Chin up…
Living in this country require that we take what destiny, fate and our combined stupidity and greed throw our way, in our stride and move on.
I have now been a thinking state resident of Pakistan for about 20 years. My earliest recoverable memories are from school days; getting on G-3 at Regal Chowk to get back home. An open, clean city without complications for a class 9th student.
From that the next core dump that I have is the burning Karachi of 87-98 with the rangers, the corpses in bories (bags), the ethnic killing, the extra-judicial encounters, the check posts, the random security stops, murders, the daily rising body count, and the strikes that brought this city to standstill. I remember being stopped at every occasion, I remember questioning, is this really home?
We survived that. We lived and worked and delivered with no electricity, no transport and close to zero resources. We beat companies in and outside the region that had all of the above. And we still did it cheaper, better, faster.
I don’t remember the war of 1971 or fall of Dhaka or the misery that preceded 12 December 1971. I was just a few months old. My father and his generation does! I can still see the pain, the shame and the anguish in their eyes.
So if we survived partition, survived 71, survive the 80′s and 90′s and the sanctions in 1998 and are around as a nation with a credible presence, there must be something here, in our water, in our genes, in our people that allows us to keep our chin up when lesser nations would have give up long ago. (Hey we worked out Ayub, Yahya, Bhutto, Zia, Bhutto, Nawaz, Bhutto and Nawaz again, all in one generation)
You have put it right. What happened last night felt like a betrayal and a violation! We
were all hacked. But we have been hacked before and lived to tell the tale. It is part of our destiny, strength and weakness…
This is my home, no one should be able to run me out of it on account of their short sightedness and arrogance. And if they do, how will I ensure that I do whatever little I can to write a better future for my children here (not outside).
Chin up and as you said, let’s move on. We have work to do.
November 4, 2007
Posted in: Uncategorized
3 Responses
Thanks Jawwad, and you’re right — I have frequently been involved in discussion about how companies in the west can still feel same sending their money to Pakistan despite a volatile security situation (this is speaking of pre-1999 and soviet-war era violence in isb and rwp that affected IT businesses here.
The general answer I would give them is the same – yes we have bombs exploding in our cities which can be traumatizing but we have a choice on whether or not we want to be “terrorized” and freeze because of them. People in the local market continue to choose to pull our sleeves and keep working.
The human spirit — armed with the motivation of proving oneself in a world thats looking down at it — can find ways of working in the toughest of environments.
But I hope all of this doesn’t freeze exports, travel and investments in the short to mid term.
I don’t think that it will come to that.
Despite the fact that I am really mad at Shaukat for letting things get to this stage he is a very competent private banker and finance minister. We also have a fairly competent team in the Exchange and Debt Management Group as well as a group of outstanding Bankers at the Central Bank. Money wise we have 16 Billion US in the bank, a (till yesterday) manageable current and capital account deficit and growing exchange remittances.
This is not 1998 or a repeat of the Nawaz Sharif folly. It is a storm that will pass by (I hope). The investment front will take a hit as far money from the West is concerned. But our primary telco and financial services investments came from the Middle East, China and Far East. I don’t think they are going any where, any time soon. If they can invest money in Vietnam and Sri Lanka (no offence intended), they can just as well invest in us.
The other big thing is economic sanctions. As long as we don’t get hit by those (which I don’t think we will), the financial impact of this move will be significant but with limited short term consequences. Longer term I don’t know. If the GDR offerings go through, we don’t get hit by a rating cut, if we can still tap the Euro Bond market (I am not sure), then we will be ok. But I am not sure if that will or will not be the case.
Lets see how this plays out next week.
and as I said to a friend.. I am more afraid of natural disasters.. I can handle political and manmade one, after all I was brought up in an era with bomb blasts and sniper shots.. its natural disasters that i can’t see signs of that I am afraid off..
and then again, as a prof once said.. God takes care of Pakistan. No country has been though all that we have been through and we have survived.. so remember no matter what else comes our way we will survive yet again.
and can u pls add this link dcdesi.wordpress.com
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