9/11 - Changed perceptions

I was just reading this nice blog on Dawn today by a former student, who was there in USA when planes struck Twin Towers.

I was in Pakistan at that time and I was also a student, a sort of a fire-brand type. It was evening and darkness had already pervaded our university. I can clearly recall that that day I was sitting in my computer lab and for some reason I was late in going home. Almost all my classmates had already left for home. On another system my classmate, Ovais, was sitting when he suddenly called me over informing me that some building in USA is under fire. I looked at the screen and thought maybe some odd fire had broken inside. I was wrong. Ovais hastily told me that it was some plane, which had hit the twin towers. Twin towers for me was a new term. I went home.

At home, as soon as I entered, my mother greeted me with more than a flourish and invited me to look at the screen, which was positively blackened with the dark, billowing smoke coming out from the towers. It was CNN and the anchor was horrified at what was happening just behind her. I was just beginning to settle when suddenly a plane took a sharp turn and rammed into the second tower, which till then had been standing amidst chaos and drama. It later emerged that planes had been hijacked and used as suicide material. What an ingenious idea that was, I had thought. And I was really very glad, just like my parents and siblings, that finally that great Satan had been 'controlled'. Future events and the consequences for Muslims the world-over would prove us all wrong. These terrorist attacks into the heartland of USA had not only shaken the great Satan, it had in effect woken them up and all of us to the reality of international terrorism. A reality, which sadly has harmed interests of Muslims world over.

Today I and my parents feel that the events of 9/11 were not perpetrated by Jihadis (as CNN would have us believe) but by real terrorists, people who have no faith or religion. Today I can see clearly that killing of innocent Americans, whether Jews or Christians or Muslims, won't serve anyone's purpose. We cannot ask for revenge on a common American for the misdeeds of their Army and politicians in Iraq and Afghanistan and Palestine. This we all Muslims should understand and realize. We cannot isolate ourselves from the real world and continue to fool around. We must consider murderers and killers as terrorists and not some good Muslim Knights.

Today I am not happy that common Americans were killed that day. I just hope I wasn't happy in 2001, when the events broke out. But I was and I accept it now.

Central Asia Online publishes my photograph

I have happy to announce that good people inhabit Pakistan in great numbers. And some of them live outside but report on the country with their hearts attached. Here is an example of a piece written in Washington D.C by Central Asia Online, which also used my mangrove photograph for this write-up.

The article titled, 'Climate change fuels sea encroachment on Indus delta', is written by Amjad Bashir Siddiqi, whom I don't know yet and photograph is taken by me, which you can view on the top right hand corner of the article page.

Concern for fast disappearing mangroves is growing amidst cries for protection of wetland areas for the larger benefit of the country itself. The protection of flow of Indus river waters is the key to the survival of these mangroves. Already, only 2 species of the mangroves may be found where previously 8 species were to be seen.

Building of dams has had a key affect on the destruction of an ancient way of life as well as on the thousands who earn their living downstream or from mangroves by fishing in its waters. As our author points out in these words,

'“The process of sea intrusion was first witnessed in the mid-90s”, Akbar said. That was when the Arabian Sea engulfed about 1.2m acres of land, he said. Now, it seems to have expanded to almost 2m acres. “The most dangerous trend is the one happening underground”, Akbar said, adding that the sea is contaminating aquifers and making soil useless.

Wildlife is suffering too. Acacia and prosopis forests don’t thrive in salinated soil, and fishermen find prize species giving way to less desirable ones. The availability of Pallah fish (Tenualosa ilisha), a local delicacy, has shrunk markedly. '

We can only imagine the consequences of our actions today. Do we need a barren coastline with no fresh water, salted lands and infertile soil or do we wish to have a life giving water, should be our matter. And we need to solve it. Today is World Water Day and we must concentrate on using water with much more maturity than we have shown in last 62 years.