Today – June 11, 2011 – All Things Pakistan turns five years old!

Today, sitting in Lahore, Pakistan, I write in the realization that it is now time to move on.

This is not a ‘Good Bye’ post – it is, in fact, a ‘Thank You’ post. Nor do I want this to be a ‘looking back’ post – I would much rather that it be a ‘looking forward’ post.

For me personally, it is time to move back to Pakistan. For ATP, the blog, it is time to turn off the lights.

Five years ago we set out with the mild ambition to have a conversation with a few friends on all things Pakistan – from the profound to the trivial. What followed was a more intense, more engaged, more elaborate, and more fulfilling conversation than we could have ever imagined. Well above 10 million visits later, it is now time to move on.

But we promise that we have no intention to tune out. We know that this conversation will continue. This was never our conversation, it was yours. We intend to keep listening in. We hope you will let us do so in all the myriad forms and formats that have now become available for this exploration of our Pakistaniat – our Pakistaniness – to thrive. We have chronicled our own story and evolution in our posts (the ATP Credo, the Tangay Walla post, 1st anniversary post, 2nd anniversary post, 3rd anniversary post, who reads Pakistaniat post, 4th anniversary post) and now is not the time to repeat those arguments or even to look back.

I can say with some pride and great joy that we have had some small part in the construction of an important conversation. It has not always been an easy conversation. Our national predicaments have made it an often sad and occasionally angry conversation. But it remains a vibrant – and vital – conversation. We hope that in these five years ATP has contributed some to this conversation, and has contributed to it positively.

So, today, I write in gratitude. Thank you for your companionship. Thank you for your patience. Thank your for dropping by. Thank you for making this your own. Today, we are happy in the knowledge that the conversations we had wanted to seed are thriving. Technology has provided an array of new formats – from facebook to twitter and beyond. There is a mushrooming of blogs and formats, and we hope that in some small way we have contributed to them. We know we have thrived and found sustenance (and ideas) in this new and bold world of Pakistan’s Blogistan. We thank our blogging colleagues, our many many writers, and our even more many readers for the excitement they have added to our lives.

I realize that the timing of this will lead many of conclude that it has something to do with my own move. While the two are not unrelated, they are actually less related than you might think. It was, in fact, back in November 2010, that Owais Mughal and I had decided that we would do this on this date and in this manner. Owais had already moved to Singapore and my own professional commitments had begun to mount. We did not wish to end with a whimper nor just fade out abruptly. Five years seemed like a good innings to both of us. Let me take this moment to thank Owais for his support and companionship. More than anyone else he has made ATP possible and allowed it to last this long. Without him, it would have faded long ago. And without him it would have been not just a lonelier but also a much less interesting journey. Thank you, Owais, my friend. Thank you for everything! (As an aside, I should add that Owais and I had never met until fairly recently and for years ran this together without even having met – such is the magic in Blogistan).

Do I have regrets – yes, but too few too mention. I wish we had written fewer obituaries. I wish we had not had to talk about national angst and tragedies as much as we had to. I wish we more time to write all the posts that remain unwritten in our personal lists – more pleasant things than those that were floating in the daily headlines. Yes, I do also wish that some of our readers had been a little more kind to us and to each other in their comments – but, I also realize that we live in unkind times and the viciousness of our environs can sometimes seep into our own language and thoughts. More than anything else, I wish the unkindness of our times will become less, allowing us to be a little more considerate to each other than we sometimes seem to be.

Good byes, they say, should never be long. But this is not a good bye. So, until we meet again, dear friends, take care; khiyal rakhna.

There is much – way too much – that is going terribly wrong in Pakistan. But not all is lost. Not just yet.

One must never deny that which is going wrong. Indeed, to accept and acknowledge it is itself the first step towards finding ways to reverse the wrong. But nor should one forget that which may be going right. So, what do you think are things that are going right in Pakistan? (Please, keep your cynicism to yourself – it is neither funny nor useful).

Let me give you a very preliminary and a very arbitrary list of five. These are not in order of priority, nor indeed are they the most important five. They are just five things that came quickly to mind. Trivial as they may sound to some, what is important is that each is a sign of societal strength, not of the state’s weakness. Each, therefore, is a sign of hope.

#1. Music. No, I am not joking. Pakistani music is going through an age of amazing innovation and a passionate embrace of all that is socially meaningful. But that, in fact, is not why I list it here. To me the richness of Pakistan’s music scene – here, here, here, here, here, here and everywhere – signifies that innovation is alive and kicking, in fact, thriving. The innovative spirit embedded in today’s music is what is going so very right in Pakistan, and so very worth celebrating.

#2. Media. We at ATP have bashed the media when it over-steps, over-does and over-reaches as anyone else. We believe that is deserved because there is much to be rightly bashed. But there is much more that deserves to be celebrated. Overall, and despite all that needs to be improved, media independence in Pakistan has been a force for the good. It has also often been a force of courage. The media has not just found its voice, it has given voice to society – the good as well as the bad, but a voice that neither relents nor can be silenced any more.

#3. Youth. That Pakistan is a youthful country is a legitimate demographic concern but also the most powerful potential for societal change in Pakistan. But that is a game of numbers and speculation. What is going right with the youth in Pakistan is not that there are so many of them. It is that so many of them are so very active and engaged in the redefinition of all sorts of social contracts. This is not an unconcerned and unconnected youth. This is a youth that is alive with passion and activism. That passion and activism may sometimes come in flavors we do not like, but this is not an indifferent youth. This is a youth that will make a difference.

#4. Resilience. It is sad that the resilience of this people has been tested as often and in as many ways as it has. At one level, the people of this country have no option but to be resilient. But beyond the resilience for survival is the resilience from an indigenous entrepreneurship. Earthquakes. IDPs. Floods. Pakistanis have lived through these not only with a spirit of philanthropy, but with a spirit of entrepreneurship. It is resilience as an expression of the entrepreneurship of survival that is going right. If only we could find a way to convert entrepreneurship for survival into entrepreneurship for growth.

#5. Responsibility. This is the one I will probably get flak for. But if I am right on this then this may be the most important. The fact that we now hear and read so much about not taking enough responsibility for our own actions instead of forever seeking ‘outside’ hands and conspiracies is itself a sign that times have changed. When the pathology of denial was at its peak, no one would dare talk about that pathology. We have not yet fully turned the corner and there are too many who are too eager to divert, deflect and deny. But the tenor of the national conversation today is not a conversation of denial, but one of taking responsibility. It is an uncomfortable conversation for exactly that reason. And for the very same reason, it is also a much more relevant and important conversation for all of our futures. It is a conversation that is, indeed, going right.

My list is longer. My faith in this society and this people is stronger. Even as there is so much around us that is cause for despair, there is also that which must be a cause for hope. Now, you tell us, please, what you think is going right in Pakistan?

This graphic video of the brutal murder of 19 year of Sarfraz Shah being confronted and shot dead by Rangers – supposedly because he was a robber refusing to surrender – is only the latest in a string of state and societal resort to violence that makes one wonder if we have gone totally mad: Lynchings in Sialkot, disappearances and killings in Balochistan, shaming of protesters in Rawalpindi, vigilante justice in Karachi, shootings over load-shedding in Multan, bombings of shrines in Lahore, slaying of a woman Minister in Gujranwala, slaughter of a Christian Minister in Islamabad, and a culture of anger and a validation of violence everywhere, including and most horrendously by those who are supposed to be the custodians of our safety and security.

We are including the graphic video of the brutal murder of Sarfraz Shah, but after the ‘fold’. Reader discretion is required. But if you can bear to watch it, then do so. Because it is well past time that we stop ignoring the rot that threatens our every pore.

What can one do except hold ones head in shame and sadness, and ask oneself: Have we gone totally mad?

Despite the anger and angst that swells within each vein, I would like to believe that we have not. I still believe in Pakistan and Pakistanis. Maybe I do so because I have no option but to believe so. But more than that I do so because I know that even though the insanity is all around me, there is even more disgust and dismay at this insanity. But it is no longer enough to show disgust and dismay. We must speak up – as so many actually are. And that is because I believe that we still have it within ourselves to rise against and reject this violence. If we do not, then who will?