Adil Najam
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.
Despite acute difference with thoughts and writings of Prof. Adil Najam, I have always held in high esteem his knowledge and capacity to educate the masses (rather than a bunch of net-scholars). Again, while I do not totally agree with his philosophy, I hail his decision to return and work for Pakistan, in whatever capacity.
The major objection I have always had about ATP was the way Islam was being ridiculed, mocked and insulted here. I dont say Prof. Najam did it himself, but the way he has always been presenting the misdeeds of some ill-educated or fanatic members of the society (or in some recent cases proven to be organized by Americans and Indians), it always gave an impression that, not the culprits, but Islam was the target. And this was substantiated with the publishing of several posts (not comments) by people having clear leanings against Islamic thoughts and by those having atheist beliefs.
The other difference I had was the way Prof. Najam has always avoided discussing war on terror, which I call war OF terror. He always ignored the drone attacks killing thousands of Pakistanis as if it was some other country being destroyed. ATP did hundreds of posts on different parts of Pakistan, but I dont recall a single one done on tribal areas. All this made me believe him to be influenced by American interests more than Pakistani and Pakistanis’ interests.
I have and will always admire the interesting and informative posts by Owais Mughal. His writings are never short of research and details. His perfectionist nature is reflected by the fact that he always incorporated the suggestions by commenters as corrections in the main post. If ATP is really shutting down, I will definitely miss his writings.
May Allah bless both of you and all the visitors of ATP with hidayah and toufeeq to do good for yourselves as well as state and people of Pakistan.
Sad by this news. ATP will be missed.
Adil and Owais were obviously the backbone of this blog but it was all the other writers, come of who came and went like MQ and Asma and Darwaish and others that added to the mix and made it such a great cocktail. Thank you to everyone.
Adil and Owais. You have created a national treasure, please do not let it close down. At least make sure that the archive survives.
Adil bhai, nazar utarwa lain.
I have never seen so many Pakistanis saying good things about another Pakistani, unless he is already dead! Hum tou peeth mein churri khobnay waaley loug hain.
Bhai, aap khayal rakhna.
But really, we will miss you very much. Good luck.
Prof. Najam, I am so sad to hear that you will be leaving Boston. I hope the people at the Pakistan university you are going to know just how lucky they are. I was at Tufts when Prof. Najam was teaching there and tried taking his class twice but could never get in because I did not get picked in he lottery (that is how popular his classes were). He was one of the most popular professors even though he had a reputation for being a tough grader. And really it was because everyone recognized what a great human being he is. I remember when I joined I was told that the one professor I must try to take a class with was Prof. Najam, I think he had won the best teacher award the very first year he was there. I am sad that I could never get to be in his class since he left for BU the following year. Maybe now I will have to go to Pakistan to be in his class!