Sunday, January 11, 2009

Do We Truly Want Change

With the coming of a new year, I can’t help but wonder if 2009 — despite the familiarity, and slight over use of the “yes we can” slogan — will really be a year of change. Don’t get me wrong, I am not a pessimist I am not one to write off the world. I can assure you I have gotten in to more then one heated debated in defense of a certain revolutionary politician even though I have no voting rights to support him. I believe that people can change and move mountains if they may wish — the question though is, how many actually want to?

Here in the States I have witnessed history in the past few months; where an entire nation’s efforts helped install a leader that tradition of a decade or so ago would make his mere nomination itself unfathomable, let alone his installation to the highest office of their Country. But they came together, and even those that usually chose to remain indifferent to politicians and the world they run actually got up and knocked on doors to canvas for someone they believed in. What’s more, people around the Globe have celebrated the coming of this politician, each claiming that the human race can and has evolved.

With a whole new year ahead of us and with all this talk of change, I cannot help but question how many of us have evolved enough to believe in this cross-cultural, cross-border change.
How far have the business owners who voted blue come if they only did so for anticipated tax cuts and benefits? Would they have done so if they couldn’t conveniently blame everything that’s wrong with the Country on the current, and more then slightly amusing, President?

I have to say here that the hard-core republicans who did vote red I guess deserve some credit. They never claimed to have evolved at all this past year and had no qualms about it. In fact, it was more then obvious that most had more concern about opposition from someone who — don’t forget to gasp here — had the middle name of Hussein, versus pushing for they voters to elect a second-in-command who had no clue as to the location of Africa.

Many polls around the US, and the world in fact, show that people of all colors and races embraced the coming of this new revolutionary leader because they feel it is a huge step for the world. With his charming demeanor and his willingness to — gasp again please — negotiate with terrorists before deciding to wipe out entire nations. But have these same people, claiming to be on the more educated, blue side of the debate, really come a long way?

I wondered this when an Indian friend lashed out at me during the terror attacks in Mumbai and brazenly stated that she would never— and I quote — have respect for a Pakistani ever again. I wondered if she realized that at that very time my very Pakistani, green passport bearing, granny just happened to be frantically calling her sister in India who lives about a block away from the ill-fated Taj Hotel.

Could the human race really have evolved if those who share a common heritage are so quick to write off an entire race? Or wait, I must correct myself here. Write off half a race because the other half was, well, born on the other side of an imaginary line called the Indian-Pakistan border.

Of all those openly claiming that they are enlightened enough to believe in this proposed change, I wonder how many will think about it when they roll up to private clubs across the bigger metropolitans of Lahore, Karachi and Islamabad. Will they think about the most recent bombs that went off in Lahore? How many of those who are actually in the position to do something about this idealistic thought of turning around the human race will so much as want to bring it about?

So how much then, I have to ask again, can we actually believe in this idea of change when our basic mentality is of intolerance?