“‘... You fool! As if it matters how a man falls down.”

“When the fall’s all that’s left, it matters a great deal.”

The Lion in Winter-1968

My dear son,

Thank you for sending me the article (https://www.fairobserver.com/world-news/pakistan-has-lost-its-way-but-the-people-are-powerful/#) by a recently departed very distinguished citizen of Pakistan, Mr Roedad Khan. As always, Khan sahib writes persuasively and from the heart about what ails our beloved country.

Having said that, I am not too convinced of the arguments he makes but I can see how it might resonate with you and the millions of young people like you in Pakistan. Empty rhetoric aside, one cannot deny the hard facts: we have one of the youngest populations in the world and with our still high birth rate, this is set to continue for the foreseeable future. This ought to be a cause for celebration but we recoil from this blessing for any number of reasons. Our educational institutions cannot provide what our young people need to thrive in the 21st Century and our anemic economy is unable to generate the jobs that would entice you and your friends to stay in Pakistan. The West, and perhaps soon enough China and other countries which are facing a demographic crisis of declining birth rates and aging populations are more than happy to snap up as many of you as possible for their industries and factories. While that is a source of personal sadness for us, your families, there is a much larger issue at stake: when our best and brightest leave for foreign shores, our country’s trajectory continues downwards since the very people who by virtue of their brains and their skills could right the ship are leaving in droves.

What about those of our countrymen and women who toil everyday to put a morsel of bread in their children’s mouths? What about the children who work day and night in the fields and in ‘factories,’ whose childhood was bartered away because their parents could not afford to even feed them? What about the millions and millions of our fellow Pakistanis who try to survive in desperate poverty from day to day, hoping and praying for a miracle that never comes?

We know that you and your friends, intelligent, sensitive and idealistic burn with indignation and rage at the injustice of it all. So do we but perhaps, as you often point out, we have compromised and made our peace with the tyranny and oppression which embodies Pakistan today for selfish reasons.

The rage you feel is shared by everyone, myself included. We, your parents and elders cannot absolve ourselves by simply pointing fingers while we enjoy comfortable lives. We love to place blame outside ourselves: the politicians, the ‘institutions,’ the ever present ‘foreign hand,’ everyone is to blame except ourselves. Why is it so hard to ask ourselves what am I doing wrong here or how can I contribute to make things better? Asking the question places the blame squarely where it belongs: on me.

Yes, of course we live in an antiquated social system which in its current form will never be able to move forward with the rest of the world. And yes, Pakistan is but a microcosm of a global system of economic and military bondage enforced by brutal state institutions everywhere. One need look no further than newspaper headlines to confirm this. The vast majority of the world’s population is outraged and repulsed by the massacre of innocent Palestinians being carried out in Gaza by Israel and fervently supported by governments around the world. All of us feel the horror being experienced by the Palestinian people but all of us are powerless to stop it. And yet, all of us do our part as best we can: by speaking out on social media, organising rallies in support of the Palestinian cause (in the West, people are being prosecuted, even arrested for this), by offering whatever help we can to the people of Gaza, who are, after all also our brothers and sisters. A few months ago, in the festival named for your great grandfather, Faiz Ahmed Faiz, we organised many events to celebrate the indomitable spirit of Palestine and to talk and sing about their eventual victory, which is, in the end, inevitable. It is as inevitable as the victory of light over dark, of goodness over evil. Faiz believed this with all his heart and, when he lived among the Palestinians for many years towards the end of his life, this is why they loved and honoured him as one of their own.

Today, young people like you are devising all kinds of wonderful ways to bypass the rickety, creaky, dysfunctional systems of Pakistan to interact with the world: college students who work online for Western companies to supplement their family’s income, doctors and nurses helping run the clinics and hospitals of the West from Pakistan and in the process, bringing much needed revenue and expertise to Pakistan; engineers and other IT professionals providing technical services to companies all over the world from Pakistan, the list goes on and on. This, my son, is the Pakistan that we all believe in. We are a resilient, resolute people. Our history has shown this. Do not pay heed to the naysayers and the doomsday prophets. It’s true; it really is darkest before the dawn. We will keep doing our best for this land and its people and we hope that in time, you will lend us a hand so we can continue righting this ship as it sails onward into a bright future.

*This letter was written by the writer to his son

The writer is a psychiatrist and faculty member at King Edward Medical University. He is the author of Faiz Ahmed Faiz: A Biography, Sang-e Meel Publications, 2022. His X handle: @Ali_Madeeh