My first piece for Dawn was an overwhelming experience for me.  I still see myself as an artist, not a writer, so I am delighted that my words have an impact too. The post was about media perceptions from both inside and outside Pakistan. Within a very short space of time my inbox overflowed with thoughts and encouragement, but only a handful really responded to my request for newsworthy stories that demonstrate resilience rather than disaster. 

A few glimmers of ideas are forming – and I promise to follow up each and every one of them. Sport, India/Pakistan cooperation, health, science, are all areas I have been asked to look into, and I have already started some research. I have argued that there is no such thing as an “ultimate truth”, but a level of accuracy has to be attained before I commit words and offer you at least a layer of truth.

But some readers missed the point and slid quickly into a negative rhetoric, picking up only on the fact that I was slamming Pakistan’s media. I had messages from people who launched further written attacks and embarked on yet more verbal Pakistan bashing. The usual stuff; no sense of unity; all hope is lost; and many let me know that the tribal areas in Pakistan are particularly nasty. Sigh. If a friend of mine hadn’t already done it, I would have jumped on a plane there and then and pointed my camera straight at the Tora Bora. There be humans there too.

Others missed the point that felt I was about to reveal “the truth” about Pakistan. I’m really not. I’m not a doctor diagnosing an illness – I’m a holistic healer trying to encourage a whole body solution. It’s not about a single truth, it’s about lots of truths, it’s about another face – one of a great many.

We have been staring at the face of terrorism and corruption for so long, it’s become distorted, and we have become myopic. If I could compare my writing to that of an art movement, it would be cubism – which, in no way attempts to present a reality or “truth”, it simply looks at life from more than one view point in order to represent the subject in greater context.

A dangerous business

Others, very offered some very valuable thoughts on investigative journalism and it’s role in uncovering corruption in Pakistan. Perhaps, because I live in Britain where the media is prone to taking on the role of an unelected opposition and embark on ruthless attacks on anything at all that our politicians or our government (and the last government) do, I appear to have undervalued the role the Pakistani journalist plays in exposing the country’s ills.

It is a shame there are not more independent organisations in place in Pakistan to address these ills and that it is left to the media to take on this highly dangerous mission. So, yes, I take my hat off to every journalist in Pakistan who is committed to a better Pakistan. Your business is a dangerous one, a crucial one, but it is essentially about balance, and good journalism sees things from more than one perspective.

The problem with Pakistan is….

This week I attended a short seminar entitled, “The Future of Pakistan”. London is home to many such events. Pakistan is high on the UK government’s agenda – a country of geopolitical strategic interest, nuclear armed, and poised to become Britain’s biggest aid recipient. Experts flock to share ideas. Consultants congregate to see if there is any money to be made. The event sometimes includes someone promoting a book they have written about Pakistan (this time it was Anatol Lieven’s turn); and a panel of speakers each giving their diagnosis of “what the problem with Pakistan is…”  

Conversation continues as various notable commentators – usually with an ex-Ambassador thrown in for good measure – pick apart the nation. They talk politics, military, relations with Afghanistan, China, India, Iran, religion, gender-issues. Sorry intakes of breath as the thoughts on the devastating floods are uttered. Heads move slowly from side to side, when someone mentions the dreaded letters “ISI”. The word “revolution” is used more than once, and not in a positive way – there is no real talk of potential for positive change. An audience of like-minded people will nod and thank the panel before making similar verbal offerings. 

The event this week, surpassed all others as the panel in question tried to “out-do” each other with negativity. But it was a British peer who took this week’s prize for being the most ruthlessly negative about the country of her birth. “My view of Pakistan, I’m not ashamed to say is quite bleak” quipped Baroness Kishwer Falkner. Anatol retorted – “but my book is pretty bleak in places too!” I quietly got up and left the room.

Failed

It’s not that I don’t want to understand Pakistan’s problems, it’s just that I refuse to approach the country as if it is a hopeless, “failed state”. I’m not sure even how useful it is to rank failed states. It feels uncomfortable that a “Fund for Peace” should issue such a list. Pakistan ranks at number 12, since you asked. 

It’s considered more failed than Yemen. But then maybe if Germany had been assessed after the Second World War it would have been pretty high up on the failed state list. Its economy was destroyed, cities were flattened by hefty bomb damage, and over six million Germans were dead including their radical and violently extreme leader found in a ditch with a bullet in his brain. But it only took a relatively short time before Germany was back on its feet; doing business with former enemies, raising its economy, and having global influence once more. 

So I would challenge anyone, whether they are Pakistani or not, who assess Pakistan as “bleak” or “failed”.  In my attempts to squeeze dramatic engaging news stories from a nation of 180 million, I’m not really looking for a post-Bin Laden Marshall Plan, but simply an exploration of potential, opportunity and stories of a resilience nation that I know exists. Keep the messages coming. More of them.