With every passing day my respect for this young lady keeps increasing. The way she makes the centre of her work to be everything that matters. Everything that MUST matter.
Like always Shehzeen kicked off talking about yet another sensitive subject.
Apart from it being my grandmother’s death anniversary, I stopped “feeling” 14 August for a while. At least I thought I did. Until last week when Shehzeen’s campaign about #minoritieslivesmatterpakistan reminded me, it wasn’t that I wasn’t feeling anything. It was the fact that I felt too much.
The hurt to see my homeland turn into a barbaric playground for extremists. The pain to see our surroundings turn dangerous not just physically but mentally too. Where warfare of beliefs is rampant every single day.
Where all we need to get “rid” of someone is a blasphemy charge, blood thirsty hounds in the name of religion will take out everyone except anyone who isn’t a Sunni Male Punjabi in this country.
Yes. I do believe that this specific demographic is perhaps the only one safe in Pakistan today from sectarian violence. From gender discrimination. From most aches and pains of living through the everyday in this country.
It isn’t the place we grew up in. That’s for sure. And in my apathy that is what I used to mourn.
Shehzeen gave hope. Gave a definition to this innate grief that most of us 1970s-1980s children carry within ourselves.
I have friends like a piece of my heart. I won’t say family, for I consider the entire hoopla about “blood” needless at most. The only thing that keeps people together is good fellowship. Not blood.
My heart is full of Shias, Ahmadis, Hazaras, Hindus, Christians, Parsis and so many more. I hold them closer to my heart than most family.
The thought that being in a comparatively privileged position I couldn’t keep them safe from the atrocities that surround us would break me in a way nothing ever did.
In the past 20 years most of my friends from my younger years left the country. They continue to do so today.
I stick around to make the difference I can but it still isn’t enough.
Shehzeen made that difference happen.
Educating the masses is the most powerful tool to bring about change. There is power in her following that made my entire feed turn the shade of green that stood for each of my friends who were touched by loss and discrimination at the hand of extremism. Dead or alive.
So thank you Shehzeen, for helping me cry out the fog that enveloped my heart. Thank you for helping me love 14 August again which I honestly only did when I was far away from the realities of the place we all call home.