If Ignorance Could Kill

I can quote some international journalists verbatim on the conditions of Palestine, Syria, Iraq etc and have no idea about the countless journalists who risk their lives every day in our country going out in our battlefields

I have watched a number of documentaries made on these places and their history and current affairs but can’t stand watching the news every night about what is going on in my own city .

I know more about the US elections than Pakistan’s electoral affairs.

I love reading about human rights activists around the world but when I look at Pakistan, all I see is a confusing amalgam of issues that refuse to make any sense.

In short, I am the reason Pakistan is in such a fragile state today. I am the extremist who hand-picks certain human rights issues and ignore others, I am the liberal who would vote for all kinds of freedom for people but would not practice them myself. I am the selective ignorant who likes to turn a blind eye to the political affairs of my country because it is ‘too much for me’

When I once told my father that I wanted to join ‘Doctors without Borders’ and go to war-torn areas as a surgeon, he told me ‘You have to start with your own country first’. At the time, I did not think much about it but of late, with the rising scale of violence, the blasts in Quetta, the fire that threatens to burn us all, I look back and wonder…..when did I ever stop to consider that my own country needs me as well? How can I even think of making a difference beyond our borders when  I can barely make out the need for change within?

If this is how I feel, how do the minorities in our country live their lives every day?  If I can appease my conscience and tell myself I do care by immersing myself in international current affairs, how do they find it in their hearts to hope that they will one day truly belong to Pakistan? 

Is this what we did in 1971 when one of our states parted ways with us forever? Did we tell ourselves that they are our enemy and that we had to do whatever it took to survive?

Is this what we will do with Balochistan?