The Great Brain Waste

My following article also appeared on Express Tribune Blogs

In May last year an Australian embassy press release stated that more than 5,000 Pakistani students have chosen Australia as their destination to study.

How many of these people actually go abroad to study?

The answer is nil.

Living in Australia, I can say that 99% of these so-called students are actually professionals and underachievers of society who go abroad to seek a better life. Let’s face it: who would want to live in a country where there is daily load shedding, nepotism, corruption, government ineptitude and terrorism, right?

Although this Pakistani talent is moving out in search of greener pastures, the truth is that most of it is being put to use in cutting tomatoes for restaurants, driving taxis and cleaning toilets. This phenomenon is known as brain waste.

According to the Encyclopedia of World Economy , brain waste is defined as the underuse of migrant talent in the host country. In the same encyclopedia, which quotes Ozden’s 2006 study, it is mentioned that the brain use of Pakistani migrants is just 38%

The problem is that the toilet cleaner or that person who chops veggies in restaurants is a highly educated man or woman who might possess a masters or bachelors degree but can’t get a decent job. Misconceptions about race and religion are also important factors for Pakistanis being jobless or being caught in sub-standard jobs in the West.

Another important and closely related problem is the under utilisation of Pakistani talent. This means that even if you get a decent job in a high-rise building abroad, you will still face a barrier during job promotions and other office activities. This talent is being wasted in a foreign country. It should really be put to good use in Pakistan. This is why the brain drain in Pakistan and the subsequent brain waste are co-related. Hundreds of Pakistani doctors, engineers and IT professionals are working in super markets, packaging factories and restaurants abroad.

Many Pakistani students go away merely to secure a nationality. They do not even bother to show up for classes during the semester and appear only at the time of exams. After my recent encounters with some of these students, I realised that most are here in a foreign country to secure a better future for their families by sacrificing their own. Sadly, these people add nothing to the knowledge of the host country and finally become parasites. The labour that could have been done by any other common person is now being done by our doctors, scientists and engineers.

Recently, I met a former government teacher from Punjab who after being frustrated by low salaries moved to Australia to work in a kebabshop. All he wants is to earn enough money to move back to Pakistan and open a restaurant in five years, so that he and his family can live “happily ever after”.

After witnessing the government’s legendary acts of corruption, who can convince that poor teacher not to leave his job and pursue a career which is unsuitable for him? The truth is that Asians generally choose their careers on the basis of a given situation and not their talent. Hence, Pakistan which already faces a shortage of teachers, is short of one more.

Who knows how many other doctors, engineers and scientists will leave Pakistan to be contractors, taxi drivers and restaurant owners at the expense of their true skill?

Unfortunately, these talented and highly skilled individuals will remain unutilised unless something substantial is done to stop this brain waste and restore normalcy in the state of Pakistan.

Channo and her Assets

I have decided on a great valentine gift in advance. However, I will come to that afterwards. First, let us discuss a video that currently has an aggregate of 550,000 hits on YouTube. With a startling number of dislikes, drooling desis commenting on the shameless flaunting of female assets, some even going as far as to begin arguing over the superiority of one’s country, religion, family and the size of their respective manhoods and that is all over an Item Song. Alas, nobody is appreciating the art direction, choreography and the dance performance of our very own VEENA MALIK (I am going to hell for this)

Yes, dear readers I am talking about the new entry in the market, an item song called Channo featuring Veena ji in a certain bollywood flick-who cares about the name, they all start with the hero saving the damsel in distress and end either outside a courtroom or a nuptial bed plus some irrelevant item songs and an eventually fail villain who really needs to get a life.

Anyways, the item is a standard, one sexy lassie and a couple of thousand men, all of different shapes, sizes, colors and hairstyles, dancing and hollering around her ( somehow I am reminded of a scene from Mr. Bean ‘movie where Mr. Bean is dancing around a pedestal fan in an art gallery) . Dear readers an activity involving one woman and many men has a very precise name but since I believe that mentioning that would alert Maya Khan and Co. therefore I will excuse myself from mentioning You-Know-What, although you might know of it ( who am I kidding?).

Sorry, got distracted, but the point for which I took the trouble of writing an entire blog on Veena flaunting her assets is to tell you guys that:

Veena might just succeed where other Pakistani actresses failed.

Of course, success doesn’t come easily if you happen to seek fortune in a foreign la

nd. For Veena it came at a price of revealing – disappointingly moderate sized assets-clashes with the clerics (me gusta) and engaging in “questionable activities” with relatively unknown artistes. Probably that was enough to land her an item song and may be a movie or two and judging by her unpardonable itch to remove any clothing item in a blink of the eye, she might just succeed where Meera failed. For Meera, unfortunately didn’t realize that doing a couple of ‘hot scenes’ is not good enough to succeed in bollywood. She might have known that her so called ‘hot scenes’ are a cinch compared to the likes of our Pashto movies and the erotic rain dances in Punjabi movies. Before Meera, Zeba Bakhtiar and Salma Agha have tried their luck. Only Zeba Bakhtiar got away with a decently grossing movie called Hina (or Hena, whatever spelling you prefer). Meera did Nazar, but her acting was a target of somebody else’s nazar.

Some of these actresses lacked acting skills while others lacked the skill to effectively flaunt their assets. Now, Veena ji finds herself at an important juncture of history (too grand?). She is going to bollywood at a time when Atif, Ali Zafar and Rahat are selling like hot cakes in a bakery opened to people who have been starving for a week. Then there’s her God given confidence of going around naked without any shame (you go girl!), acceptable acting and considerable mimicry skills and her no fear attitude. Now that will win her more money than the past actresses. I can’t guarantee the future but Rakhi Savant would sure find a worthy competition, which would make her ‘up her game’. Veena’s (potential) success might open doors for other bold actresses and performers- and I am particularly relying on Nargis to really kick up a serious sandstorm in Mumbai. But what message are we really sending out to the world, that, we have finally entered the ‘liberal orthodoxy’ and that we are a peace and fun loving nation and to prove that we can put on display the assets of our womenfolk just like they do, hence becoming enlightened modernists, which will consequently result in the defeat of terrorism (err.. yeah..I guess) OR, it might be the case that the society of Pakistan is undergoing a major evolutionary change, the outcome of which will be a more moderate society whose extremists would not be mullahs but nudists, feminists and pot smoking vegans. Welcome to the 21^st century Pakistan.

In the end, let us appreciate and celebrate the lewd dance moves of Veena and her dazzling clothing items and that amazing electric bra.

Somewhere in the lines I might have mentioned what surprise valentine gift I am going buy.

Ciao.

Just made it ;)

Today at The City

Now I am not an attention whore. I like attention just like any other regular person on the street-perhaps may be a little more than that- but I am certainly not an attention seeking prat. There’s a slight difference between the two, a guy who is an attention whore likes to give toothy but vapid smiles, flaunting glittery clothes, mentioning the labels he or she is wearing, the latest exploits, the latest trends, all the top of his or her voice with exaggerated facial expressions and a irritating habit of looking left right and behind. On the other hand, if I wore a 5 dollar tee that has a sperm shaped Nike sign with the caption below it saying ‘Just Did It’, then that doesn’t make me a attention whore but you couldn’t help feeling a bit, elated you can call it, when people pass you looking at our tee shirt and giving you smiles (in some cases naughty winks).

So today, I was roaming Melbourne city on my own. It was a very sunny and consequently warm today. What I love about roaming the city is that I get to see many people from different countries and backgrounds. It is good sight the Norse, South Americans, Africans and Asians skittering from one place to another all jibber jabbering in their tongues, which are totally unintelligible to me. I spent an hour at Helal Kebabs, a food outlet near Flinders Street Station. The biryani there is extremely good and I have become mates with the staff.

One of the staff there is a former government schoolteacher from Mandi Bahaudin, I struck up a chat with him and found out that he had come here in the hopes of a better future, but fate had led him to this kebab and biryani shop working on a meager pay of 10 dollars an hour. But according to him if he works every day , without taking a day off, come hail or sunshine, then he can save up enough money to send back , money which is actually triple the salary he got as a government school teacher. A smattering of white hair on his head and a serious but inspiring out take on life suggested to me that he was married with children. And my guess was right. The thought of his wife and two children is the only thing, according to him, that really motivates him to get up every day and come to work and earn money. Talking to him, I realized that his former pupils had just a lost a very simple mannered and dedicated teacher. But that dedication was not enough to feed his family, so now he must reside here and save up enough money to go back and open a kebab shop in Mandi Bahaudin.

After begging my leave from there, I headed towards Crowne Plaza.

Ah! Crowne Plaza, the place with a seductive smell of deodorant, expensive suits, air fresheners, Givenchy’s, Versace’s, fresh-minted money and the smell women. Really, it’s the smell of luxury, which is a great motivator to acquire ore wealth. Some call it induced greed and some call it human nature. I call it tapping the already existing human desire to have more of everything. Anyways, I watched the Descendants there, which is a very moving story of a father trying to reconnect with his family, which is torn up by grief and betrayal. I certainly agree with the critics that this was George Clooney’s most intimate and emotional performance yet.

After the movie, I headed back to my home meeting a couple of homeless folk on the way, who were waiting for somebody to get them a cheeseburger or some drinks. Somehow my thoughts drifted to the Pakistani beggars I smiled and crossed the road to Flinders Street Station. Where I was caught up between a desire to stay in the city the whole night or head back home. I chose home.

Another Blasphemous Cartoon Publication?? GIVE IT A BREAK PLEASE !

Here we go again. Another cartoon of the Prophet ( S.A.W.S) has been published. This time the perpetrator is the Atheist , Secularist and Humanist Society of University College London (UCL). It’s a cartoon, which shows Jesus and Prophet Mohammad in a bar.

This all has been done in the name of freedom of expression. I for one am a great believer in freedom of expression but this, my friends is not freedom of expression. Religion, generally hasn’t been my strong point so talks about religion don’t interest me, but when you talk about offending people in the name of freedom of expression then that really infuriates me, because it goes against every secular ideal I stand for.

We must ask ourselves, why do countries adopt secularism and not a theocracy? It is because secularism guarantees the freedom of expressing faith and the state guaranteeing the adherents of a faith or a belief its protection against attacks both verbal and physical. This much has also been mentioned in the 2005 World Humanist Congress that the state should intervene to protect human rights from gross violation, even if based on religious doctrine or enshrined in religiously based civil law.

Now, here we must highlight one point that humanists consider themselves as a separate religion and in The Humanist ((Vol. I, 1941, p. 5), Oliver Reiser, a signatory of the Humanist Manifesto, stated that:

The one great hope for democracy lies in the development of a non-super naturalistic religion which, unlike other intellectual movements, will be non-academic in its appeal to all civilized individuals. This new foundation for a coming world-order must be the emergent outcome of the thought-content of a universalized culture….

The god of this coming world-religion, that is, the object of reverence of scientific humanism, is the spirit of humanity in its upward striving.

This point is also supported by humanist like Burdette Backus and Kenneth Patton. Simply put, their “religion” is against “supernatural and theist religion”. Thus if they want their religion to be established as a state sponsored religion then they are going directly against the sacred principles of secularism which guarantees the freedom of religion under its umbrella and most importantly it abolishes state sponsored religion.

Resolution 7/19. Combating defamation of Religions, passed in the UN General Assembly on 28^th March 2008 asserts that any intolerant and xenophobic views against religions should be discouraged and actions taken against them because they incite violence. Well that is exactly what the Humanist society in UCL is doing. Thankfully, the UK government is taking action but sadly, the Muslim response is not up to the level of their opponents. Usually, threats are given which form the staple of most religions around the world, but importantly nobody is countering with logical arguments. However, I would like to draw attention to the Ahmaddiya Muslim Youth Association London that has taken a stand and is petitioning for the removal of the said cartoons. Very ironically, the current religious attitude of some Muslim countries like Pakistan is especially intolerant of Ahmadis, which is in direct opposition to the resolution 7/19. You will be surprised to read that Saudi Arabia was actually against the defamation resolution because it would lead the Muslims to “recognize pagan faiths” and a supposed “pagan faith” namely the Ahmaddiya faith is going for a petition against the publication of those cartoons, BBC reported. Now isn’t that one heck of a conundrum.

Therefore, the solution to the problem is that we should be logically advocating our concerns against the publication of such cartoons and raise public awareness that it is as much hurtful to the Muslims as it is hurtful to the Jews when Iranian leaders deny the holocaust (which to me is detestable). Unity among Muslims is of course lacking and is an area that must be worked upon. Lastly, the educated youth of Pakistan should take a stand against such blatant attacks against the freedom of religion and come up with a strong and united front against such ‘wannabe atheists”,

Writings on the Toilet Walls

Originally published on Facebook Notes on June 9, 2011

It is funny how and where YouTube browsing takes you. I mean, just a few minutes ago I was watching these crazy RWJ videos and just clicked away the related links and went to karaokeying ( check my status update) then to seeing Arabic songs and ended up at Outlandish’s Aisha song ( originally Cheb Khaled’s).

The song somehow reminded the good old school days and the “sexeeeh” Math teacher in class 8. Since I studied in a boys only school therefore she was the only “popular gal” in the school. If there was any stereotype about math teachers in my mind then Ms Romana was the anti Christ o all those stereotypes. Whole toilets walls were dedicated to her where frustrated 14, 15 year olds wrote down their frustration of not getting her in a heart wrenching way. Some were not good at writing so they made art as their medium of communication and drew insane hybrids of the Birth of Venus and Ms Romana (simple terms: Nude Sketches). Of course, when it came to art she drew the best out of the students, but could the same things be said about math. Well…. No. I mean how on earth could I concentrate on the stupid Pythagoras Theorem when she was in the teachers desk combing her long auburn silky hair and spraying a seductive deodorant at herself- It was hard to restrain.

I never really got to learn from her class because I took tuitions in the evening. All the brothers got them.

Never really, intended to write anything tonight, but this memory just came into my mind and I thought I would share it with you guys and girls.

Anyways the night ‘s cold and it late. Gotto wake up at 5, because it’s a full day shift tomorrow. May be I should listen to Nindiya Rey by Kaavish to make me fall asleep. Such a nice song on coke studio.

Anyways

See Ya !

Explanations

Explanations are required everywhere, you enter into your house at 2 in the morning and you have to explain the reason to your mother who will dutifully explain to your sleeping dad in the morning ( though with some neccesary alterations).

You have to explain yourself to the security official at the airport when he finds a jar of mayonnaise in your bag, you have to explain that its just mayonnaise and not liquid rdx or semtex explosive.

Then, you have to explain when you are in a foriegn country that you dont eat bacon, salami or ham.

Life is full of explanations isnt it?.Dont you get sick of explanations everynow and then? and you know what's the next irksome thing is?....listening to explanations. you have to listen to persons explaining to you why they stole your coffee powder or why their offensive behavior can be attributed to their drink addiction. See, i do not give a damn whether you are addicted or not and whether you had abusive parents or not. You have commited a wrong and accept that. The End. But no, we always have explanations.

If the security official finds a mysterious looking mayonnaise in my bag then instead of explaining about the origin of that mayonnaise jar i would rather prefer to have him take the jar and test it and bring it back to me, and just in time so that i dont miss my flight. ( develop a new technology einsteins)

If i have not submitted my assignment on time then i would just say sorry and 'wont happen again' to the teacher and thats about it instead of wasting my time bilging out worthless explanations.

Once a senior employee asked me that why were the sales not happenning on my store , i just replied " customers are not coming, cant do anything", that person actually waited for a minute on the phone as if he was expecting further explanations from me, when he didnt see them coming, he launched on a lecture of his own and after 10 minutes when he sought my apologetic explanation, i calmly replied " if the cutstomers come, i will sell, if they dont, then i cant do anything......anything else?", he promptly put down the phone. Leaving me free to finish the novel that i was reading befre he called.

Another set of explanations that i really HATE is explaining about my country and religion. Why do i always have to explain that Islam is a religion of peace and and we want peace and tolerance. If you you think otherwise then good on you, dont waste your time asking me for apologetic explanatons and neither would i waste my time convincing you...you see i have other more important things to do in life...starting with paying the house rent.

Here's something for the south asian journos out there, please stop being cheesy and corny about Indo Pak relations ...i mean what was that Aman ki Asha thing?...isnt that corny enough...imagine me walking to my indian friend's house and saying " i have come to your house with the message of peace and love"...how corny and cheesy would that sound? apart from being comical. Would it be really dificult to just live peacefully without any annoying displays of cheesiness ( GEO News i am talking to you).

And finnally when you die you have to explain your actions to God ( if you believe in one), ...even there you have to explain!...Christ!!....and you know what i''ll do when i get there? i would say....Dear God...here's what i have done, you have as witnesesses the two angels on my sides, send me either to hell or heaven i dont care...but just dont prolong it like Saas Bhee Kabhi Bahu thee ( it might have ended..-is it? but we have Teray Pehlu Main on the other side of the border that comes on Geo Tv..what episode are we on now?)

See ya

Bye

Can Anybody please tell me WHO AM I?

Nations rise and fall. To every high, there is a low. That is a universal fact. However, this universal fact does not apply to Pakistan, simply because it never went high. We can say that it is because we are at a pretty low point in history and will certainly climb to the top. “God” will help us. Have faith in “God”. That is what my Mullah Party tells me and so does the Ghairat Brigade. So are you trying to tell me that the matters have now spiraled so much out of control that the fate of “Pakistan” is no longer in human hands? Is this what you are trying to tell me?

But, the fact of the matter is that we are neither high neither low. Pakistan of today is a sort of a Sufi song, full of dualism but with grim undertones. It’s a nuclear power but doesn’t have adequate anti aircraft defense systems. Its students frequently “create” world records in the international academic world, but the literacy rate still hovers around 50%. It has abundant agricultural resources but the price of flour and rice keep on attaining new heights. It was founded on principles of democracy and social equality, but the gap between rich and poor keeps on increasing and to top it, there have been three martial laws in country. It was founded to provide safety and identity to the Indian Muslims, but ------------ (fill in the gap yourself). It has been 64 years, but we still haven’t figured out who we really are.

Who are we? Where do we come from? Are we aliens from outer space? Are we a result of some sort of weird and massive social experiment?

Who Are We?

History books teach us that Pakistan was formed on the basis of the Two Nation theory. On one side there were Hindus and on the other side there were Muslims. But this theory failed on 16 December 1971 when the feet of Indian Army and Mukti Bahni marched on the streets of Dhaka.

Pakistan had the lost the very basis on which it was formed, that it was a separate homeland for the Indian Muslims. Then what? Were the Quaid, Allama Iqbal, Liaquat Ali Khan and a long line of Independence leaders wrong? Were we - which the hostile “anti-Pakistan” media never ceases to tell- formed on the basis of clash of egos and conflicts over power sharing? If I accept that, then all the things that I have been taught in the school books, have been wrong. But I love this country, I cheer for the cricket team when it wins a match, my passport says that I am a Pakistani, i have my own set of favorite Pakistani singers, i want Urdu to be written on the billboards not Hindi, which i do not understand a bit. But where ever I go across the world , people recognize me as an Indian and its only after explaining to them that I belong to a neighbouring country called Pakistan and I am a Muslim ( and by default a terror suspect- I KILL U), then do they understand that i am a Pakistani, who just happens to look like an Indian. But here’s an interesting thing, I did this experiment with some people and answered in yes whenever they asked me that whether I was an Indian or not. “ So do you worship Ganesha?” some of them asked making weird flapping hand gestures so as to describe the Hindu idols. I would say no and they would look at me with the slightest of confusion in their eyes. When I would say that I was kidding and was a Pakistani their confusion would clear up. So it seems that a Brown Indian looking Muslim is a Pakistani in their dictionary. But as you might have read in the preceding lines, the two nation theory had failed, hadn't it? So that again left me in confusion about myself. It was getting way to complicated for me to ponder on.

I doubted my nationality. This was something that was very easy to ignore but very hard to really shake off.

But then i came across Aitzaz’s Ahsan’s book called The Indus Saga in which he explained that the reason Pakistan was formed was because of the fact the people of the Indus Valley were always different from the people across the Jumna. Their customs, traditions, influences, everything was different, and I know for a fact that it is. The struggle for Pakistan might have been an attempt to create a separate homeland for the Muslims but in-fact the deep underlying psyche was that the Indus people were reclaiming their Independence which the invading armies of Ghauri, Ghaznavi, Babar, Chandragupta and Bin Qasim could not entirely subjugate.

Yes i am calling those “”Muslim Heroes” as invaders, who did nothing but pillage and torture and occupy land. To me their religion has nothing to do with the fact that they were invaders. Its just like the Iraqi people of the future calling the American Invaders as heroes and you know that something about this is just plain disgusting. That’s exactly where the confusion over our ‘Pakistaniat’ has been created. And for that we must thank Zia Ul Haq ( “” Rehmatuallah Alleh””) and the Mullah Party.

There was a brief time in the Muslim history when the religious teacher was considered to be the the Man of God and not of the Mosque. He would debate with his Dominican, Fransician and atheist counterparts, a person who would be wise and charming who would explain and make, boring and tedious religious dogma, as easy as Twinkle Little Star. A Gladiator Maximus like person who just could not be corrupted by power. But today that “Religious Teacher” has been replaced by the Pan eating, Gulab Jaman munching, fat and greedy mullah. He has even made his own political party. He is the Eddie Guerrero of the society, because he Lies and Cheats and Steals. The horrifying fact is that he even influences our national policies. So much so that he majorly influenced our 1973 constitution and re wrote our text books, so that the invaders of the past now became our heroes, Hindus and Jews were the arch enemies ( imagine how would a Pakistani Hindu feel when reading those texts in our coursebooks, and we blame other countries for racism and discrimination). On one hand we find the Quaid’s statement that you are free to go to your temples and mosques and on the other hand we are told that the hindus and christians and jews scheme against the muslims and Pakistani was made for the muslims and muslims alone. Isn't that a humongous contradiction to the Quaid’s sayings. If we accept their arguments about Hindus and Jews being our enemies, then the Great Sultan Salahuddin Ayubi, all the Mughal and Ottoman emperors would be first rate heretics because they kept as advisers those same people which the Mullas of today ‘advise’ us to be wary of. In my humble opinion, the people we be wary of should include governments like the Saudis who always manipulate and scheme and shelter the hostile Americans and yet Pakistanis make those wretched Saudi kings as demi-gods and hero worship them.

The mind of the Pakistani of today is just a confused conglomeration of nationalism, religious trans-nationalism and the so called hatred of everything “”Western””, so called because on one hand we Pakistanis condemn western thought and culture, yet would positively drool over a Green Card. That’s the state of confusion that has been wrought upon the Pakistani mind by the so-called religious establishment in collaboration with the business minded politicians.

The point is, that the uniting factor in Pakistan is not religion, but the land itself and the principles of democracy. If religion was a uniting factor then Bangladesh would still have been East Pakistan today. So it is high time that we feel proud of who we are. Stop hero worshipping the Arabs and take pride in our own cultural heritage. And as I browse through the various Facebook pages and online communities, i have a reason to be hopeful, and so should you, the reader.

Imran Khan and Messiah Politics

It’s a tradition of humanity and not of just individual cultures, that people are always expecting a messiah to come and solve all their problems. When evil has spread everywhere and vice is holding sway, people think that the time is ripe for a messiah to come and solve all their problems.

The messiah factor has come into play repeatedly throughout various millennia. From early age, we are exposed to that messiah culture. Remember Lion King? Simba is shown to be Messianic, as he and only he is entitled to rule and bring prosperity to Pride Rock. Remember Spider Man and Super Man? When the town police just take a doughnut break and let our super-heroes save the day (so much for teaching professionalism to the kids).

In that regards let us discuss Messiah Politics. A politics in which a leader is expected to come to power and solve all the country’s problems and to rid it of all evils and rule justly and wisely. In reality, there never was and there never might be a real political messiah. Politics and Messiah-ship are just two opposite words with different meanings. And yet Political Messiahs have been expected in every country to deliver them from corruption and other evils.

Scenes that the world witnessed when Obama campaigned for the throne of Whitehouse were one of ecstasy and high hopes for a bright future. American society which, in the words of Max Blumenthal is‘permeated by apocalyptic beliefs and the yearning for messianic deliverance’, Obama’s marketing campaign was nothing short than announcing the second coming of Jesus himself. Indeed, he was called “The One” and the “Only Hope” who would bring a massive “Change” in the American society. Indeed the public was awestruck by his rallies and the scenes shown on the television, of people cheering madly and looking upon Obama with utmost reverence were astounding. The word spread out. Obama after sometime was not just seen as the messiah for USA but a Messiah for the whole world. Indeed, it was startling to me that how easily American hegemony was accepted. Where Chachu Bush had failed Obama, even before coming to power had achieved. People from all over the world asked him to solve their countries problems, in other words begging for American Intervention!! At that time in 2008, it was totally acceptable to expect Obama to come to power and begin solving world problems. And, when he ascended the throne of Washington, the scenes of jubilation and joy “around the world” were the ones to remember. Even Alqaeda and the Axis of Evil seemed to think that change was coming and talked about giving him a chance. Such was the enormity of his aura. But then 4 years, thousands of civilian deaths, massive economic earthquakes and foreign policy disasters later, this “Messiah” is fighting for his Presidency and discontent is rampant with protests against Wall Street greed and failed policies are spread across 40 different cities. As one blogger put it, messiah Politics is generally short-lived.

Now come to our very own Messiah. Kaptaan Imran Khan. Indeed the words I have mentioned above, like “ The Only Hope” , “The One” that were used in Obama’s campaign, are now resonating in Kaptaan’s campaign as well. At the time when railways and PIA are practically defunct, poverty, corruption and crimes are at an all time high, it is natural for Pakistani people to seek messianic deliverance. And deliverance they are getting in the shape of Imran Khan. As you see people from all the strata of society gather in millions to listen to Imran’s speeches, you know that change is indeed coming to Pakistan. People are really expecting that Imran Khan alone will solve all the problem good days indeed are just around the corner. Given the Kaptaan’s track record, it might be reasonable enough to expect that, but in reality, chances of massive reforms seem slim. How Imran Khan tackles reforms in education and finance when every single layer of these important institutions of the country is crippled by corruption that has spread to the roots. Until and unless the Kaptaan comes up with a detailed road map of the reforms to be introduced, he will remain just like any other failed messiah, hyped up, disappointing and finally scorned. They say that Mussolini was also seen as the Messiah of Italy’s politics endorsed by Pope Pius himself, but look what happened in the end. Defeated, tortured, shot and his corpse strung upside down in a street of Milan.

Instead of looking for the Messiah, we should find the Messiah in ourselves. Anticipate, change but let’s not leave it to certain people to bring about it. True Revolutions are brought by masses not just leaders.

Putting a Paki on the Moon

The soil that we tread on is a great witness to the evolution of humanity, from caves to the high-rise buildings of cold metal and hard brick. These sand particles and the pebbles have borne the footsteps of Prophets, Messiahs, Writers, Inventors, Conquerors and Philosophers. They have seen what we have not seen, for we the humans mostly tend to forget what we did in the past and what are we capable of doing.

As I tread on a small pebble strewn path near my university under the night sky, I look up at the crescent above me. It is comforting to feel earth’s closest space neighbor’s cool bluish light on me. As I look up, I can’t help but focus my eyes on a patch of moon where Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed. That first step on 20^th July 1969 was the epitome of USA’s advancement in science and technology. No other country has done it since the Apollo missions and it is unlikely to repeat that feat for another two or three decades.

Then a very crazy thought entered my head, but the thought was ridiculous, verging on blasphemous. I ignored it and continued my nighttime walk.

I came back and tried to forget what I had just thought but the thought somehow stuck. Then another thought came in. This one more ridiculous than the other. I laughed at it, this second thought was to write down and share the first thought that had come in my head. I told myself that if I ever write it down I would be branded as a “Lunatic” ( ah the irony of words).

But then my mind is like PM Gillani and my thoughts like Zardari. The former always succumbs to the pressure exerted by the latter. So here I am, penning out what I had thought that night.

Pakistan needs a Man on the Moon.

Now go on laugh, of course I can’t blame you, can I ? How can a nation suffering from electricity and gas shortages, strikes, war, death and destruction, who doesn’t (apparently) has money to build even a dam can ever EVER dare to hope to put a man in space let alone the moon. It seems like disrespect, mocking if you like, to the sufferings of a nation consisting of 180 million souls, 63% of whom fall under the age of 25 and where the literacy rate hovers somewhere around 50% and whose population still believes that Neil Armstrong really did hear Azan on the moon despite the fact that sound needs air to travel-And there’s no air on the moon!

But, just bear a few moments with me and imagine, what would it be like to have the Pakistani flag on the lunar surface. Wouldn’t it be exhilarating? Wouldn’t it be just a pleasure to show your passport on the airport and not have eyes brows raised but be greeted with a smile because you belong to a nation that had just conquered the moon from the Americans, to have the world label you as bold space entrepreneurs rather than as a nation of conservatives and blowhards. To think that the world would be a better place with the achievement of a crippled nation sending a man to the moon and ushering the world into a new space age seems like stuff from a Hollywood movie. But allow me to make an argument here. If a nation with a literacy rate of 50 % can make cruise missiles, a nation where a sewing needle is imported from China can make a nuclear device, a nation where half the population can’t even afford a computer, can boast world’s youngest Microsoft certified professionals, cannot build a rocket and lunar vehicle to take a man to the moon, I would say you are kidding me.

When we spend more than 43 billion dollars in fighting “our own people” for some nation thousands of miles away from us, when we spend more than 60 million dollars to help those affected by the war on terrorism, when our military budget increases with each passing year, where the security expenses of the PM and the President per annum alone surpass the 500,000 dollar figure and then you tell me we can’t afford to put a man on the moon. I say you sir are kidding me.

It is at times like these where nations can either rise or sink. Just like that tight ropewalker about to jump to safety after walking the whole length can either slip and fall or safely step on the ledge and take a bow, imagine Pakistan to be that tight ropewalker. Albeit, small, emaciated, starved, crippled and limping. I say costs don’t matter. What matters is the will of the people to leave a mark on history. That’s a common feeling that’s shared by people who believe in team effort, who believe that no matter what, obstacles can be overcome. Nations like these are powered by the almighty trinity of Youth, Intellectuals and Military. And believe you me. Pakistan has that. Just think, how much Pakistan can gain in technology when its every engineer would be involved in the lunar mission, imagine the number of technologies that would be introduced, the billions of foreign investment, new management practices, newly emerging centers of Pakistani economy, explosion of educational institutes, the flood of engineers and entrepreneurs, Pakistan would be changed forever and with it the South Asian region, or may be the whole world itself. Pakistan’s name would become a by word for heroism, adventurism , inspiration and motivation. When schoolchildren will read poems about the Pakistani mission to the moon rather than King Bruce and the Spider.

Imagine a day when every Sindhi, Balochi, Pashtun, Punjabi, Sunni, Shia, Barelvi, Ahmadi, Wahhabi, would be looking at that shiny sphere in the sky, as one single entity all thinking the same thing:

“Has it landed yet?”

Islamic Reformation in Pakistan?

We are after all, children of the sun. Adam himself would not have existed if the sun did not shine its rays on Earth, thus triggering life creating processes, processes that created bacteria, which evolved into quadrupeds, then bipeds, the evolution culminating with the ‘creation of man’ ( Ashraful Makhluqat).

Now, I have just written a few lines and I am already guilty of heresy by accepting evolution. Now I must await the proclamation of my excommunication by the religious zealots of Pakistan. It is funny, that the fatwa in Pakistan is subject to how much you have to feed the Mullah to keep him quiet.

Less Money More Fatwa.

That is where we stand. We might call for revolution in politics but the real revolution in our character is still asleep, somewhere, in the middle of nowhere. People who choose to follow the tradition of Averroes (Ibn-e-Rushd) and Avicenna (Ibn-e- Sina) rather than the tradition of Taimur or Ghaznvi are a rarity in this country of ours. In fact, the rise of militant conservative Islam corresponds directly with the reformation of Europe and the rise of the Colonial Powers.

From the days of its inception, Islam more or less has had militant minded adherents. Not that it’s a bad thing (militancy is crucial to a religion or state’s ascendancy to power-Materialism 101) but our militancy has always led to our decline. Take the crusades for example. Though a military victory, it was a strategic disaster for the Muslims because all the knowledge flowed from the east to the dark and dingy universities of Europe where it was used to reform the religious beliefs and the society, thereby ushering medieval Europe in to the Golden Age, while the Muslims gloried themselves in swords and cannons. Militancy is not a problem of religion but a problem originating with its adherents.

It has been proven repeatedly that religion alone cannot bind people together, because every time it does, things like democracy, freedom of speech and human rights start to creep in, which subsequently leads to death and destruction.

I am not against religion, what I am against is, is the use of religion to exploit the masses. Whether sacrificing humans (war prisoners) in an Aztec Temple, bringing down the walls of Jericho by the ancient Jews, murder of hundreds of thousands of women on suspicion of being witches by the Christian ecclesia, or using suicide bombers to target people on the streets in the name of Allah, the most beneficent and the most merciful, religion has always been exploited.

The common people have always been exploited and led to ‘believe’ that their faith alone is the right one. Who to believe and who not to believe, that’s a question that ultimately rests in the hands of an individual but sadly for a Pakistani, this decision is taken away from his hands and placed in the hands of a chosen few who dictate our beliefs.

These elites in order to fool people, sometimes attempt to combine science and religion, therefore those scientific ideas that are compatible with the dominant religion are acceptable while those that question the religious tenets are deemed heretical. Thus using Quranic texts in our grade 9 and 10 science books to compensate for verifiable scientific facts is nothing short of funny. Averroes and Ibn-e- Sina would be laughing. It seems that the Quran today is used to explain everything except existing and declining social morals, which it was solely revealed for. Somehow, we turn a blind eye towards ayahs about honesty, dealings with neighbors and how to change ourselves.

It seems to me that the “Ummah” is one confused lot. And this confusion is visible in mass conversions from the Muslim faith in the Middle East and some other countries. Also, the oft-repeated statement that Islam is the fastest growing religion is true, not because of missionary success but our exploits on the bed. Thus in my opinion an Islamic reformation is overdue. Especially in Pakistan, this reformation is super overdue because no nation is as caught up in an identity crisis than ours. On one hand, we have a thoroughly secular Supreme Court of Pakistan and on the other hand is the Federal Sharia Court, which is thoroughly steeped in Islamic orthodoxy. The existence of two judicial systems in one country is indeed laughable if not downright nonsensical.

So why don’t we abandon this confusion and just follow the Quaid’s vision, which was to create a free secular society where everybody is free to go to his temple , mosque or whatever his or her place of worship is.

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