Did Iqbal Say This?

Posted on March 6, 2007
Filed Under >Adil Najam, Education, Health & Disease
12 Comments
Total Views: 23456

Adil Najam

I was thinking of making this an ATP Quiz, but that would be wrong because I really do not know the answer to this. So, the headline here is an honest question. Any takes?

My own guess – based just on the idiom of the quotation – is that he did not. Although he may well have thought this, or even said something quite similar.

My first thought on seeing this was to think of the comments made on this site; and those not made. But since I have recently written about those frustrations, let me not do so again. Suffice to say, whether Iqbal said this or not, its a thought worth sharing.

The picture was sent to us by a reader who took it at Abbottabad’s Kingston School for Deaf and Speech Impaired Children. That, of course, makes the subject of what we choose to say, and what we do not, all the more poignant.

I do not know why the school is called ‘Kingston’, and would love to find out. From what I have heard about the school, however, it seems to be doing good work in an area where we need to do so much more. Indeed, there is so much happening in so many places that gives one hope for a better future.

Too much of this, however, is too often drowned out in the noise of sarcasm that emanates from the perpetual cynics and the cosmetic naara baazi of patriotic tamashbeen. It is always good, therefore, to remind ourselves of the good work being done out there: one kid, one school, one step at a time.

12 responses to “Did Iqbal Say This?”

  1. Ragheb Alama says:

    iqbal’s…

    Interesting post. I came across this blog by accident, but it was a good accident. I have now bookmarked your blog for future use. Best wishes. Ragheb Alama Website Team….

  2. Aqil Sajjad says:

    The quote in the picture also reminds one of some other thoughts/questions that often come to mind.

    Why are Pakistanis so polarized? Our discussions on politics often tend to degenerate into heated exchanges, extreme opinions are more to be found, while Down to earth voices often get drowned in the noise. How is this to be explained?

    Also, at times I wonder how much of the foreign influence on our national discourse is positive. I am certainly not an isolationist, we should learn good things from other societies by all means. However, identification of our problems and solutions should mainly be inspired by our own independent thought rather than resulting from what others would like us to think about ourselves. Sometimes it seems that we Pakistanis get too much gratituous input on our internal problems from outsiders who have their own biases and/or vested interests, and our educated and English speaking elite (all of us at ATP included) is at times more in touch with the rest of the world than our own fellow Pakistanis. The gap between the haves and have-nots has not only created an economic apartheid, but also that of worldviews. There are several different Pakistans, and they all have very different experiences, issues, outlooks and languages, very badly disconnected from each other, with very little effort being made to bring them closer.

    PS: Naveed, thanks for copying the quote in the picture.

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