Love Reign O'er Me
I just wanted to briefly expand upon the tag line: "Stay Safe, Lahore." The city has seen more violence in the past year and a half than probably ever before. The targets have ranged from organs of the state to the World Performing Arts Festival organized by Rafi Peer Theater and now the Sri Lankan team. Our thoughts and prayers are with the people of Lahore.
It is clear that this attack and the attack on the Performing Arts Festival are troubling developments, not just for the city but for the whole country; coupled with the loss of Swat, for that is what it is, and the obliteration of Waziristan, the situation is dire.
My hope is that we find the courage to face reality, challenge these forces of darkness and safeguard our future and the future of our children. My fear is that we've had our heads in the sand for too long and time has run out.
I Want to leave you guys with a touching rendition of a classic The Who song Love Reign O'er Me by the enchanting Betty LaVette.
It is clear that this attack and the attack on the Performing Arts Festival are troubling developments, not just for the city but for the whole country; coupled with the loss of Swat, for that is what it is, and the obliteration of Waziristan, the situation is dire.
My hope is that we find the courage to face reality, challenge these forces of darkness and safeguard our future and the future of our children. My fear is that we've had our heads in the sand for too long and time has run out.
I Want to leave you guys with a touching rendition of a classic The Who song Love Reign O'er Me by the enchanting Betty LaVette.
Labels:
Minority Reports,
Pakistan
22 comments:
Thanks! though life here is totally normal except the disturbance caused by all the TV vans transmitting from Liberty Chowk and creating a traffic jam for no good reason.
It's amazing how things don't affect us anymore. we just take these things as part of life and move on. I'm talking of the Pakistani nation as a whole. extremely thick skinned people.
My hope is that we find the courage to face reality, challenge these forces of darkness and safeguard our future and the future of our children'-- Simply 'WOW' for such motivating words and keeping the spirit high no matter how discouraging a situation is.Keep the good work going.
i saw they have a sort of memorial at the liberty chowk for the traffic warden who lost his life in the attacks. people were leaving roses and cards. i hope some sort of memorial stone can be built near the site, since, as sarah rightly mentioned, we have suck weak memories and such thick skins
AKS...i share the same thoughts as you do brother but u have to be open to the fact that it cud be R.A.W also who did it, now i m not being one of those who is only blaming R.A.W but by the looks of these guys, it don't look like no talibans to me..plus who is the most benificiary out of this whole thing.They got pakistan where they wanted it. for time being!
AKS...I understand where you are coming from, but why wave the white flag of surrender now? This is when your country needs you. People like you should be in the vanguard, not hiding behind sarcasm and anger expressed on a blog. Simple point: do something. I think people from your socio-economic class are so cynical and defeatist. Maybe it's because you have nothing in common with 99% of the rest of the country?
and i think the original version by THE WHO is much much better...women screw it up wen they try to sing a song by men...
@ Gatsby
just as a question: what CAN we do?
Being part of the un-relating 1%, I'd love it if someone would actually tell me.
Join a rally? Fat lot of good that would do. I'm not giving them something else to bomb.
Write a seething column?
Been there, done that. No use.
Educate people? err...how?
write a column? Please see above for answer.
Go on an armed jihad against such jihadis?
How will that make me any better? And if the Pakistan Army isn't making any difference, i doubt I and the other useless members of 'my class' could.
What (and this is NOT a rhetorical question) can a person of AKS (and my) class do?
lahore may have been shaken but it's nothing compared to what Peshawar is going through.
Don't know you if you guys have seen this, but fiverupees leads this feature on Paki Blogger Reactions on BBC:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7924501.stm
Good stuff.
That's awesome! Congrats guys!
Congratulations to Aks and Ahsan.I am so elated to hear this and very proud of you guys.Keep up the good work.
Not to sound ungrateful or anything, but we're always being mis-attributed. They said I was from pakpositive.com, when in fact PP is just a collection of blogs. Two days ago The Guardian said we were from Lahore when we in fact gave no indication of this (we're from Khi). A few weeks ago The Hindu said Kamil Yousuf was the writer of this blog, when in fact Kamil Yousuf was merely the cameraman for the funny Indus TV reporter in the post below.
Or maybe I should just count my blessings.
WOW.This is amazing.You guys were quoted in Hindu and Guardian also.Kudos to Five Rupees.
You are in the middle of a fucking war zone. You don't know what to do? Maybe you should drive out of Defence and see what life is like on the other side of town.
There is so much wrong, so there is so much to do. If you can't pick a problem to address, then you have problems.
We all know this is the time for those who have and can do something to shine. It's your job to find how you can make a difference.
Again, you guys hide behind sarcasm. While I find it funny, I think there's a need to go beyond that. It'll be too late when Pakistan is burnt to the ground.
I think you cowardly proposed a few easily dismissible options like join a rally or write a column. Think of something yourself. Or maybe the fact that you can't think of something means that you live in a totally different universe.
It would be sad if this country was gone and you never even tried.
ok gatsby, let's do this, let's get into a frenzy and;
do some post 9/11 style beating up of every beard sporting male we see, vandalise the stalls of all mewa-vendors for 'feeding the terrorists', send death threats to naatkhawans for using subtle hypnosis techniques thus luring in our former popstars, the latter whose dearth has created a lacking-in entertainment-environment, thus lots of frustrated men, thus terrorism.
and so forth.
does that sound pro-active enough?
Ahsan and Aks, congratulations, though not to sound like a cynic but the beeb snooping around on your blog and publishing excerpts like that, i hope they got your permission or notified you in some way first?
if not, me personally would be feeling a slight bit violated.
but it was otherwise, pretty cool, i must say.
Supe....I have no idea what you mean and I think you have no idea what I meant.
If you think I have suggested violence against practicing Muslims, then you are deeply mistaken.
Ahsan,
Do you guys have a five rupees email that you could post on the blog? A lot of times news agencies will want to contact you and possibly re-check sources or ask for interviews, but don't because they won't see contact info. Not an excuse at all for the mis-attributions, just an idea :)
Kalsoom:
Haan, I think that's a good idea (more for readers wanting to contact us rather than linkers). We have contact info on our profile pages (at least NB and I do), but I guess sometimes it's hard for people to find that. I guess we could put it front and center.
enchanting my ass.
Love your blog and thinking of citing it through my uni paper. I also found your blog on Pakpositive (pakistanibloggers) though. I think they really have some great bloggers on board.
Oops. I'm the Anonymous above (uni paper) from Frankfurt.
Anon from Frankfurt:
Citing blogs in academic papers is a really bad idea. Books, journals, archives and primary sources are the (only) way to go.
What is your paper on?
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