It is so convenient to just look around, obtain some information floating on broadcasting channels, interpret it a bit in your head, and then make your mind. Pakistan is a phenomenon, a story, that almost everyone in the world has interpreted in head. And I tell you, most of it is scarce in truth.
Brandon Stanton, the founder of Humans of New York wrote this final word after he concluded his visit to Pakistan:
I find a relentless truth and completeness in this passage, but I must add to convince my readers.
Pakistan is a land of opportunities and fortune hosted by the one of the most receptive and hospitable population in the world. Being rich in landscape and agriculture is not the only potential that it has, rather it has the world’s smartest minds (Arfa Kareem and Babar Iqbal) to become the youngest Microsoft Certified Professionals of the world. Pakistan has hope that lives amidst violence but never loses to its enemy. Pakistan ahs the spirit to continue to struggle despite a shaky infrastructure, worrisome deficits, and anarchist state-of-affairs.
Here are some other things that would show you a Pakistan from the other side:
Pakistan is the leading manufacturer of handsewn footballs in the world. The cottage industry of Sialkot produces and supplies 40-60 million footballs in a year. This makes an estimated 70% of world’s football production.
Pakistan is the first Islamic country to develop Nuclear power. But the glory doesn’t end here. It is also successfully fighting a defensive war on its own territory to protect its nuclear installations.
Pakistan has the highest paved road in the world. It is the 1300 km long Karakoram Highway from Punjab to Gilgit-Baltistan in Pakistan and then it crosses China to become China National Highway 314.
Pakistan is one of the countries with the fastest growing literacy rate of 58% in the world. Not only Pakistan is educating male students but a change to educate girls is materializing from the grass root level.
Today we have a striking number of women who have proved themselves in their respective fields. Samina Khayal Baig is the first Pakistani woman to climb Mount Everest. We have Tahira Qazi, who embraced martyrdom in an endeavor to protect her students from militants. We also have Rafia Baig — the first lady in our national Bomb Disposal Squad.
We have a democratic government that is accountable before the masses. Despite so much repulsion from invisible hands, we have managed a successful democratic transition of government twice. We also have a powerful judicial and bureaucratic institutions to oversee state affairs.
Moreover, Pakistan ranks eleventh among the world’s strongest militaries. It has a standing army of 6,17,000 frontline personnel armed with 2,924 tanks, 914 aircrafts and 8 submarines. Pakistan is also the biggest contributor in UN peacekeeping missions.
To talk about the airforce, Pakistan bags the credit of producing some of the most skilled and well-trained air force pilots in the world.
People say we are a poor country, but we consider ourselves one of the richest countries of the world in awards and accolades. We have won two Nobel Prize, 2 Oscars, and 3 UN Human Rights Prize.
There is a lot more. We have the seventh largest cluster of Scientists, we have incredible doctors, we are improving awe-strikingly in technology. Pakistan has around half a billion active internet users contributing in the advancement of the country.
Our media is free and strong. A large number of our students are becoming journalists and social workers to help promote a safer and better coexistence. Every year, we are becoming better with more and more NGOs celebrating the completion of their driving objective.
In the face of all such positive distinctions, are you justified in thinking of Pakistan as a violent, poor, and backward nation?
