thought i’d quote a friend of mine who wrote an email to me today. thanks kami. his thoughts are fairly similar to what i feel.

I get to work this morning and the first thing my Indian friend says to me is that he has a gift for me.  He then hands over the latest Economist edition to me and tells me I can keep the copy.  I look at the edition and see cover page with a large green dynamite and title “Pakistan:  The World’s Most Dangerous Place”.   A few seconds later, the same friend sends me a BBC link where Tata Companies announces mass scale production of world’s cheapest car (not to mention their last week’s news of potential acquisition of Jaguar and Land Rover).   I surf through BBC news and see the headline that there was yet another suicide bomb in Pakistan with 22 killed and that last year was Pakistan’s worst year in millitant suicide bombings with over 800 people killed.

While our neighbours are set to become an economic superpower in the next ten years, our nation continues to grow backward.  Dictatorship is feuling militancy whereas our so called democratic promoters install (not elect) a 19 year-old college freshman as the next potential leader to run the country.  Our people do not understand democracy and continue to support the Sharifs and the Bhuttos despite knowing that these same people took Pakistan to verge of bankruptcy in previous decades.

My Indian friend is so proud of his nation and tells me he cannot wait to go back and work in India.  On the other hand, for me the mere thought to return to my country makes me cringe.

I can sit here and blame the politicians, the feudals, the military, and the millitants.  I may not have stolen any money from Pakistan or deprived my nation from any civil rights. However, I am probably no better.  I am one of those millions of non-resident Pakistanis who complain about Pakistan but never did anything to help out our own nation.  We are nothing more than cop-outs who have deserted our country to make our personal lives better, and it makes me sad that we may potentially see the demise of our nation sooner than we can imagine.  Not sure how many of us would then feel guilty to see, it this happens, or would we then also blame our leaders for a few days and then get back to our daily lives of working to contribute to the western economies.