you pounce down upon the corrupt politicians? Why don`t you say these things to the Mullahs and peers that our corrupting Pakistan? Scared? I would be too. But someone here said that they would be willing to die for Pakistan, do it, prove it. Can anyone one of you honestly say that you have taken a sigle step towards improving Pakistan?

See... it`s easy to talk about things, but when it comes down to doing something about it, you`re all like me... all show and no go. Talk is cheap, prove your loyalty to Pakistan.

Well well, quite a response. I would like to address a few questions and comments that have been posted here.

First of all, most of you folks have determined, without knowing anything about me, that I`m going through an identity crisis. Well, that may be true to some extent. But the bottom line is I don`t identify with any culture. True, I don`t have any roots anywhere. I`m trying to start a life, but it is next to impossible for me to do so in Pakistan, I have never lived there and frankly I`ve heard too many horror stories to even try to go there.

The other thing most of you have pointed out is that all I`m doing is ``bitching`` about the way of life in Pakistan and not doing anything about it. Well, like I said, I don`t consider Pakistan MY country, so why should I do anything for it? Are any of YOU doing anything about it? You jump down my throat cuz I pointed out some of the bad things going on in Pakistan, you start making personal attacks, but let me ask you this, are any of YOU doing anything about the situation in Pakistan other than talking about it? You`re defending Pakistan verbally and claim to love it, at least I`m not claiming that I care for the country. Hence I`m not doing anything about it. You on the other hand, who love your country, should be doing something about it.

It`s like if I walk up to someone and tell them that their kid is really rude, they jump down my throat and tell me that their kid might be rude, but they love their kid, and that I should do something about it. It`s not my kid, why should I have to do something about it?

In the end, I would like to apologize for being so crude in the article, I am but a young`un, and this was my first article.

Since you hardly spent any extended period of time there, one can almost understand why you wouldn`t feel any attachment to or responsibility for Pakistan.

I was born and spent half my life in Pakistan. The other half I`ve spent in the United States as a naturalized citizen. And yet I feel much the same as you. But the feelings are more tinged with sympathy and less with anger.

-!Kamran!-

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Re: All

The man, just pointed out things are really pathetic at home as we speak...Big Deal, as if rest of us don`t know it already. But isn`t he trying to ask the question, that, just by having roots at a piece of land you should be proud of it...? I don`t think so he is casting any FATWA on the rest of us. I think its almost similar, to, being born in a muslim family alone, doesnt` make you a good muslim, and you can`t keep refering or owning or claiming your ISLAMIC heritege...???

So you need to practise islam as opposed to claim islamhood by default...aour Loag aasaaN sumjhtay hain musalmaaN honaa...?

Amina Jilani quoted Lee Kwan Yew that a country can only progress and thrive when it becomes relevant and useful to the world at large. But what about the miserable peopel WHO live there,

first...? I think the author is angry and frustrated, because there is this immense absence of national pride or sense of patriotism, who wouldn`t be, a generation raised on half truths, misinformed about the true culutre, seeing endless corruption in every facet of our political, social, financial and emotional collectiveness, is bound to react like Ahmad...and We shouldn`t tell him to shove it...because that doesn`t help him either or fixes our problem...and shehreyaar, pullheeze....wear shame with pride...?? unless I missed out, what is that all about.

Life is very hard in pakistan...there are no jobs, no security, hey, I have heard stories too, not too far from home, my father still shows his bullet and a dagger wound with pride, my mother gave thirty years of her life to public education, and I don`t see pakistan making there lives any easier, in fact they are somewhat dismayed and betrayed, and unhappy, and I see that in both of their faces, along with ``what a mess and what a waste``, Once they were young and they not only helped in our independence, but they also, worked very hard, when pakistan needed help the most, and now, they see the bloody country go to dogs by the minute, you and I can`t even understand, what must go through their heart and mind, my mother refers to it as a ``Na-shukree`` ( being unthankful, and wastege, which to her is the second biggest sin,

so what sort of place is pakistan, where you work and work and work, and give and give, and one day, you are replaced cuz your are dead....a young man like ahmed who maybe works hard all day here, fails to understand, why can`t he get the same results by putting an equal or more hours back there.

My brother just finished college, and he is being offered a mere 7500 ruppeese per month, and Jumhoria of pakistan, expects him to live in that, isn`t that a joke...!!! and he is one of the brighter ones. He still has this attitude, kay pakistan maeraa gharr haye, good for him, I guess someone has to be there, while all the prodigal sons are out...but when you see youth sitting idle on its butt, unemployed, ask their parents how they feel about it...before we go all retro on Ahmed, sure the ``rotten core`` crap is rhetorical to random, I salute him if he lives his every day in a country like that, I personally can`t, I tell my brother, that soon, needs, wishes, wants, responsibilities, priorities, would make him wiser and he`ll learn, would he wait in line out side a public hospital with my parents who need medicare while the registerar`s healthy guests are being stuffed...thanks for pride and honour, and roots, I don`t need to dig for any godamn roots, I live with two individuals, and its ironic that they still refuse to budge in stance, I call both of my parents loonies, and they joke with me that I`ll be back one day, similar to , you can take a sailor out of the sea, but you can`t take the sea out of him....yes I am angry too, but its saddens me that, those two oldies who worked for it have not, gotten the love respect and appreciation which both of them deserved...I don`t know what can I do to help them ``GET OVER`` this, and not the other prevalent, every day to day nonsense around them...? I know one thing, my what ever modest financial standing is here in the usa, is more useful to them, and I can help alleviate some crap, if I were there, cuz, we don`t know people in high places, or we are not rich...I would rather make their lives comfortable in this age, and I know a lot of bright people, and some of whom have never seen a class room in their lives, are doing a better job than me...and that to me is sense of pride and loyality which I couldn`t have in pakistan at present...i don`t want to go back and join the ``other`` young and unemployed ppl in pakistan, and be a source of grief for my already un happy folks...I am no technocrat, or social scientist, who proclaims to have the solution to this mother phucking s-h-i-t happening in pakistan,

day in day out, but I am not gonna agree with most of you, that ``oh I should get up and do something``, I think, I AM doing my bit, and I am doing my bit here...and that`s how it is...how long you ask, well I don`t know the answer to that, I think its a matter of priorities and responsibilities, and there is no less of a pride and loyality in it....

Ghar kahan haye, Jiss ka ghum tujhay Ghaaraut karrta

Woh jo raukhtay thay ik, hasratay taameer , so haye

ya phir,

Ik hasratay taameer jo haye, so haye...

I agree to almost all of it. Pakistan is a mean country, it supports terrorists, its a larger provider to drugs to the outside world, its Literacy rate is less then even Bangladesh, its rulers are a bunch of crooks....I agree to it all.

But I still love my country. And I am willing to kick the butt of anyone who didnt have the courage to stand by what he believes in, left the country for his personal well being, got himself another nationality and now is bitching about how the country is.

Mr Ahmed you are a disgrace to this nation and have absolutly no right to talk about it in such a way. If you had the cheeks to it, why didnt you return back to this country and try to fight the corruption in anyway.

You arenothing but a chiken Mr Ahmed.

It is interesting to note that despite your hatred for a country and its people you found so much time and energy to `waste` writing and thinking about them.

It seems to me that deep down inside you are empty and identity-less. It is this search for a self and identity that is making you reject and question your roots. One tends to do that. One goes through similar stages when one encounters something like a death of a loved one. First comes Anger (you are definitely angry), then Denial ( you deny the facts of your roots), and then hopefuly at the end of all these stages must come Acceptance which allows one to come full circle and accept the reality of a situation. For you it would mean accepting your roots and heritage, being able to see its positve and negative aspects and yet accepting it despite everything. I hope you find acceptance. Acceptance of yourself and your roots.

You will need learn to be able to live with positive and negative aspects of people and nations. Even in your personal life you will have to tolerate you fiancee`s good and bad points in order for the relationship to survive.

Pakistan has many weaknesses but it is the job of the new generation, the one with all the opportunities and intelligence to change it,to help it and most importantly to not lose hope. This can be done whether you are in Pakistan or any where in the world.

hmmmmmmm....well well well....wow!

I am simply amazed at ur audacity and eloquence(which is just blubbering and babling,mind u).O.K Pakistan maybe a failing state..Pakistan maybe a dream gone sour..maybe looted and plundered by its leaders and power holders....yet it is my homeland...yet it is my identity....yet it is what I am!

I agree there are many things in Pakistan which are abominable and abhorrable...which should be despised and shoved away....there are many loopholes in the system,it gets twisted and manouvered easily..just like wax....the mentality iof many people here is also rigid,suspecting and shameful but it is easy to point fingers..it is easy to criticize....we in Pakistan may not be living in a heaven but yet we are free(now dont give me that yet we are cahined and stuff....)...we have choice and we are free from the exploits of the religous zealots that are Hindus....we may breathe in a polluted air but that air is afterall our own air....we walk on the soil where our ancetsors walked...where they grew up and where they are burried...

the problem with many many people like u is thatu suffer from inferiority complexes....all life u dangle and stumble between two cultures...have a brwon skin and yet try to be white....I dont mind! go ahead ...make ur own heaven...but dont degrade us....dont degrade ur ancetors whose blood still bloms in the flowers...I cant forget all the scarifices that my ancestors made...they had to cross a river of blood and pain...I cant forget the rape of the women and girls..their screams still haunt me...and I am determined to make them into songs.....We may not be the best...we may not be enviable but certainly we are not the worst!!!

I have not forgotten who I am....I am not an escapist...not an ostrich who hides his head in some foreign land,born into a family who might have made the big time by working abraod and i MAY NOT be an ideal person but I know one thing...where my roots are....at the end of the day, i will be recognized as a Pakistani and at the end of the day I will die as a Pakistani.....

NO,I may be sounding emotional but I m not not just speaking this coz I am like all those who just want to hang all those who say something against our motherland.....i will fight for ur rigt to disagree with my opinion but then I will yet again disagree with what u say............

I feel what has done can`t be undone....what has been lost is shameful...but it is no use trying to run away from reality and being an escapist and that too in a way as to disown what is ours....Pakistan is ours and we have to build it...and we cant do that by slinging saracastic and degrading notions and observations.....if we wanna see Pakistan better...if we dont wanna be ashamed of the green passport of the ``jumhoria of Pakistan``....we have to make it worth it...we have to work for it.....

Perhaps people are right in telling u that u shouldnt have been a Pakistani...perhaps u should have been some one else...but u know what????

I feel it is the best thing that U r a pakistani and u oppose so much vehemently all what is PAKISTAN....coz.....

it all deepens my love for PAKISTAN....when poeple who are from this land are bent upon degrading it,what should I expect from others??

and that compells me to become more resolute in my aim and desire to make Pakistan...to shed my last blood for Pakistan...I will fight till the last drop of blood...I will fight till the last spark of life in my eyes.....

because I can`t see the blood of my ancestors going in vain....I cant forget the rape of my women....I cant forget the mutilated bodies of children hung on bayonets....their sobbings and sighs....their wails and cries will not go unheard.....

u live in the land of ur dreams and live with all the beauty that surrounds u....I am happy here in the stench and smell of the sweat that will ooze from our bodies to remake Pakistan...I will live in the dirt and make it a garden....I wouldnt like to live in borrowed ones...ones which I cant own......

I dont belong to where I never can!

For u being Pakistani maybe a shame and a disgrace..but I am not ashemed..... I will wear this shame and disgrace like a crown !!!!!

good to know that your fiancee is beautiful...say Hi to her...n also that you are a Naturalized U.S citizen...you should also write that you are intelligent because your writing despite a desperate bid did not show any signs of intelligence...