The content of this post is based on the discussions I had during the Barbeque on beach yesterday. I had a talk with some four people and each of this chats has left me amazed how different and interesting the country is… I will try to make You understand the opinions and my feelings while listening to these people.
The first thing is Pakistanis have a short term thinking. If You look carefully, You will see the proofs everywhere. There were two moments that made this clear during this trip. The beach house was rather dump and had visible steps of decay, when I asked about it I was told that its one of the best ones on the beach, why? “It was not built to last, its just some companies or rich people building them so they have where to spend a weekend from time to time.” The other moment was when it was desert time, the desert was a traditional thing, something like sweet milk-rice in a clayware shell (shaped like UFO). After they ate the (delicious) content, they just threw away (literally, practicing “target shooting”) the shells in the trash can. When I asked about this, I was told that there is not other use for them and they are cheap anyways.
After You accept this fact, You can see it in the political system, where the goal is to get there and get “bundled up”, in their custom to throw the trash out of window (birds or poor people will take about it), on the streets, where everything looks old and not taken care about (once You build something, You stop thinking about it, why clean it? it anyways gets dirty by dust…).
Why is this so interesting? Example: At the shells issue, I was asked what would we (Slovaks) do with them (as they have no other usage). Well, we would not even make this kind of disposable package on first place. Mostly because Slovaks are tought on exactly the opposite: “spare, care, dont throw away” The reason? I think Slovaks have been tought to be like this because they never had enough to waste (poor since the birth of the nation), we have never been our own masters untill 1993. (Most) Pakistanis are very poor even now so why dont they behave similar? Why are they concerned only with what they personally need and the rest, bye… Well, Pakistanis are very proud and before the British came, they were the ultimate masters of whole Indian subcontiment. Might be this difference that cause this antimony?
What it brings? One of the very visible impacts of this is that You can see 100 or 200 years old buildings fall apart. You see that the national museum has not changed since it was built and only thing they do is wash away the dust (sometimes)… I have a serious concern that this country will not have a single remembrance of the last 200 years, it will just all fall into ash. They even have an explanation – we want to get rid of our colonial heritage (proud people, as I said before). But in a country where English often is second native language its quite ridicolous. No NGO or GO that would aim on preserving Pakistani heritage was known to the people I have talked to. To finish it up, TV and media show only the dark side of Pakistan, nobody makes picture of the beautiful places (that are slowly dissappearing).
What kind of record will have children of the todays children of the world we live in?
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