A better legacy

I am 96 years old and a regular contributor to various news outlets through my letters in the opinion and editorial sections. I have been writing extensively about looming disasters in the form of disease, natural calamities, and economic crunches. I kept pleading to the government through my letters that all these menaces are intertwined and until the government takes solid steps, our country does not stand a chance. Many others also kept pleading to their governments around the world to take these things seriously, but alas all our pleas fell on def ears. More upsetting is the fact that while this disease has devoured hundreds of thousands of lives world over, leaders in most countries are more focused on developing means of destruction than finding a cure to this and other diseases. People die of disease and hunger and resources are being spent on means of further destruction. For example, India, China, and Pakistan seem more obsessed with developing weapons and gaining the ability to destroy each other than using even a fraction of their resources for development of human life.

One wonders why the so-called custodians of human and civil rights all over the world are more obsessed with finishing the very life they claim to be defending. I beg the leaders of the countries around the world to stop developing means of destroying life on this fragile planet, and pool resources to protect human life. In the end, we all have to die one day but what we leave behind in the form of our deeds and actions will determine how we are remembered.

Raja Shafaatullah

Islamabad