By Zermeen Amira
This post is inspired by the likes of Muhammad Ali Jinnah who never broke the law and never went to prison while engaging in independence movement and the struggle for Pakistan. The post is also inspired by our tradition that says that if you see a wrong, the least thing one could do is to feel bad about it in ones heart, the next best thing is to say it loud that this is wrong and the most superior thing would be to do something practical to stop the unjust act.
Having said that I am appalled at the lack of ingenuity, resourcefulness and creativity of our political parties both PPP and PML included in mobilizing popular support. Take the example of Lahore, at every nook and corner people are talking about the unjust acts of government in Islamabad. Other moms talk about it incessantly when I go to pick up my kid from school. Even the kids in my fifth graders class are talking about it! Yet a major majority of these moms, their husbands, their brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts etc would not be part of the Long March even if they support it whole heartedly. So should we declare all of these folks coward, non-patriotic, chickens or whatever? Absolutely not! Refer to the first paragraph, it is fully recognized that different people have different tolerance levels of how strongly they feel about something and what they are willing to do about it, ranging from feeling bad about an unjust act to actually trying to stop it with legal but physical means; physically participating in the Long March in this case.
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