Divanee – South Asian news and entertainment

‘But if he must, the man remains fearless.
Alone before god, simplicity keeps him safe.
He needs no weapons and no cunning,
As long as God’s absence comes to his aid.’
- Hölderlin

Warning: This is not going to be one of those feel good pieces, that carry the message of hope, patting oneself on the back for making a difference. If you are looking for a restoration of faith, I highly recommend you close this page now.

I am Pakistani, by birth, nature, nurture, and depth of my empathy to the motherland. I’ve lived away half my life, but Pakistan has always been home, always will be, and I pray to God that the future generations live to see again what this country was to me growing up.

Pakistan is of epic strategic importance to the region, with vast mineral and agricultural resources, culturally rich, and full of diverse and joyous people. The spoken word, political debate, cultural genesis, historical richness and human capital make us distinct.

However, in the last three years, we’ve gone from a survivor nation to a crumbling cookie. If it’s not internal discontent, it’s political dysfunction, or natural disaster that’s shaking us at the root, and threatening to destroy a nation built on the promise of giving a secular home to Muslims and other religions. Don’t get me wrong, I know Pakistan has never seen too much stability, but now we seem to be spiraling into self-destruct.

What exactly went wrong? I can’t even begin to list all the predicaments of my nation right now. What I did know is that it was time to go back and see if anything can be done.

What has been my experience so far? Massive community mobilization, but absolute zero governance. There is no central reigning authority, the army fills in the gaps where it can, but last we checked, they weren’t in power. In fact we keep throwing them out every few years, in the name of democracy.

The scenarios on which I’ll be basing the flood series are personal experiences of working with flood affectees, and a number of organizations and citizens—who have emerged in the vacuum of governmental and political presence in the nation—and the issues we are facing in trying to mobilize funds, garner global attention, and resolving logistical nightmares internally.

First stop: Tangi, Khbyer Pakhtoonkhwa with SAYA Trust.

When the floods first hit, I was visiting my other hometown of New York. It wasn’t until I returned to Toronto and started noticing my Facebook thread about floods in Pakistan that I became aware of the devastation that had hit this Monsoon season. How had the media not noticed this? How had I, a rabid reader, not picked up on this?

After the initial shock of being forgotten yet again, the response was immediate and automated. After some fundraising in Toronto, collecting tents and medicines, and wrangling with PIA to get the goods to Pakistan, it became apparent that the thing to do was head home, and work hands-on.

I landed here proverbially with two changes of clothes, some chocolates for my niece and a suitcase full of relief goods.

We had heard that water purifying tablets were in short supply, as were medications for waterborne diseases. Ironically, most of the water purifying kits I brought back were made in Pakistan…just not available here.

Along with several family members who run SAYA, we took those supplies for a medical camp we would set up in the villages around Charsadda. Even though our host family had indicated that no medicines had reached Tangi, once there we found a medical relief camp already set up. Duplicitous efforts are typical of a country where there is no coordinated effort, or overseeing body. In fact in all my time here, the salient feature is a missing government. All relief efforts are coordinated by the army and the community, which is not willing to let the country go down the drain.

Nonetheless we were here, and since we had a number of female doctors who volunteered to come along for this trip, we were in a unique position of being able to provide assistance to a number of women who had not gone to the other medical relief camp, because it primarily comprised of male doctors.

So we set up camp, and in poured a volley of malnourished women and children displaying open sores and complaining of fevers and aches. The hundreds of packets of infant formula were gone in seven minutes flat. So were the shoes. We had to fight off the swarms of the needy. It was hot and we were all fasting, and the push and pull, nearly made me faint. Were these flood affectees? Or is the poverty just so atrocious?

“Please,” many of them begged, “Give me something for strength.”

Where would we find magic strength pills? We gave them as much vitamin and nutritional supplements as we could. But how does one explain to them, that they need to take their quinine, and rub ointments on their sores, and not scratch and infect their mosquito bites? How does one explain that they cannot save the shoes we are giving them for Eid, but must wear them now or they would pick up infections? How do you explain the importance of clean water, when it’s never really been had?

How do you save a people already so devastated by every day life, that a flood is just par for the course of the treachery of life for those living far below the poverty line? Reconstruction is but a dream in a country still rehabilitating victims of the 2005 Earthquake, and internal displacement due to the ongoing insurgencies in Swat and Waziristan.

Perhaps the folk wisdom of “Allah Malik hai” (God is the Lord of all) has some truth to it, because when there is no one in charge, having faith in God is the only opiate.