You see, I’m not a political commentator here. There will be opinions regarding a politicians past in every single case, but the reason I’m quite shocked andmoved by this is below.

Today, after almost 15 years, I heard the voice of my friend Jalal, who grew up many years in Pakistan, but is from Afghanistan.

He’s also Burhanuddin Rabbani’s son.

Jalal and I were classmates in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia (my father taught architecture there from 1992 to 2003), along with the rest of our Manarat El-Sharqiah school’s mad troupe of expatriates livingin Saudi Arabia- we had a very lively and crazy adolescence. I still remember Jalal, Rizwan and myself getting ‘secretly’ picked up from the bus station, missing the school bus just so we could skip school as teenagers in his green honda accord- it wasn’t about cars; it was about young kids feeling brave for the simplest and most innocent of reason: ‘being too cool for school’.

Today, coming back to suicide bombings- you have to be brave to live in our countries, and in this case, it’s not for innocent reasons. It’s the ultimate bravado- you know you can die any moment, but you choose to push on for the reasons and dreams you believe in.

Jalal was a character, a fun guy who made good and bad decisions just like everyone else. But speaking to him today, and hearing in his voice this sadness that, well, I am being honest here: I have never, ever heard before in my life. And this is not a question of someone being strong or weak; it’s more like every tear they’ll shed is as heavy with personal sorrow, as it is with the cyclical question or conundrum:

Why?

I really pray that Jalal finds strength right now, not as a son of an important person onthe Afghani political landscape, but as a son, period.

Here’s a video I made with a very talented team for a Punjab Government initiative. For more information, go to www.punjabmodel.gov.pk

Leon Panetta, Director of the CIA (photo credit: AP)

This is a personal blog, and I am not a journalist. I am however, a Pakistani, which seems to be the downright worst thing to be these days. It’s alright, I’ll take the cynicism, the hatred, the distrust. It’s Pakistan-bashing season, and it’s free for all. It really is- and the hardest hitters are ironically the Pakistanis themselves, trust me.

This whole Bin-Laden-Dead week’s been very shit (no other word sums it up better), because worse than the fear of bomb blasts or drone attacks, is total breakdown in trust. Somehow, a surgical raid on Abbottabad Chuck-Norris style, unannounced will do that to you. I’m glad the bastard’s dead, but when someone bludgeons a rat on your carpet, you’re left wondering how to clean up the mess. As you reach for the bleach, you realize- hold on; what was this rat doing here in the first place? So who’s fault is this really?

“Was Pakistan involved? Are they harboring terrorists? Are they this? Are they that?”

Look, us Pakistanis are just as confused, and frustrated with our own government. But you know what, we don’t go to war under the premise of weapons of mass destruction, not find any, but say “well look at the bright side; things changed”.

Leon Panetta, CIA director, recently  said “… Pakistan’s either inept, or it’s involved.”

I’d like to ask the same question- rather; make a statement.

When the twin towers fell, and report after report came that “we should have seen this coming”, did anyone else in the world say “oh man- this was a total mess up. Either you were inept or you were involved”? No one from Pakistan makes such statements at an official level. And let’s face it- I don’t need access to top secret personnel to realize that the CIA’s got some very, very dirty laundry.

Either way, this whole rant, is not about saying “Oh the CIA is evil” like countless others. It’s asking a very important question; a question that I hope American can now start pondering, since this is a Pakistani asking it very frankly.

Will you please stop kicking us while we’re down? Come spend a day here, and realize the sacrifices people give not just for you, but for freedom. If you say ‘Freedom is not free’, then I say Pakistanis know what that means, more than any other nation on the planet.

It’s time for the average American to stop being taken for a ride; you don’t go to war in Iraq and not find what you went there for and just fix it by voting a president out of office. What do you do?

You do what a gentleman does. You accept your mistake- not just to your own people, but the people you brush shoulders with outside your borders as well. But over the last 50 years, getting superpowers to level with us is just about the hardest thing possible.

Will someone please level with us? Will someone please saying its ok to support presidents and rulers who would be voted or cast out in a single day if they had to hold public office in America? What will it take- to be honest with ourselves? Why is it ok for Western democracies to sanction ties and business with dictators and rulers that put all values of freedom, equality and liberty to shame? I guess that means you’re either inept, or involved.

Look, Pakistanis are in an existential dilemma at the moment; and this is not some “should we have left India?” debate. Never has our society been so vigorously self critical; never. We’re working on it. So while are, if Americans could stop asking “Is Pakistan doing enough?” and start asking “Where did we start off, and where have we now ended up?” perhaps we can all say yes, we’re level. Because it was only a line from George Orwell’s book Animal Farm, that “some animals are more equal than others”, and we’re not animals, and we’re not in a fictional commentary. So let’s start acting like grown people, who can say ok- one death in your neighborhood does equal one death in my neighborhood.

If we can just start with that, all else will follow.

I am a Pakistani. I am not inept. And I am not involved. So please take your foot out of my ass.

NYT Journalist Adam Ellick by In the Loop

I may be broken. I may be an eyesore. I may be the troublemaker on the block.
Things take time. You know this. You weren’t born beautiful.
I know I’ve been hypocritical. I know there’s a long road ahead.
But for all the times you were broken and backward – have I asked for apologies?
How easily you forget!

Give me some time. I’m figuring myself out. I’d rather get this right- slow and steady
than march to a tune- that you in the depths of your hearts know- is off key.

If you could just stop kicking me while I’m down, I’d heal a lot faster.

Regards,

PAKISTAN.

You can always check out the first one I wrote to Obama, here. Obviously, it never got to him.

While reading an article on CNN when Sri Lanka’s cricket team came under an evil, cowardly attack by terrorists in Lahore, I saw an odd sort of symmetry on the webpage.

View March 8 2010 Model Town Blast in a larger map

I know for a fact that this section of the road was completely blocked off from the public for the last year or so, and this corner house had guards and gun turrets hidden on top and even along the peripheries.
Whoever the heck it was- that was this important- should have at least had the guts to move on out of a residential neighborhood in this day and age.

It’s another week- another day in Lahore. Everytime people calm down, and feel that life is returning to normal, someone comes along and decides to shake things up. Whoever the hell you are, I hope you end up reading this somewhere, somehow, and realize that you are the most cowardly of all people. And I must remind you, that you are the most foolish of all people, constantly trying to break the resolve of a nation that cannot lose any more.

Pakistan Zindabad.

Interview with Usman Ghauri on the Moon Market Blasts

I walked across to Jinnah Hospital’s emergency ward- not that I condone people amassing together when they shouldn’t be there- but I wanted to capture some of the sounds of the aftermath of mass murder. What you’ll hear in the audio linked below is police officers trying to get people to clear out (I was standing clear of the entrance)- and make way for an ambulance that was about to pull in. Audio Link

I watched like a voyeur- observing death first hand. The Edhi ambulance that pulled in had a child’s body wrapped in blood stained sheets. You can actually hear the stretcher being wheeled out towards the ambulance. The emergency staff judged this victim to be a casualty, and wheeled it to the side for the morgue, as they waited for the next ambulance to come in.

What we witness now in our developed, urban centers, is what I assume with high probability, the parts of the country on the forefront of the war on terror, have been witnessing for ages now: death. While we hang our heads and wonder what kind of barbaric enemy would do such a thing to such innocent people, I am sure all people who have become collateral damage in the biggest shame on military actions we’ve ever seen- the World’s War on Terror (everyone included- everyone guilty)- thought the same as they picked relatives’ charred limbs from Pakistan army shells gone astray but unwritten about, or Predator missiles gone ‘on target’ as we’re told.

I hate the Taliban as much as you do, but what you can’t hate- is the desire for justice. What’s happening now, is a rude awakening- I call it The Great Equalization, in which city dwellers; the haves of Pakistan, will slowly but surely come to taste, in some form or another, what life means for the have-nots. It’s an internal, self generated shock-and-awe campaign with really no one at the controls- it’s become a free-for-all playground for what not to do in the precarious field of nation-building.

I really don’t have many answers- the truth is: no one does. At least Pakistanis now have more questions than ever, more than we’ve ever, ever had in the past. And all that tells me, is that we are still alive, and growing even more alive with each seemingly pointless death- as the quest for accountability and equality gathers steam, regardless of race, religion and creed.

Pakistan Zindabad.