Voluntary work

It could very well have been the eyes of the eight year old girl that ripped my heart. These eyes had a language of their own, a language that I found unfathomable and cryptic. They had managed to elude me ever since I became cognizant of the world around me. However, in a moment of inspiration, the truth descended upon me. Being poor is not a crime but life treats you like a criminal. This last statement rings out like an accusation.
It goes without saying that some incidents transmute individuals by instilling in them the realization that the purpose of life is not to amass wealth but to engender a situation in which the rights of the impoverished are not condoned. Such a metamorphosis ranks as one of the finest moments of my life.
One of the most misguided notions of conventional wisdom is that poverty is the culmination of ineptitude and a fatalistic attitude to life. This statement may hold some veracity but it does not serve to delineate the condition of every mendicant. Poverty is the result of exploitation by the ruling class as espoused by Marxism in the realm of sociology. As the saying goes’ some people are poor only because others have taken the wealth that is rightfully theirs’. This drove me to venture in the world of those people who have been stigmatized as noxious insects by the
affluent.
Statistics have corroborated the fact that education has a strong correlation with chances to secure a good quality of life. My voluntary work involved helping drop-out children secure education. It is an irony that economic conditions supplant human emotions of love and compassion, qualities that serve as a mark of distinction for our species. Parents would rather let their progeny be immersed in the inexorable cycle of poverty, as opposed to paving their path to
enlightenment and eventual success. Devoid of money and education, the poor children are trapped in an abyss, which means that they are in the middle of nowhere. My sole mission was to convince the recalcitrant parents that educating their parents is a plausible option. It is noteworthy to state the gender discrimination that was a pervasive feature of the mindset of many parents. In our culture, girls are married at a tender age and educating them is tantamount to wasting time
and money.
Of the multifarious examples that merit attention, the case of Fatima stands out owing to the resistance put forward by her obdurate parents. In line with ingrained belief of keeping women inside walls and the unwarranted notion that education would have corrupting influences on the girl’s personality, Fatima was not allowed to study after she finished primary school. In economic terms, this was the epitome of a human resource being squandered. It is worth mentioning that the boys had no such restriction, a stark reminder of the bigotry towards female rights that
plagues rural societies to the present day. It took days for our team to make any sense of the justification given by her father because at that precise moment, reason had lost its very essence. Despite the blatant obstacles that stood before us like a mountain, we gained inspiration from the fact that the worst evil occurs when good people do nothing. Of the torrent of explanations espoused by us, we will never know which one slit the father’s heart into a thousand fragments. He did finally succumb and agreed to contravene the local traditions that had decided the fate of
countless girls. Humans are strange creatures because they can be both rapacious and
magnanimous which in itself is a testament to the unique quality of the human spirit.
This experience left an indelible mark on my personality. It taught me that greatness lies in aiding God’s creation. Development has its own conspicuous benefits but this not overshadow its flagrant flaws. Growth is not a universal good. Just because a statistic is going up does not mean that the world is getting a better place. In light of these facts, achieving top grades does not
transmute you into a humane being. The whole point of education is enlightenment which can only be achieved if students develop the capacity to think out of the box. We should strive to be part of the solution as opposed to being the problem itself.

Turning the tables

It does not take a genius to understand that the solution to terrorism is not in creating violence and turbulence because these are the same tools that these miscreants employ in their mission to destabilize the country. Instead, the way forward has to be one of reconciliation, an approach that engenders social quality and allows for the eradication of social stratification. The problem of poverty that is fueled by unemployment and the widespread illiteracy remains the epicenter of the multitude of problem that beset the nation. Terrorism is an act of violence triggered by some motive that usually comes down to financial need or psychological well being. In order to make any headway into this quandary, attention needs to be given to the root causes of this issue. The war against terrorism should be supplanted by the war against poverty and unemployment. If Pakistan becomes a strong nation from within, external influences can never impede its path to greatness. Maybe its time for the political parties to bury the hatchet and foster a political climate that falls in line with the political values enjoined by our founding father. This, in turn, would have positive ramifications for the economy and living standards of the beleaguered common man, a creature who has lost all hopes of a life that caters to the basic needs of an individual.

The vision that was...

It pains me to see the mess my country is in.Terrorism has become the
plague that is slowly destroying our social fabric.Recently while on a
public forum, a person from Europe likened my country to the land of
war. I would have loved to repudiate his notion but the truth then
stood before me in its most pristine form.It really is difficult to
see your country self destruct before your very eyes and the pain is
compounded by my inability to become an agent of social change.

For once this nation needs to rise and transcend the seemingly
insurmountable barriers that have enveloped our country like an
inexorable snake.It needs to be pointed out that the solution does not
lie with the political establishment or with any foreign power. The
change needs to come from within each and every one of us.We need to
start taking responsibility for our own actions as opposed to
stockpiling the blame on the political leaders.I know it is rather
easy to dismiss this as rhetorical talk but just think as you lie in
bed before sleep what you have done for your country today.My fellow
countrymen, maybe a bit of critical thinking wont be such a bad idea
in such turbulent times

Solution to a quagmire

FOR a minute try to envision the pain that the family of a victim to an act of terrorism suffers, and if there is even an ounce of compassion present inside you, you would be left shaking in anger and disgust at this heinous crime.

Why is it that such blatant acts of aggression against humanity continue to occur in our country?

We, as denizens of this land, just watch in utter helplessness as the country is being torn down by some extremist elements.

To say that this matter transcends the influence of the masses is to massively underestimate the unique quality of the human spirit. There is no stopping a nation that has found its true destiny, and now, more than ever, the people need to rise to the occasion and salvage a nation that is destined to greatness.

At this point in time, it is easy to ramble about the quagmire we are trapped in, but this does little to actually get us out of this quandary. This, especially, applies to the media that can become an engine for growth in our country.

Therefore, with increased importance comes burgeoning responsibility in the shape of informing the people to effectively tackle the present situation. We need to find a solution to this grave issue and the dearth of time makes the task all the more daunting.

This menace has gripped the nation like an inferno that will not let go until all has transmuted into ashes. Maybe, it is time to prove that this nation can efface the marks of a nation plagued by turbulence with one that enjoins peace and harmony as the cornerstone of society.

IR

The most striking distinction between realism and liberalism is their inability to agree upon the basic foundation on which the whole structure of international politics rests on. While realism advocates the proclivity of nation states to be inexorable in their pursuit of national interest, liberalism goes on to identify sources of cooperation like trade and the very existence of international institutions that can serve as mitigating factors in the resolution of world disputes. It is this adaptability of the liberalist school of thought and its attempt to capture the complexity of the post modern age that has caused me to bend towards it despite the knowledge that realism is still anything but redundant. Realism has many vociferous followers, all armed with the incontrovertible fact that this model has been around for many thousand years and will never cease to become an integral component of international political analysis. Something that often goes neglected is that what we have before us is ‘International’ politics, a topic whose intricacy cannot be captured, in the slightest, by traditional schools of thought. Consider the phenomenal growth in the number of nation states plus the rise of non state actors and it becomes rather simple to fathom that this transnational world cannot be explained by any one single theory.

Abyss

Talking to oneself may be mistaken to be a stark signal of mental instability but for the sagacious it is an important tool through which a person discovers himself better. Such thought is normally free of bias as it would be a very eccentric person who lies to himself. Considering the isolation that the post-modern age fosters, it becomes all the more important that an individual can find solace in his own being. Despite all the talk of the world becoming more linked and globalized, we have become more confined to artificial settings that cannot in the slightest provide the same emotional experience as face to face contact. Never in the history of mankind has such a degree of exclusion and ostracism been achieved. Behind the façade of development, globalization has made us more insecure and bereft of any real relationships. The hype surrounding social networking sites will only serve in the long run to magnify the hole we are digging for ourselves.Trapped behind closed doors, we are enslaved in the prisons of our own making.