For over sixty years, scholars and ordinary people have talked about the Pakistani identity – or, more critically, our failure to establish one. No one knows what it means to be a Pakistani, and we frequently are accused, mostly by our own, of having an identity crisis.
So what exactly does it mean to call Pakistan your homeland? Is our identity a sum total of a collection of disparate elements representing our history, shared values, norms and other such items normally comprising any comparable nation’s cultural distinctiveness?
Is being Pakistani equivalent to appreciating, or acknowledging, such typically pervasive Pakistani things like biryani, chai, 14th August, Imran Khan, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, the Ghori missile and Mobilink Jazz? Is the answer to the question “So what’s the best thing about Pakistan?” always supposed to be an unequivocal “It has great food!”?
I disagree.
In my opinion, being a Pakistani does not mean anything. In the grand scheme of things, we have no place, no maqaam. When the green and white flutters in the wind it does not symbolize anything. Our cultural heritage is a hodgepodge of Arabian, Persian and Indian influences mixed together with the unique and divergent traditions of our various ethnic communities. We are, as they say, a country without a nation: disunited and fragile. And quite frankly, I like it this way.
I like it this way because it gives us a chance to create a new identity, one that we own; one that does not rely on famous individuals or historical instances or culinary delights; one that does not draw inspiration from the past but is a sign of what is ahead; one that provides hope and optimism, presently our scarcest resources; one that allows you and me to play a role that will have a decisive impact on how our country progresses.
Our country was meant to be a secular democracy with equal rights, they say. Our founder and leader intended it to be so. No, our country was made in the name of our religion, say the others, meant to provide a safe haven for our ancient and grand religious traditions and represent everything that is true and pure about them. I say they, and the others, are being irrelevant. They are being redundant, not because it is unimportant to define the true nature of a country’s political outlook, but because this argument can only have one logical conclusion if continued in its present form: the elimination of one line of thought as the price of the ascendancy of the other. Being inconsistent with each other, these separate arguments, and their proponents, cannot co-exist if they continue along the same path. For the sake of the country and its strength, thus, we must consider its political outlook irrelevant.
This is important because both arguments (as well as their proponents) are right. “Pakistan is not to be a secular country based on ideals of Western democracy” says the Pakhtun picking up a gun. “It was founded in the name of Islam and we shall make that dream come true. That is the only solution to our problems.” “You are uninformed and uncultured,” replies the arm-chair historian. “The Quaid meant for Pakistan to be for the Muslims, not for a religion.” What makes the arm-chair historian more right than the armed Pakhtun? Nothing. History has become irrelevant. Regardless of what was meant to be sixty years ago, we are here and we are now: we are both secular and Islamic. Adopting one wholly cannot be accomplished without the destruction of the other.
This is why we need to learn to co-exist. To accept the historian and the militant as our own. They are both as much Pakistanis as you and me. They both have a stake in the country. They both want their homeland to prosper and flourish and be a haven for their children to grow up well in. They just want to do it in different ways. We can either accept one and make the other a pariah, or we can accommodate both.
This lesson of co-existence does not end between the secular and the religious. It applies equally to you, who is a Shia, and me, a Sunni. It applies to Punjabi bureaucrats and Mohajir merchants; to Baloch nomads and Sindhi farmers. It applies to you and to me. It makes us one, whole, unified. It makes Pakistan stable and, hopefully, prosperous.
So let us forget questions of history and of what was to be and could not be had, and of opportunities lost and mistakes made. Let us not question the decision to carve out a new country from an ancient kingdom, or to allow millions to leave their native lands in search of an empty promise. Let us not censure past leaders for their transgressions as that is nothing but spilt milk and cannot be undone.
Let us instead build hope.
Let us not belabor about losing half of what we had and blaming others for it, but instead ensure that we lose no more.
Let us not blame our fellow countrymen for ruining our country if we do not step up ourselves. Let us not run away. Let us stay and fight. This is our chance to make our mark: to say to our children “I made this a better place so you can go outside and play without worry.” Let us, to paraphrase Gandhi, be the change we want to see.
Let us make this our identity: a country full of hope and optimism for the future, confident of the enterprise of its young, cognizant of the mistakes of its elders and the lessons learned from them, proud of its diversity and, finally, on the road to justice and prosperity, one small step at a time.
Together, let us build a new Pakistan.
Sohaib.nomadlife.org
