Asim & Tamreez

Just when you think things can’t get any worse, they do. Every day there seems to be some blast or bad news. As I said previously, the day that goes by without incident is considered out of the ordinary and a blessing. We dread watching the news and live in constant fear of what’s going to happen next. Those of us who are abroad but have families back home are also constantly making sure the recent incident wasn’t in “our” area. Hareem’s comment on my previous blog likening us to OCD-affected chickens constantly counting their young ones is comical but very apt.

What is particularly demoralizing about the situation is that deep down many of us feel there is little we can do to change anything. As soon as you start deciphering the problem, you run into conspiracy theories. Which is why people like Zaid Hamid who’re talking about Indian/Zionist involvement all the time, much of it rubbish I think, have become so popular in Pakistan. But while not everything can be explained away with conspiracy theories, there is a lot of dirty stuff that IS going on. CIA/FBI involvement, ISI’s incompetence (or complicitness?), Blackwater agents, Zardari’s collusion, Rehman Malik’s incompetence, Gilani’s inconsequence, Haqqani’s subservience–the game is being played at such a high level that an average person feels at a complete loss as to what we could do to improve the situation, except pray.

And then we realize that life would not be worth living if we give up and fall into hopelessness. So then we bounce back thinking whatever little “good” I can do, let’s do that and leave the rest to God. We give money to education, volunteer in IDP camps, support patriotic initiatives, dream about a better future.

I really hope, though, that that’s enough in the long run. Sometimes I have the suffocating feeling that it might not be.