I WRITE today to ask the generations that came before me a few fundamental questions. This paper stands shoulder to shoulder in the weight of editorials with the finest in the region, a bastion of the left, a flaming beacon in an otherwise darkened intellectual space. It is in English, the language of exclusion, the mark of education in a society that answered colonisation by colonising what was left of its own fabric.

I want to know why people who watch television shows do not hesitate to label an anchor a ‘Jewish agent’ when they disagree with them. I want to know why, on public forums, they consider themselves within their rights to abuse each other to the point of vulgarity.

I want to know why there is a poverty of intellect in debate and public intercourse. Why behind every disadvantage there is an Indian conspiracy and behind every disagreement an American design.

I want to know why there is an inherent hypocrisy in our social fabric.

I want to know how you allowed Maududi to became the godfather of Pakistan, I want to know how Jinnah became a religious visionary in our history books. I want to know how you allowed for Zia.

I want to know why the police that I pay for with my taxes treats me like an immigrant in a xenophobic regime. I want to know why the children of today are being taught by uneducated flunkies who helped vote in the current government, why our only Nobel laureate has been erased from our history.

I want to know why Mahmud Ghaznavi is a hero, why Mohammad bin Qasim’s death was celebrated on the streets of Baghdad and not by naming a port after him.

I want to know why Salmaan Taseer died, I want to know why Mumtaz Qadri lives.

I want to know where exactly in my genealogy did I become Arab, and how it is a higher race and a purer breed. Where exactly was I supposed to start identifying with a race of people that seek to distance themselves from me as much as possible? I want to know who ‘we’ is when you teach me that ‘we’ conquered Spain.

I want to know why it is wrong to call Allah ‘Khuda’, why it is saintly to grow my beard and to show my ankles and to leave religion at that.

A. M. JAFERII Karachi