:: Our Pakistan! ::

Sheikh Amer Hassan is a fashion graduate from the prestigious London College of Fashion and Bournville College of Art in England. Now living between Karachi, Lahore and London, he is one of the pioneers of fashion in Pakistan and famous as a designer, socialite and a social worker

MA Jinnah must be feeling quite guilty when looking down on what he fought for and what he left behind and sees what it has turned into. It is almost shocking and certainly horrific to see the way our country is descending into a dark tunnel. When will we wake up to see and hear beyond what we are forced to see and hear? When will the public realise? When are the people of Pakistan ever going to learn to read between the lines? I sometimes wonder why did Mohammad Ali Jinnah have to die so suddenly without giving any training or sharing anything much and leaving this huge land, its resources, its people and everything into the hands of looters? Starting from one-after-the-other this country has just gone from good-to-bad and bad-to-worse, right from the night he passed away.

 We as a nation are way to unrealistic and sympathetic towards anything that is fed to us through the biggest hit-show on national television called the ‘News’. It is completely manipulated and scripted and controlled by the so-called politicians of the nation. All they do is fight amongst one another and with the public and also with the international governments who help us at every hour of need. It’s one big bloody battlefield and the effect of which is directly burdening the peoples of Pakistan. We are the poor, innocent, naïve public that only believes what these culprits want projected through the media. The public after all, owns the media, and no one wants to help change the system. Anyone who tries is tried in return. Everything is happening in front of us. Put aside all that is happening by the hungry wolves fighting for money and power without any focus on the very basic human rights.

 It is atrocious and simply mind boggling to imagine that although electricity was invented over a century ago we are still deprived of it with a hundred foolish reasons to justify their own incompetence. In today’s day and age each and everything is dependant on electricity. This so-called government has huge amounts of money to actually buy weapons, ammunition, expensive cars and houses to live in, huge budgets for the army and what-not, but has no money to re-install a power generation plant to facilitate the public that pays their bills, taxes and runs the economy? Each time the bijli goes the economy of our country suffers. Each time, yes I repeat it one more time, ‘each time’. Imagine having to continuously stop us from working on various jobs many times a day and then, getting no proper sleep at night. It retards the individual growth of the people and also as a nation on a macro level. The peoples of this country are being made to suffer a horrible agony while these giant lizards fight amongst one another for the treasure. It is sick and repulsive but also, unfortunately, at the point of no return. Roads have been dug-up, electricity has been made a hideous nightmare, prices of petrol and daily goods have been raised without making any sense; what is going on?? Is all this to torture the people so badly that while also simultaneously brainwashing them against the present government, they also start to play this odd game of mass hysteria.

 As I always say, “every drop in the ocean matters”. I hope my column can make a difference somewhere, somehow. Pakistan is ‘our’ country and we rule it. We are not here to serve the government but as a matter of truth, the government is employed by us to serve ourselves. The public is the power! The people of Pakistan are being bullied, intimidated, harassed, tortured and made to feel inferior to the crooks in jeeps with sirens and titles with self-imposed protocols. Every channel on television and every page in the newspapers are promoting this hysterical depression that shall, in my opinion, lead us further into depths of more surreal times ahead. Nowhere in the world are the public so politically driven and that too with zero result. Whichever way the two-or-three big crocodiles decide to take this nation all they do is to paint a façade through media to get us, the emotionally starved nation, to dance to their tunes. Is there anyone who makes sense in this puddle of scorpions and snakes? Ours is not a country of people with merit or honesty. This is a society carved out for the cunning and the hypocritical. No wonder there is such frustration, dishonesty, greed and disloyalty amongst one another. In short, the top layer of this system that we keep referring to, as the ‘government’ is the one that are the termites of this country, slowly eating away the public and their souls. I mean does it really make a difference to you or me or the common people of Pakistan whatever happened to the Chief Justice? Does it really matter who stayed and who did not? Is there really any law in our country? Law is a relative term in our society. Our connections, PR and status in society determine if law really was applicable to us or not and that too on whatever level.

 I have, on many occasions, represented and promoted Pakistan in my personal capacity as a British designer of Pakistani origin. My recent trip to Bosnia as chief guest of the prestigious “Banjaluka Fashion Week 2008” was welcomed on live-television by the Deputy Prime Minister of Bosnia & Herzegovina. We, with the love of people and prayers of my beloved mother, put our country on the world fashion map amongst 13 European designers. You must Google-search my name to see the promotion our country received. It is something we must all rejoice and be proud of. We have to work towards the promotion of our country’s image and not just show all the nasty things we show on media all the time. “We love Pakistan”. Only together, we, the people, must unite to rise above the nightmare that is yet to become. O’ Allah please save us!