Owais Mughal and Adil Najam

From all of us at Pakistaniat.com, and on behalf of all our readers too, we wish these two children in the photograph a wonderful New Year and a prosperous and peaceful 2011. May all their cherished dreams come true. May their fondest hopes bear fruit. May they always be filled with wonderment. May their fantasies become realities. May their realities be strewn with smiles.

We dedicate our new year post this year to the hopes, the dreams, the khawahishaat, the aspirations of not just these two children, but of all children, and indeed of all Pakistan. Yours and our own. May this be the year defined not by the pall and disdain of our fears, but by the sunshine and enthusiasm of our hopes. Aameen.

Adil Najam and Owais Mughal

As a salute to what they have gone through in 2010 and in prayers for how the events of 2010 will influence their – and thereby our – futures, we at All Things Pakistan feel that a most worthy choice for the Pakistan Person of the Year 2010 are the children of the great floods of 2010.

Adil Najam

Another momentous year, in what has been a momentous decade for Pakistan, comes to an end. Indeed, more than momentous, both the year and the decade were tumultuous. Whatever they were I wish the year, and the decade, had been just a little less so.

If I have a wish for 2011 it is that it be everything that 2010 was not.

That it be un-noteworthy. That it be politically boring. That it be uninteresting. That it is unremarkable. That it be unexciting. That it be undramatic. That it is not spent on the very edge of the edge. And, above all, that it be calm. A year when at least for a few moments Pakistanis can just sit back and relax – take a deep breath to calm their nerves – without having to worry about how everything might turn upside down the very next moment. A year that we can all go about our lives without forever hanging on the brink, and that too by a thread. A year when the world thinks little about us, and we think about the world even less. Now, is that too much to ask for?

In past years we have had ATP Polls on predictions for the following year (predictions for 2010, predictions for 2009) but the results have been far from stellar: In 2008, 41% of our readers thought that the PPP government would not survive the year and in 2009, 53% thought that Mr. Zardari would not be the President at the end of 2010. So, rather than set a menu of propositions for you to choose from, this year we would like you to make your predictions for 2011 and maybe we can revisit them in a years time – or even earlier!

What is your wish for 2011? And what is your prediction?