Jackie Chan has been one of the best entertainers of our era. He has been dramatic, amusing, altruistic, and a staunch showman to create films that have made us laugh and shed tears simultaneously.
One of his best films was ‘Who Am I?’ Like the Bourne series, the film starts with a regular looking guy, suffering from amnesia, with unparalleled spy-like skills. Throughout the film, the premier seeks his identity while fighting for his life.
One of the most interesting elements of the film was the turning of the tables every now and then. Jackie would be told by an agency that he was their agent, and Jackie would start defending them with his life only to find out later that this was the antagonist agency and would start putting his life on the line to defeat them.
One can easily relate to this chaotic life sequence if one is a teenager, trying to figure out the same basic question we all are baffled with: ‘Who am I?’
Having an identity crisis or no identity at all can be one of the most unsettling feelings of life one can experience. Even a nation without identity can lose her way in the ever-flowing river.
Take Pakistan for example. We are the most bewildered nation on the face of this earth. At times, we are told to follow the Arabs, because we descended from their lineage. And then we are told we are Indians and our forefathers were Hindus or Sikhs of the Hindustan, and the values and culture of India must be upheld and defended.
Recently, we have been, once again, swayed thoroughly towards the Ottoman Empire through Ertugrul, the Ghazi’s imaginative depiction on the silver screen. As a Pakistani, let me ask you, who am I?
More importantly, whom should I defend? The Aryans and the Hindus, who had been subdued by the Mughal profligates or the Arabs, who are bombing Yeminis, the Iranians that are equally responsible for the bloodshed, the Afghans, who have bombed Pakistan to her knees or the Turks who have a newfound Islamic perspective in the hunger games of the world?
My fellows at university tell me that Madrassas have been preaching terrorism. Isn’t this the same sum of lessons that America so aspired as Jihad in the 80’s and the 90’s? How can something be true at one point of time and deceitful at another? Shouldn’t truth at one part of the land be truthful in another?
Another fellow, who has probably read more books than I can name, states that this whole idea of Pakistan was the brainchild of some wannabes. I have come across numerous scholars who have portrayed people like Azad as heroes in the history.
My friend holds Azad as one of the truest religious maulanas, who described Islam in its truest forms. He quotes Abul Kalam Azad and states that the biggest deception in the world is that religion defines nations. Iqbal strongly disagreed with this.
In fact, even Quran uses the term ummat e wahida. Should such a man be portrayed as a religious “maulana” who calls this concept a deception? Has he called Quran as a deceptive scripture? Either this comment attributed to him is not his, or he was at loggers head with Quran.
In his autobiography, whenever he talks about Jinnah, he calls him Muhammad Ali. And whenever he talks about Gandhi, he calls him Gandhi Jee. You must be familiar with the practice of calling someone with his last name meant respect and calling someone with first name meant absence of respect, in those days.
Furthermore, his autobiography reiterates numerously that he was president of the then Congress – a practice that shows he was as narcissistic as a few of our politicians are. He calls segregation of Muslims and mistreatment of Muslims by Hindus in British-ruled India as nothing more than propaganda of Muslim League – a comment that reminds me of Modi and BJP. He constantly brags about how great Mr. Gandhi and himself were in leading Congress for independence while Muslim League was a group of wannabes who misled the Muslims of India.
Political differences aside, even if I strongly believe that Mr. Azad was a man of rare stature, how can I read him as a hero of the nation when he believed in zero to no integrity of Pakistan? I may be an illiterate in history and politics, but I have witnessed numerous students in my university and elsewhere, who are taught about the people like Mr. Azad as heroes.
And after reading works of such so-called heroes, a significantly large section of scholars are becoming sceptical of the creation of Pakistan and claim our heroes as destitute who mistakenly made a blunder in creating Pakistan.
My forefathers had not migrated from Jalandhar to Jaranwala to recognise this behaviour. My forefathers have not laid their lives at the hands of butchers to accept this sort of cultivation. But if they did not agree with Azad, why did they leave their warm homes? Like numerous other Pakistanis of Sindh, Balochistan, GB, and every other part of the land, I am baffled by the question, ‘Who am I?’ and more importantly, whom should I defend?.
If Azad is my hero, as portrayed by syllabi, why should I defend Jinnah or Iqbal and not call them mistaken outright? If my heroes are buried in Turkey, why should I put others on the pedestal? And if I have no heroes, why should I stay in this God forsaken country, where any man can be termed as a terrorist for dollars and called as Shaheed out of the blue.
What is this, if not amnesia? Pakistan, perhaps, is suffering from the same who am I syndrome that Jackie suffered. We are in a constant war with sides that turn tables on us so uniformly that the whole situation has become a long, boring, feature film. This monotony has to stop.
Our universities need to create knowledge and spend more resources in finally recognising our true national identity. Let us know if Pakistan was a disastrous blunder. Or let us have the courage to give a shut up call to all those who uphold these Azad like characters as true monuments of Islam and independence. Let us finally know who we are. Or else, each one of us will die wondering ‘who am I?’
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