Happy Independence Day!

We have made it into 63rd year of our existence. Our journey has been far from perfect but one thing we have proved along the way is our ability to bounce back and do the unthinkables when we decide to do them.







(Image: Celebrations of Independence Day in Mingora, Swat)

We have managed to root-out an internal insurgency bigger than many in the world in less than 3 months.
We succeeded in bringing back home our brethren who had to flee from their homes because of militants in only a matter of weeks.
We succeeded in producing statesmen par excellence who have charmed the world with their eloquence, smartness and vision.
We are at the fore-front of a renaissance in the near-East.
Despite all odds, all propaganda, we have succeeded in establishing that we want to be a democracy and a republic, we have made 4 dictators run and get buried in the sands of time.
We succeeded in being the 7th nuclear power in the world.
A countryman named Abdus Salam managed to be a Nobel laureate in his cutting-edge research in quantum physics.

We are a nation of extra ordinary resilience, marred by a skeptic class of urban educated elements (who unfortunately control major avenues of public discourse i.e. media). This class has resisted every single change from advent of loud speaker to space shuttle. It laughed at cell phones. It resisted satellite television, internet, and every modern innovation and yet was cozy in using them shamelessly when the merits became clear. The representatives of this class told us that Swatis are fed up with the Pakistani system and need Taliban and the celebration of independence day of Republic of Pakistan in Swat by Swatis is a slap on their faces for contrary to their propaganda, Pakistanis want liberation, democracy and modernity.

My countrymen, let the regressive thinkers bark, and let us move on. For our genesis is not in being skeptic but in being daring enough to welcome any change. For no change is powerful enough not to be channelized by us. We are not made to fear change but the ones who should shout loudest "Bring it on!". We are ready for every change and we are ready to make the best use of it. We want to move on, move forward towards modernity, liberation, progress and evolution. We are agents of change and not the victims of it.

You regressionists, keep barking, for we are moving on and the time has come for the idea of a Pakistani Republic standing side by side with the modern world. A society based on tolerance, democracy, rational thinking and modernity - World here we come! Losers, either join us or be left out.