Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Birth and Death: Afghanistan's Struggles with Maternal Mortality
By JOANNA KAKISSIS / KABUL Tuesday, Oct. 11, 2011
Salamudin, 36, center, waits at a pharmacy in the Afghan town of Bamiyan on May, 30, 2011, with his wife Bakhtawar, 22, and their 1-year-old son Surodin. Salamudin allowed his wife to give birth in a hospital
Ted Richardson
When Fawzia went into labor with her fifth child, she knew something was wrong. She felt like her insides were being ripped apart by knives. She bled so much that her clothes were soaked. "I did not want to die," recalls Fawzia, 25, who, like many rural Afghans, only uses one name. "I prayed and hoped the pain would go away. But when it didn't, I asked to go to a hospital."
Fawzia, an ethnic Hazara from Jaghori district in the volatile center-east province of Ghazni, had never been to a hospital, and says she had no idea where to find one. She had given birth to her other children at home, and the closest clinic is a two-hour drive away. When she got there, the staff said they couldn't help her. Go to Kabul, they said. It took another 10 hours to drive to Rabia Balkhi, a women's hospital in central Kabul that offers free services to impoverished women.
By then, Fawzia had lost so much blood that doctors were worried she wouldn't make it. Dr. Taiba Motaqi, 30, a resident in obstetrics, knew right away that the young woman had a ruptured uterus. The complication is rare among pregnant women in the developed world, but it kills many Afghan women each year. Fawzia underwent an emergency C-section, a common procedure at Rabia Balkhi Hospital. "Women come here with problems like this at the very last minute," Dr. Motaqi says. "We have to work quickly to save them."
When Fawzia got married 10 years ago, the Taliban were still running Afghanistan, and women's rights were at a nadir. Most women gave birth at home, and the few who managed to venture to hospitals often discovered that the facilities were understaffed and lacked equipment and medicine. In late 2001, the U.S.-led military campaign pushed the Taliban out of power, and since then, millions of dollars in U.S. and foreign aid have gone to help build clinics and hospitals and train health workers. It was supposed to be a new beginning for Afghan women marginalized by the Taliban's brutal and theocratic rule. But a decade later, Afghanistan still ranks as the worst country in the world to be a mother.
About 18,000 Afghan women die during childbirth every year, says the Afghan Health Ministry. According to a recent report by the NGO Save the Children, Afghanistan ranked as the worst place to give birth, followed by Niger and Chad. In these countries, 60% of all births are not attended to by skilled health professionals. On average, about 1 in 23 mothers are expected to die from pregnancy-related causes. Children also die young and suffer from malnutrition, and education for girls is poor.
Often the challenge is just getting women to hospitals. Rural Afghans, even in relatively progressive provinces like Bamiyan in central Afghanistan, are suspicious or dismissive of doctors. In the town of Bamiyan, the main hospital has a new maternity ward. But head midwife Sediqa Hosseini says many of the 25 beds in the ward are often empty. On a recent summer afternoon, Hosseini, a tiny, serious woman in a baby blue headscarf, greets the 12 women who have checked in. One is Fatima, a 25-year-old farmer's wife. "When Fatima arrived, her baby was coming out shoulder first," Hosseini says. "She had to have a C-section. Without help, both of them would have died."
Fatima says her husband took her to the hospital when her labor became so painful that she was doubled over. Hosseini says few husbands would have done the same. Many rural men prefer to pray with a mullah to cure illnesses, she says. "They believe this is more reliable than medicine." As she breast-feeds her newborn daughter, Fatima says she wouldn't have gone if it had not been for a community-health worker who told her hospitals are safe and free.
Adding to the problem is that rural Afghan women are also conservative, and some are ashamed of being pregnant because it's a public acknowledgement of sex with their spouses, says Gulpari, a midwife in Bamiyan's remote Sayghan district. Sayghan is a dusty, wind-lashed stretch of bare mountains, cratered dirt roads and some 60-odd villages of compact mud huts. Gulpari lives in the village of Khudadadkhel, where she works at the small, understaffed Sayghan clinic that mostly treats stomach ailments and lung diseases.
Most of Sayghan district's residents are Tajiks who are Sunni and far more conservative than Bamiyan's main ethnic group, the Shi'ite Hazara. Hazara women were liberated enough to take up arms against the Taliban in the 1990s. The Tajik women rarely leave their homes, Gulpari says, but she's managed to convince some of them to let her help them when they give birth at home. "In 15 years, I've never lost a mother," she says.
Gulpari says she decided to do this work when she was a girl and watched a relative who was a midwife help a scared young woman give birth to her first child. She began apprenticing while the Taliban was running Afghanistan, and many men threatened her for doing what they deemed "dirty work." Now she says even conservative men in her village accept the value of what she does. The Community Midwife Education Program, financed by the U.S. Agency for International Development, has trained thousands of rural Afghan women to work as midwives, according to a recent report by the Council of Foreign Relations think tank.
But in many rural areas, there is still a shortage of midwives — Gulpari says she's only one of four midwives for at least 40,000 people in the area. "I'm not fooling myself," she says. "There are so many women, probably thousands, that I don't see. That I will never see. Some live in ravines deep in the mountains that take days to get to because you can only go by foot or donkey. I'll never know what happens to them."
Even women like Fawzia, the young mother from Ghazni, who are determined enough to get to urban hospitals, face other problems. Many hospitals don't have the money to stock medicine and instead send patients to street markets to buy drugs that are often fake or mislabeled, says Dr. Faizullah Kakar, an epidemiologist and special adviser on health to Afghan President Hamid Karzai. "Even if they are the right drugs, it wastes time to go out and buy them," says the doctor, who has worked with U.S. doctors who trained staff at Kabul's Rabia Balkhi Hospital. The Afghan Safe Birth Project, funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, has helped reduce deaths during C-sections at the hospital by 80% between 2008 and '10 by providing medicines as well as good training, says Dr. Kakar. The project at Rabia Balkhi was supposed to be a model for other Afghan women's hospitals to follow. But in April, the U.S. government cut the program's $5.8 million annual funding, and Dr. Kakar says the Afghan government doesn't have the money to keep it going. By October, the hospital will no longer be able to buy medicine. "I'm worried we will once again have an epidemic of mothers dying here," he says.
The doctor is also worried about what the budget cuts will mean for Afghan infants. In 2008, UNICEF reported that 52 out of every 1,000 Afghan infants died within the first two weeks of birth. That's a rate 10 times higher than in the U.S.
More than 22,000 babies are born in Rabia Balkhi Hospital every year. Dr Motaqi, the resident in obstetrics, isn't married and doesn't have children of her own, but the shy, intense doctor often visits the hospital's neonatal unit, which smells like rubbing alcohol and powder. There are healthy babies there, but on a recent afternoon she stops near a boy who is tiny and almost still. His skin is tinged blue, and he flutters his eyelids, which are crusty with dried tears. Dr. Motaqi clasps his miniature hand between her thumb and forefinger. "He was born too soon, and he came out the wrong way," she sighs. "He's going to die."
The doctor walks back to Fawzia, the mother from Ghazni province, who lost her son on the drive to the hospital. "I felt him stop moving," Fawzia says, curled up in her hospital bed. She's sleepy from the anesthesia. Dr. Motaqi sits on the edge of Fawzia's bed and tries to manage a smile.
— With reporting by Karim Sharifi / Kabul; Moneer Nyazi / Bamiyan
TIME MAGAZINE
Ted Richardson
When Fawzia went into labor with her fifth child, she knew something was wrong. She felt like her insides were being ripped apart by knives. She bled so much that her clothes were soaked. "I did not want to die," recalls Fawzia, 25, who, like many rural Afghans, only uses one name. "I prayed and hoped the pain would go away. But when it didn't, I asked to go to a hospital."
Fawzia, an ethnic Hazara from Jaghori district in the volatile center-east province of Ghazni, had never been to a hospital, and says she had no idea where to find one. She had given birth to her other children at home, and the closest clinic is a two-hour drive away. When she got there, the staff said they couldn't help her. Go to Kabul, they said. It took another 10 hours to drive to Rabia Balkhi, a women's hospital in central Kabul that offers free services to impoverished women.
By then, Fawzia had lost so much blood that doctors were worried she wouldn't make it. Dr. Taiba Motaqi, 30, a resident in obstetrics, knew right away that the young woman had a ruptured uterus. The complication is rare among pregnant women in the developed world, but it kills many Afghan women each year. Fawzia underwent an emergency C-section, a common procedure at Rabia Balkhi Hospital. "Women come here with problems like this at the very last minute," Dr. Motaqi says. "We have to work quickly to save them."
When Fawzia got married 10 years ago, the Taliban were still running Afghanistan, and women's rights were at a nadir. Most women gave birth at home, and the few who managed to venture to hospitals often discovered that the facilities were understaffed and lacked equipment and medicine. In late 2001, the U.S.-led military campaign pushed the Taliban out of power, and since then, millions of dollars in U.S. and foreign aid have gone to help build clinics and hospitals and train health workers. It was supposed to be a new beginning for Afghan women marginalized by the Taliban's brutal and theocratic rule. But a decade later, Afghanistan still ranks as the worst country in the world to be a mother.
About 18,000 Afghan women die during childbirth every year, says the Afghan Health Ministry. According to a recent report by the NGO Save the Children, Afghanistan ranked as the worst place to give birth, followed by Niger and Chad. In these countries, 60% of all births are not attended to by skilled health professionals. On average, about 1 in 23 mothers are expected to die from pregnancy-related causes. Children also die young and suffer from malnutrition, and education for girls is poor.
Often the challenge is just getting women to hospitals. Rural Afghans, even in relatively progressive provinces like Bamiyan in central Afghanistan, are suspicious or dismissive of doctors. In the town of Bamiyan, the main hospital has a new maternity ward. But head midwife Sediqa Hosseini says many of the 25 beds in the ward are often empty. On a recent summer afternoon, Hosseini, a tiny, serious woman in a baby blue headscarf, greets the 12 women who have checked in. One is Fatima, a 25-year-old farmer's wife. "When Fatima arrived, her baby was coming out shoulder first," Hosseini says. "She had to have a C-section. Without help, both of them would have died."
Fatima says her husband took her to the hospital when her labor became so painful that she was doubled over. Hosseini says few husbands would have done the same. Many rural men prefer to pray with a mullah to cure illnesses, she says. "They believe this is more reliable than medicine." As she breast-feeds her newborn daughter, Fatima says she wouldn't have gone if it had not been for a community-health worker who told her hospitals are safe and free.
Adding to the problem is that rural Afghan women are also conservative, and some are ashamed of being pregnant because it's a public acknowledgement of sex with their spouses, says Gulpari, a midwife in Bamiyan's remote Sayghan district. Sayghan is a dusty, wind-lashed stretch of bare mountains, cratered dirt roads and some 60-odd villages of compact mud huts. Gulpari lives in the village of Khudadadkhel, where she works at the small, understaffed Sayghan clinic that mostly treats stomach ailments and lung diseases.
Most of Sayghan district's residents are Tajiks who are Sunni and far more conservative than Bamiyan's main ethnic group, the Shi'ite Hazara. Hazara women were liberated enough to take up arms against the Taliban in the 1990s. The Tajik women rarely leave their homes, Gulpari says, but she's managed to convince some of them to let her help them when they give birth at home. "In 15 years, I've never lost a mother," she says.
Gulpari says she decided to do this work when she was a girl and watched a relative who was a midwife help a scared young woman give birth to her first child. She began apprenticing while the Taliban was running Afghanistan, and many men threatened her for doing what they deemed "dirty work." Now she says even conservative men in her village accept the value of what she does. The Community Midwife Education Program, financed by the U.S. Agency for International Development, has trained thousands of rural Afghan women to work as midwives, according to a recent report by the Council of Foreign Relations think tank.
But in many rural areas, there is still a shortage of midwives — Gulpari says she's only one of four midwives for at least 40,000 people in the area. "I'm not fooling myself," she says. "There are so many women, probably thousands, that I don't see. That I will never see. Some live in ravines deep in the mountains that take days to get to because you can only go by foot or donkey. I'll never know what happens to them."
Even women like Fawzia, the young mother from Ghazni, who are determined enough to get to urban hospitals, face other problems. Many hospitals don't have the money to stock medicine and instead send patients to street markets to buy drugs that are often fake or mislabeled, says Dr. Faizullah Kakar, an epidemiologist and special adviser on health to Afghan President Hamid Karzai. "Even if they are the right drugs, it wastes time to go out and buy them," says the doctor, who has worked with U.S. doctors who trained staff at Kabul's Rabia Balkhi Hospital. The Afghan Safe Birth Project, funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, has helped reduce deaths during C-sections at the hospital by 80% between 2008 and '10 by providing medicines as well as good training, says Dr. Kakar. The project at Rabia Balkhi was supposed to be a model for other Afghan women's hospitals to follow. But in April, the U.S. government cut the program's $5.8 million annual funding, and Dr. Kakar says the Afghan government doesn't have the money to keep it going. By October, the hospital will no longer be able to buy medicine. "I'm worried we will once again have an epidemic of mothers dying here," he says.
The doctor is also worried about what the budget cuts will mean for Afghan infants. In 2008, UNICEF reported that 52 out of every 1,000 Afghan infants died within the first two weeks of birth. That's a rate 10 times higher than in the U.S.
More than 22,000 babies are born in Rabia Balkhi Hospital every year. Dr Motaqi, the resident in obstetrics, isn't married and doesn't have children of her own, but the shy, intense doctor often visits the hospital's neonatal unit, which smells like rubbing alcohol and powder. There are healthy babies there, but on a recent afternoon she stops near a boy who is tiny and almost still. His skin is tinged blue, and he flutters his eyelids, which are crusty with dried tears. Dr. Motaqi clasps his miniature hand between her thumb and forefinger. "He was born too soon, and he came out the wrong way," she sighs. "He's going to die."
The doctor walks back to Fawzia, the mother from Ghazni province, who lost her son on the drive to the hospital. "I felt him stop moving," Fawzia says, curled up in her hospital bed. She's sleepy from the anesthesia. Dr. Motaqi sits on the edge of Fawzia's bed and tries to manage a smile.
— With reporting by Karim Sharifi / Kabul; Moneer Nyazi / Bamiyan
TIME MAGAZINE
HRCP concerned over violation of right to life
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) on Monday expressed concerns over the violation of the right to life across Pakistan. The HRCP demanded that the impunity for killing people should be addressed and efforts to protect human rights, particularly the right to life, should be made.
A statement issued as the conclusion of the HRCP Council meeting said it was of serious concern that the targeted killings of Hazaras in Balochistan continued. It said victims of enforced disappearance continued to be recovered as dead bodies and large-scale killings in tribal areas continued and efforts to get to the truth had not been made despite the discovery of a mass grave in Mohmand Agency months ago. The statement said that targeted killings in Karachi had become routine.
Violence against women was increasing, it added. The statement proposed that to restore law and order and respect for right to life, the government needed to take responsibility and the challenges it faced could not be overcome alone. All political parties needed to aid the state in achieving peace, it added. The statement also proposed that the government needed to interact with the civil society in a meaningful way and eradicate the law and order issues as well as the society’s complex notions of honour, the statement added.
Pakistan Today
A statement issued as the conclusion of the HRCP Council meeting said it was of serious concern that the targeted killings of Hazaras in Balochistan continued. It said victims of enforced disappearance continued to be recovered as dead bodies and large-scale killings in tribal areas continued and efforts to get to the truth had not been made despite the discovery of a mass grave in Mohmand Agency months ago. The statement said that targeted killings in Karachi had become routine.
Violence against women was increasing, it added. The statement proposed that to restore law and order and respect for right to life, the government needed to take responsibility and the challenges it faced could not be overcome alone. All political parties needed to aid the state in achieving peace, it added. The statement also proposed that the government needed to interact with the civil society in a meaningful way and eradicate the law and order issues as well as the society’s complex notions of honour, the statement added.
Pakistan Today
“If you speak up for Ahmadis, Hazaras, you are Anti-Pakistan”
October 11, 2011
by Kashif Chaudary
Does speaking for oppressed Pakistanis make one anti-Pakistan?
“I think its natural for Pakistanis in USA to speak ill of this country.. Kashif , your hate for Pakistan is admirable .. Didnt you get your Medical training from that country??? you dont love Pakistan… lets admit this.. Look at your posts”
Ajnabi Rastay
These were the accusations levied against me recently on a Facebook forum. I was labeled anti-Pakistan. What had I done? Did I curse Pakistan? Did I burn its flag? Did I take out a “Go Pakistan! Go!” procession in the centre of downtown Manhattan?
None of the above.
All I had done was share news items on the persecution of the Hazara Shia Muslims and the Ahmadi Muslim community in Pakistan. This included The Express Tribune coverage of the latest massacre in Quetta that left 13 Shias dead and the expulsion of 10 Ahmadi students from a school in Hafizabad on the basis of faith. I also started a social media group condemning the genocide of Hazara Shias at the hands of SSP and LeJ militants.
It is no secret that hatred is openly spewed against minority groups in Pakistan. Such a hate conference was recently held in Dharianwala wherein religious clerics encouraged villagers to force all Ahmadi children out of their schools and all deceased Ahmadis out of their graveyards. Soon after this conference, Ahmadi students enrolled in public schools in the area were rusticated. The government, that had earlier this year declared an educational emergency, took no notice of this disgraceful incident. No one seems to care about the plight of oppressed. And when you care, your loyalty is quickly put to question.
Does speaking for oppressed Pakistanis make one anti-Pakistan?
I take serious offence to this view for two main reasons:
Firstly, the Hazara Shia and Ahmadi Muslims persecuted in Pakistan are our fellow countrymen. They are equal Pakistanis. So are the Christians and the Hindus. Therefore, voicing their concerns is being the voice of Pakistan and not otherwise. The belief that standing up for the rights of disadvantaged Pakistanis is being anti-Pakistan and unpatriotic is ridiculous. Where this notion assumes that these persecuted groups are not Pakistani enough to deserve the voice of the rest of us, it also assumes that the extremists who cause them pain are true representatives of Pakistan. As a Jinnah’s Pakistani, I take exception to this.
Second, the majority of Pakistanis are hospitable peace-loving people. The minority extremists do not represent our ideals. It is very unfortunate, then, that we have allowed the two to be associated in recent times. Our deafening silence has not helped before and is not going to help now. It merely proves to the world that we are content with being associated with extremism. It portrays intolerance as an accepted norm in Pakistan. On the other hand, fiercely denouncing extremism projects our values of tolerance and peace to the world. It shows that true Pakistanis do not accept intolerance as normal. They reject it, vehemently oppose it and disown it.
Preventing one from speaking against intolerance and extremism in Pakistan, therefore, implies that intolerance is very much Pakistani – that Pakistan and extremism are names one of another. As a Jinnah’s Pakistani true to its founding ideals, I again take offense to that.
Pakistan was founded on the ideals of religious freedom. Islam and my basic humanity compel me to speak for all oppressed peoples anywhere on earth irrespective of faith or color. As a Pakistani, however, I feel obliged to focus on my motherland. Charity, as I have learnt it, begins at home. As such, a Shia Muslim killed in Quetta or an Ahmadi Muslim martyred in the Punjab should at least create the same outcry as a Palestinian man injured in an Israeli air strike. Oppression is all condemnable, but we can only worry about our tenth-door neighbor if we have our home in order.
When early Muslims were persecuted in Makkah, a group took refuge in Abyssinia. Did their outcry before King Najash – on the persecution at the hand of the Makkans- signify hatred for Makkah? The Holy Prophet (pbuh) himself had to migrate to Medina. His condemnation of the oppression in Makkah and his eventual emigration did not mean that he did not love Makkah. He longed to return to his motherland. Even while he was in Makkah, he condemned all injustice openly, not because he hated Makkah but because he loved it, and wanted to see a positive change.
And here we are, people content with the continued persecution of our own. You might choose to love Pakistan by remaining silent witness to its exploitation at the hands of its enemies. I, on the contrary, will continue to express my love for Pakistan by speaking up against its opponents, against those who tarnish its image globally and those who do not exemplify its true values.
Pakistan was meant to be a great nation. However, thanks to your silence, it is only moving backwards. Jinnah’s Pakistan has been hijacked by his enemies. As a patriotic Pakistani, it is my duty to continue to let everyone know that I disown extremism and intolerance that has plagued the nation. Like me, there are many others who chose to do whatever much (or little) they can to prevent our nation’s downfall at the hands of this menace.
If you chose to remain silent, therefore, by all means do.
But I’d very much prefer if you shed your self-righteous attitude and join me in being a patriotic Pakistani.
Will you?
EXPRESS TRIBUNE BLOG
“I think its natural for Pakistanis in USA to speak ill of this country.. Kashif , your hate for Pakistan is admirable .. Didnt you get your Medical training from that country??? you dont love Pakistan… lets admit this.. Look at your posts”
Ajnabi Rastay
These were the accusations levied against me recently on a Facebook forum. I was labeled anti-Pakistan. What had I done? Did I curse Pakistan? Did I burn its flag? Did I take out a “Go Pakistan! Go!” procession in the centre of downtown Manhattan?
None of the above.
All I had done was share news items on the persecution of the Hazara Shia Muslims and the Ahmadi Muslim community in Pakistan. This included The Express Tribune coverage of the latest massacre in Quetta that left 13 Shias dead and the expulsion of 10 Ahmadi students from a school in Hafizabad on the basis of faith. I also started a social media group condemning the genocide of Hazara Shias at the hands of SSP and LeJ militants.
It is no secret that hatred is openly spewed against minority groups in Pakistan. Such a hate conference was recently held in Dharianwala wherein religious clerics encouraged villagers to force all Ahmadi children out of their schools and all deceased Ahmadis out of their graveyards. Soon after this conference, Ahmadi students enrolled in public schools in the area were rusticated. The government, that had earlier this year declared an educational emergency, took no notice of this disgraceful incident. No one seems to care about the plight of oppressed. And when you care, your loyalty is quickly put to question.
Does speaking for oppressed Pakistanis make one anti-Pakistan?
I take serious offence to this view for two main reasons:
Firstly, the Hazara Shia and Ahmadi Muslims persecuted in Pakistan are our fellow countrymen. They are equal Pakistanis. So are the Christians and the Hindus. Therefore, voicing their concerns is being the voice of Pakistan and not otherwise. The belief that standing up for the rights of disadvantaged Pakistanis is being anti-Pakistan and unpatriotic is ridiculous. Where this notion assumes that these persecuted groups are not Pakistani enough to deserve the voice of the rest of us, it also assumes that the extremists who cause them pain are true representatives of Pakistan. As a Jinnah’s Pakistani, I take exception to this.
Second, the majority of Pakistanis are hospitable peace-loving people. The minority extremists do not represent our ideals. It is very unfortunate, then, that we have allowed the two to be associated in recent times. Our deafening silence has not helped before and is not going to help now. It merely proves to the world that we are content with being associated with extremism. It portrays intolerance as an accepted norm in Pakistan. On the other hand, fiercely denouncing extremism projects our values of tolerance and peace to the world. It shows that true Pakistanis do not accept intolerance as normal. They reject it, vehemently oppose it and disown it.
Preventing one from speaking against intolerance and extremism in Pakistan, therefore, implies that intolerance is very much Pakistani – that Pakistan and extremism are names one of another. As a Jinnah’s Pakistani true to its founding ideals, I again take offense to that.
Pakistan was founded on the ideals of religious freedom. Islam and my basic humanity compel me to speak for all oppressed peoples anywhere on earth irrespective of faith or color. As a Pakistani, however, I feel obliged to focus on my motherland. Charity, as I have learnt it, begins at home. As such, a Shia Muslim killed in Quetta or an Ahmadi Muslim martyred in the Punjab should at least create the same outcry as a Palestinian man injured in an Israeli air strike. Oppression is all condemnable, but we can only worry about our tenth-door neighbor if we have our home in order.
When early Muslims were persecuted in Makkah, a group took refuge in Abyssinia. Did their outcry before King Najash – on the persecution at the hand of the Makkans- signify hatred for Makkah? The Holy Prophet (pbuh) himself had to migrate to Medina. His condemnation of the oppression in Makkah and his eventual emigration did not mean that he did not love Makkah. He longed to return to his motherland. Even while he was in Makkah, he condemned all injustice openly, not because he hated Makkah but because he loved it, and wanted to see a positive change.
And here we are, people content with the continued persecution of our own. You might choose to love Pakistan by remaining silent witness to its exploitation at the hands of its enemies. I, on the contrary, will continue to express my love for Pakistan by speaking up against its opponents, against those who tarnish its image globally and those who do not exemplify its true values.
Pakistan was meant to be a great nation. However, thanks to your silence, it is only moving backwards. Jinnah’s Pakistan has been hijacked by his enemies. As a patriotic Pakistani, it is my duty to continue to let everyone know that I disown extremism and intolerance that has plagued the nation. Like me, there are many others who chose to do whatever much (or little) they can to prevent our nation’s downfall at the hands of this menace.
If you chose to remain silent, therefore, by all means do.
But I’d very much prefer if you shed your self-righteous attitude and join me in being a patriotic Pakistani.
Will you?
EXPRESS TRIBUNE BLOG
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