Batting against the odds

No one takes us seriously, when we say we’re a nation.

They’ll point to porous borders to the North and West, secessionist movements in the South, and some of the more adventurous ones will dredge up history to point out that the “Pakistani project” was doomed from the start.

Well, I’ve done my time in the archives. And it was a lousy start. To this day, the best historians struggle to understand what was going through Jinnah’s head in 1945 when he began to say things like “the only path to freedom is Pakistan” and “Pakistan is the way to salvation.” And yes, Nehru was a far more politically sound and democratically inclined leader. And Shaukat Hyat Khan, the Nawab of Mamdot and other cartoons in Punjab tore up a community by planting seeds of communalism and bandied about religion in dangerous and utterly selfish ways. We had some lousy leaders and we still suffer from a legacy of incoherence, intolerance for political opposition and a lack of commitment to electoral fairness and participation.

But we are 170 million people. We’re not all Jinnahs and Zias, we’re not all Zardaris or maulvis. We’ve voted a female prime minister into office, produced world-class rock stars and musicians, we’ve been home to poets, novelists, dancers and actors. We love cricket, good food, good music, and a good laugh. We are generous; we aided an earthquake-torn Kashmir. We love a fair game and a good fight. We speak over seven languages, boast at least three scripts, house the world’s oldest civilization and one of the most diverse ecologies. The people who inhabit Sindh-Punjab-Pakhtunistan-Baluchistan have been exploited by colonizers, by various leaders, by each other. But we have grown together, over 60-odd years and it’s time we stopped trying to dissociate ourselves from each other and took responsibility instead.

And we’re still at it. Keith Callard wrote in 1957: Pakistanis are a people united by the will to be a nation, but they do not know yet what kind of nation they want to be. I think it’s not too hard to figure out. We want the same things most other people want. Opportunities, fairness, dignity. We disagree on how to get there, and like any other nation will continue to do so. Agreeing on the basic rules takes longer when the odds are stacked against you. And while we often show signs of losing, we also show signs of winning. Again, and again.

We restored an unfairly deposed judiciary. We signed a Charter of Democracy. We vote for jobs and food security, not morality or Shariah. We don’t like Americans telling us what to do, and we don’t fancy Wahabis running our affairs either (did I mention we practice more than seven varieties of Islam?). We got off on a bad start, but like any group of individuals, it doesn’t take literacy or modernity or a particular set of “political values” to make us know our rights and struggle for them.

So how does the great bat-ball fit into all this? Because its one of those spontaneous displays of unity that need no explanation, but is a slap in the face to anyone who thinks we can’t all agree on some things. Cricket is such a simple thing. Kids play it in the street, grown-ups watch it on TV, teenagers wear cheap Zainab market “Shahid” and “Shoaib” jerseys with such pride. Failure on the pitch genuinely saddens us – an attack on the sport itself infuriates everyone. I don’t think the Swat operation would have received the tacit support it did without those attacks on the Sri Lankan cricket team. The Taliban promise to end all that, and more. No more cricket matches. No more men in trousers and t-shirts, no more dancing in the streets. And I think – I hope – that people are beginning to understand what we all stand to lose. I’ve heard a lot of great quotes today, but the one that stayed with me was from a live beeper off the street. Someone dancing in Jinnah Super, Isb, said in the heat of the moment: “Now we will win! We will win against the cricket, and against the terrorism! We will beat the fucking terrorists!”

Ameen, brother. Ameen.

Finally, I cannot possibly top Andrew Miller’s heartfelt and rather poetic piece, but I will say this in reply to his comment that “Chaos can seem at times to be embedded in the Pakistani DNA”:  It is, and we can not escape our legacy. But in the heart of every human being there is courage, and Pakistanis are no different. You may see a dirty war-torn poverty-stricken nation, but it is OUR dirty war torn poverty stricken nation and we deserve the dignity of being given a chance to fight for it. To fight for ourselves, and whatever we choose to make of it.