Attack from all sides

It is very easy to lose hope these days. Hope is a rare commodity it seems.

Let us have a quick look:

• Pakistan is right now the world’s 10th failed state
• Religion is a loaded word now. It used to mean things like ‘believing in God’ and ‘being the best you can be’ and ‘dealing with humility and compassion’ and other old fashioned values like ‘honesty’ and ‘bravery’. ‘Understanding the Word of God’ is now replaced by ‘Promoting and defending the word of your school of thought’. Now it is considered the only point of difference. You are not a Muslim, you are either a Barelvi, Wahabi, Deobandi or a Sunni or a Shia. Muslims are becoming harder to find.
• Most of the politicians are a joke, who believe corruption is their right. Unbelievable.
• Pakistan is lead by Zardari. Enough said.
• Pakistan has been hit by the largest flooding in recent history, not of the country alone, but the largest flooding in recent history of the world! One fifth of the country in inundated right now (that is larger than the land mass of UK). More than 20 million people have been displaced. A catastrophe of highest magnitude indeed. (For donations, please, please click here – Imran Khan is of one the VERY FEW trusted persons alive in Pakistan right now, and fortunately, for all the right reasons)
• The political forces at play in Pakistan are lead by ‘old school’ parties that know how to play politics, and have no clue how to lead. Nawaz Sharif vs MQM vs PTI vs PPP vs PML-Q vs ad infinitum. Pakistani are divided by 5 main sects when it comes to religion (a much touted and oft-repeated claim) whereas the country is divided by almost 200 sects when it comes to political ‘leadership’. We don’t get to be a top-10 failed state for nothing!
• Mob violence, whichever way you try to justify it, is a clear sign of people losing hope in all forms of justice as provided by the State or Government.

But that is not all. The list is not not exhaustive I am afraid. The small things that have lead to the big things are dime a dozen, obviously. For example, consider the following (unsolicited) email I received:

I am not even going to debate what ‘liberal’ ought to mean here. Freedom to at least wear decent clothes is a right given by even the most nutt of all nutt jobs, regardless of their association to any religion or not. The point is that there is no one by the name of Dr Hameed Khan at the Rockerfeller University and that is what really makes you think.

Who are these people? Who are organized enough to be sending emails?  The djinns of the modern world i.e. CIA, RAW, Mossad and Martians? How easy it is for me to play the blame game, you see?

In these times, where can you find hope? The problem is that we try to find hope elsewhere, whereas we need to discover hope within.

Hope and pray that Allah gives all of us the strength to look within, reflect and try to be the best each one of us can be. That should have been our way of working from the start, but it is never too late. Or so they say.

Good luck and God bless.