According to BBC the flood affected area of Pakistan at present is equal to the area of England. Thousands of people have lost their lives, millions of dollars of infrastructure and property have been washed away and hundreds of thousands of Pakistanis are homeless begging for the aid. Children are dying due to malnutrition and there is a very high risk of spreading of waterborne diseases.
The head of the United Nations, Ban Ki Moon, visited the flood affected areas and declared that the damage is more disastrous than the Indian Ocean Tsunami of 2004 and the earth quake of South East Asia (which affected Pakistan severely also) in 2005, together. He has called for more help from the international community for the people of Pakistan under this helpless condition.
Pakistani troops are helping their countrymen with a high morale; they evacuated many families from the flood in boats. But still there are a lot of people not willing to leave their homes; they are staying at the roof top of the schools or the highest buildings of their village or town.
Under this situation of catastrophe although the foreign aid is coming in and a lot has been committed also, but the other side of coin is bitter and painful. I was browsing through different websites particularly of the news channels and I found a pulse of hatred among the international community. There were some comments under one of the related stories of CNN which said that the people of Pakistan deserve this disaster and it is due to the extremists produced by the country. People making such comments used the references from history that Indian subcontinent was invaded several time by Muslim conquerors and the local Hindus were converted to Islam by force during different time spans of these foreign invaders. Talibans are the latest Muslim extremists as has been portrayed by the international media. Pakistan suffering from this natural disaster and fighting against the terrorist within its borders has been sandwiched in a number of problems at the moment. If international community thinks that Pakistan deserves this situation as it is a Muslim country which produces terrorists as being Muslim means a terrorist then I am sorry to say that this is not a justified statement.
The nuclear capability of Pakistan which is for self defense of the country against the powerful neighbouring state is actually the bone of contention for the international media. This is the reason that audience / viewers / readers of international media talk about Pakistan brutally. Pakistanis have been facing the consequences of war against terrorism in many folds which includes the suicide bombing and the drone attacks at the civilians, now it is the natural disaster but the international community should realize that this war against terrorism cannot be won without the help of Islamic Republic of Pakistan, so the Pakistanis should not be looked down upon.
This nation will recover from the natural disaster sooner or later but the LABEL on the country as a 'land of terrors' is purely foreigner and Pakistanis need to wash away that like the flood washed away their homes, landmarks, farms and infrastructure.
According to a spokes person on the news, recently stated that, the avg donation when the earth quake came was around 1600$ approx whereas, in the floods, it was just 16$ per person.
ReplyDeletePakistan/Pakistani's sure made some mistake from 2005 to 2010 !