August 23rd: Upon Rallying the City

Amid onlookers in cars who honked and cried out in support for how necessary student movements are for changes to occur in society, twenty students walked the streets of Montreal bearing flags and banners. It was not a protest, but it was a symbol. A symbol to depict that even though the odds are tremendously against any favorability towards the government of Pakistan and towards garnering immense sympathy for Pakistani flood victims, that this student effort will remain united and indefatigable when faced with these challenges. However, if only alleviation and world views with regards to Pakistanis were being affected as positively as our spirits in Montreal hoped they would be.

Intriguingly, in cricket we have the beguiling Shahid Afridi, a phenomenally popular Pakistani cricketer attempting to raise funds through dinners across the Gulf and we have the Pakistani and English cricket teams who today donated part of their match fees towards the aiding the flood victims. In music we have the mystical Salman Ahmed attempting to raise funds for the victims through song, both EP and Strings have released songs about uniting and taking control of our own fates and we have the once munda Fakhar e Alam providing public service messages on how you can help with the provision of goods and news about PIA’s free service towards aiding the flood victims. Our government however acts minimally. Our overfunded army is thinned out. And our population? 20m affected by the floods, 120m unmoved.

A fifth of our country is flooded. We hear news every day about the tragic occurrences back in Pakistan. Even during the floods we have people back home who go out of their way to mercilessly beat two boys to death in a public square, we have people who look on without so much as a glancing sympathetic vote as people take refuge on the streets in Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad, and we have a government unfettered and uninspired to take responsibility for its people. I have never heard of a more sorry state of affairs in any country in the few years I have been around to witness this world. World aid has thankfully increased fourfold in pledges and commitments, but motions are slow. More than two weeks after the floods have devastated the Northern Areas of Pakistan as well as the Southern areas along the Indus, aid is still slow and under consideration (just because it is from India). Afghanistan...Afghanistan was generous enough to donate $1m.

In Canada, radio stations are calling inquiring about why we are not raising funds for the Red Cross in Canada and why we choose to support aid agencies in Pakistan. In Canada, the coverage for the floods has increased, however it seems to take this tenor of this being a plight for ‘Muslims’(note to not humanize the people) and how Montrealers (also members of local mosques) are helping in this holy month of Ramadan. The coverage in the media has been a load of nonsense, loaded with terrific amounts of media-centric moneymaking sham reporting.

We students need support from all other students, we need to coordinate, and we need to align our efforts. No one cares that you have school or are apartment hunting or are tired from work or are job hunting. Everyone is. None of that is relevant in light of the tragedies faced back home right now. If you do not do everything you possibly can, then I can’t be certain how deep your apathy/ego runs, and that on its own is a sad, sad reality.

We need the support of our communities, our officials, and that universal and/or contemporary code of ethics that really should be reread to emphasize that when there are people in the dire straits these 20m Pakistanis are, when there are 4m children at risk of disease, we must act and we must not be satisfied with our ‘text’ to the Red Cross. We must make sure we follow the news and stay aware, we must make sure we pursue information and help as much as we can. The world at this moment is in peril, but no place right now faces as murky a future as Pakistan. Help, and help continuously. Nothing is more important than your awareness.

PS. To clarify, we are not against the Red Cross, but we are aware of their relatively high administrative costs. Considering as a group we have raised only $10,000 – if 10% ($1000) of that (on their average) goes towards administrative expenditures – then that is a 10% we can absolutely not afford to lose. Local organizations are working primarily as volunteers now and also under lower administrative costs.