In todays world, it is not about who has the nuclear weapons, who does what or who says what. The real deal is that when you make a call to some government official will it work? This is what Pakistan has become. The current situation of our dear nation is a critical one. As many people may be aware that Pakistan is in a state that we hoped would never exist.

Not too long ago, I can remember my grandparents telling me about how when they came to United States in 1995 they were overwhelmed at the price of a US Dollar being PKR 42.61. Today the US Dollar costs more than PKR 82.35. Our currency is depreciating so fast that it is just not right. The Pakistani Economic system is in a state of turmoil. Ofcourse it will be. When the markets are closed for weeks, it doesn’t seem to effect anyone there but if the markets close here in the United States for an hour, there is almost a state of chaos. The National Gross Domestic Product of Pakistan is far less than the money that is being printed against it. Just imagine if the US market said that you are only allowed to buy shares through the Dow Jones and of your own country’s economic standing, what would your reaction be? Inflation is at a point where it is just uncontrollable and this is all happening in our dear country.

The Social situation is not a clean slate either. I can still remember going to school in the morning without having to worry about anything, sleeping peacefully at night, walking to the stores in the middle of the night without any hesitation. Today it is hard to even consider doing anything like this. Driving to school in the morning you are afraid to stop at a traffic light. You have the fear that someone will pull up next to you, hold you at gunpoint and take all your personal effects. You cannot sleep at night unless you have an armed guard standing at your gate awake the whole night, and you can definitely not even think of going to the market on foot in the afternoon let alone middle of the night in fear of getting kidnapped or something. It is so horrible now that young girls and women are being kidnapped, raped and murdered in broad daylight, all because you are not willing to help your country.

Political situation. That’s all I need to say. I don’t even have words to even express what a state our country is in. Our government is under heavy mental attacks from the extremist religious fanatics who believe that a woman should not be educated, she should wear a hijab as her duty and be her husbands slave. Our government, if they wish, can abolish this with a signature on a piece of paper but are afraid of the judgment of the general public. The lack of education makes the opinion of the people more important than the solution of the problem.

Pakistan is facing a situation where the uneducated man’s voice is far stronger than the educated ones. I don’t blame the Pakistani people for that, I blame us for that. We Pakistanis who live outside Pakistan and educate our brothers, sisters, children and grandchildren and forget our home are responsible. Remember the times millions of our ancestors died to give us what we needed. Today I feel that those who died for our future are just sitting up there looking down on us and thinking, “I left my dependent family, forced them into starvation and poverty in the hopes that you will fix everything, but look at you. You don’t even think about your home.” We need someone to help initiate that first step where you decide to help your country. We move here, take all our profits from Pakistan, take all our pride from Pakistan and we meet one person from another ethnic background or origin and start talking bad about our own country. It is because of us that our country is where it is now. All we had to do was give it back something for all it had done for us. Remember its never too late.

I was having a discussion with an Indian friend of mine and we were comparing the different situations of India and Pakistan and we were trying to think of the differences between us to see why they are where they are and we are where we are. We found some and those actually made sense to me. Walk into any common hall in any college in the US, UK, Canada and ask every desi person where they are from, what they are doing here and what visa they are on. If I tell u that, compared to Pakistanis, more than double the Indians are on Student visas and are just here to study and go back, you would probably laugh at me; but this is the fact.

I agree that some Pakistani people are getting to places where we did not think it possible, but we need more of these people to do so back home where they are not only doing it for themselves but also their country. I don’t know about you but some day there will be a time, and I guarantee you of that, when no matter what you do or say, your only option will be Pakistan and no matter what you did Pakistan, just like a loving mother, will accept you with open arms. Just think about how it would feel to face your own soil, your own roots, your home with that condition.

Our country needs a total social, political and economic reform. Reading this would get u fired up and maybe bring back the Pakistani pride in you for a few hours, but will it stay and will you be the one to drive us towards it?