Life is indeed very strange, stranger than one can ever imagine, and mine is no exception. Around this time three years ago I was setting off to Cambridge to start my degree in Computer Science. I was young, naive, apolitical and like many of my contemporaries absolutely unaware of what was going on in the real world. My dream and ambition at the time extended at most to surviving Cambridge and getting a job in one of the big technology companies of the world i.e. Google, Apple or Microsoft and then settling abroad in the US or the UK. Looking back at that time now so much has changed, oh so much has changed.
Three years on now, I am just starting as the Youth Ambassador for Jang Group and Geo TV Network, the largest print and electronic media group in the country. Given the charge of writing in the News and Jang, hosting shows on Geo TV channels and bridging the gap between the youth and the group in general, it is indeed a very different life from what I had imagined for myself a few years ago, a huge honour and a huge responsibility.
Apart from this, today I wanted to talk to you about why I came back to Pakistan and in what some say is the most difficult and uncertain time in the history of our country.
My life in Pakistan effectively, and I think to some extent permanently, changed when in February 2009 Kamran Khan broke my story about the record 23 A Levels in Pakistan on Geo News. I still wonder if life still would have changed much if he had not featured the story.
The love that the people of this country shared with me at the time was something that I will forever cherish. New avenues opened up to me at that point; I was talking to politicians, policy makers and leaders.
Exposure to figures such as these at that time was both an educating and enlightening experience and I immediately became aware of the bigger and more pressing problems of the people and the state.
It was also around the time that the judges restoration movement was at its peak; joining the restoration movement coupled with my newfound lifestyle profoundly changed me, my thoughts, ambitions and ideals. The movement and the capability of our youth particularly gave me reasons to have faith in a country I had always taken for granted, and had only seen somewhat hopelessly before.
So, next year I fought with my college to have my degree changed from Computer Science to Political Science and International Relations, and have never looked back since.
When I was graduating back in this June I was at a point in my life where I had to choose between saying goodbye to Pakistan and moving abroad or returning home. I had a job offer from Google in San Francisco and London, weirdly somehow my old dream had still caught up with me. I also could have continued studying further. Given the situation of the country at the time, my family and close ones were all telling me to leave and settle abroad. It was the hardest and yet the easiest decision I have ever made.
After everything that Pakistan had given me, I owed it to come back. I notice that most of us who get a good education, become wealthy or are given opportunities end up leaving Pakistan to pursue better lives for ourselves.
I was one of the 900,00 current students in our whole country to have done O Levels and A Levels. Being amongst the privileged few in a country with a population of more than 180 million comes with a lot of responsibilities. This coupled with the respect and appreciation I had received over the past few years, my decision was simple. After all today I was what I was because of Pakistan, and seeing other around me I could see limitless potential, if harnessed right. My family opposed it, my friends opposed it and some even said that I was being stupid, but I was beyond the point where anything would change my mind.
I had once asked a Professor of mine at Cambridge what the future of Pakistan seemed to him and he promptly pointed back at me and said, ìAli it is what you and other young people like you in your country make it.î That has stuck to me ever since. To find out more about other young people, I conducted a short and crude survey on my facebook page. Yet, it was enough to make me realize that our youth have a lot of passion and potential; however, there is a lot of confusion and hopelessness at the same time. This hopelessness and confusion stifles the potential and ability of our youth. Part of this can be explained by the finding from the same survey that 84% of young respondents thought that their opinions and issues were not represented in the media today! They feel as if no one is listening to them. At the risk of sounding preachy, I think this stems from our usual contradictory rhetoric and irrational debates. We need to look at more concrete arguments and lines of thought, which, rather unlike the former, help us reach a solution or at least a conclusion. This is what I hope to initially accomplish through this role.
My taking up the role of Youth Ambassador for the country’s largest and most credible media group will give the youth the platform it needs to ignite true debate and find real plausible solutions.
I truly believe that the best service any young person studying could ever do for this country is to excel in his or her studies, but at the same time that person needs to be sure of what the issues are and have plausible roadmaps in place so when he or she enters practical life he is ready to face the challenges and fulfill the responsibility of contributing to the society we live in and our country. It is time that the youth must raise their voice and be heard.
It is important to say this, this platform is not mine, it belongs to the youth of Pakistan. I am just the medium, and I donít want to impose my opinions and beliefs blindly. This platform is for the voices of our youth and I hope that their voice can soon become mine. So to start off this journey I would ask everyone, specially the youth to please get in touch with me and tell me their opinions and thoughts at am.nawazish@janggroup.com.pk . I hope you will give me the opportunity to learn from you and together we can start giving back to a country that has given us so much. The youth of Pakistan is the biggest reason to have faith in this country for many, and we have to make sure it fulfills this promise.
