Saturday 21 August 2010

Pakistan a nation of heroes?

A hero is someone who is writ large, larger than life. According to Webster it is a figure "endowed with great strength or ability; man admired for his achievements and noble qualities; one that shows great courage, a central figure of an event, period or movement; object of extreme admiration and devotion......" For a person to be a hero he or she has to be a leader, excelling in his own field, whose strength and spirit shape destiny and who through his or her acts and deeds and performance of outstanding feats can make a nation proud and stand tall. According to David Krieger, President of NAPF: "The hero turns the tide of events, leads his people to victory, and overcomes obstacles that would defeat less determined mortals."
A hero is someone more than an 'Idol' because to enter the corridors of greatness, outstanding acts must be accompanied with a selfless, honest and strong character, the ability to act according to one's beliefs at time of adversity, courage to do things which are right although unpopular and capacity to lead by example.
Every nation, culture or community needs heroes, not only because it is through their achievements that majority of people can often enliven their otherwise mundane and sometimes miserable existence but indeed great men and women can become focal points of common identity and unity of people within a country and can beacons for future generations to follow.
Because heroes are an endangered commodity, if a nation has one in its midst than the best advice is to respect and revere him till the end. History tells us that those nations who do not have heroes fail to rise, and those who stop producing them, wither away and are vanquished.
Pakistan has been lucky. Ever since its birth in 1947, Pakistan has been blessed with achievers which any nation would have been proud to own. The first and foremost man in the long line of great people who walked and continue to walk this land of pure is none other than Jinnah, the founder of the nation and admittedly one of the greatest leaders the world has seen in the 20th century. Since then take any field. Amongst judges, Chief Justice Cornelius, Chief Justice Hamood-ur-Rehman and Justice Kayani were no less than Justice Marshall produced by the US. Their brilliance, legal acumen and sense of honesty and proprietary are excellent examples to be followed. One cannot hope for a more honest, hardworking and patriotic PM than Liaquat Ali Khan and a more dedicated administrator than Sardar Abdul Rab Nishtar.
Few nations have more dedicated philanthropist than Hakeem Muhammad Saeed or Maulana Abdul Sattar Edhi who is running the largest free ambulance service in the world; or a more responsible businessman than Habib Esmail or can boast of a journalist of the calibre of Hamid Nizami of Nawa-e-Waqt? One must not forget the sport heroes that Pakistan has produced like Jehangir Khan, Hashim Khan in Squash, Imran Khan, Zaheer Abbas and Javed Miandad in Cricket, Salahuddin and Shehnaz Sheikh in Hockey; the list is endless. The melodies of our cultural heroes like Noor Jehan and Nusrat Fateh Ali are still heard all over the world. Our actors like Muhammad Ali are true heroes less than none. Amongst scientists there is no person more learned than the Nobal Prize winner Abdus Salam or the father of the bomb Dr A Q Khan.

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