After a long 70 years of Independance , I , a resident of South Waziristan, do not feel comfortable at my own home. By home, I mean Pakistan! . The Country I was born in, the one which gave me a nationality. Yet I feel like an outsider trying to adjust myself in the unknown. Something feels as if it is lacking inside me.
People ask me, how do you feel the way you guys are treated, is it all right? Well, my answer to this usually ends with a silent stare into the eyes of the other person, unable to answer what I feel like. The reality and the darkness to this is that, even after this long independence, we still live in the Mountains. Oh, I am sorry , We don’t have a home. We have been kicked out of the mountains, our home to something that we can assume in our minds but can’t speak out. A home that I personally had never seen. The reality I had never seen. My own people, my language, my culture, my elders, and my home-town .
I currently reside in the Capital of my country, and in the summers , I join my uncles from the maternal side, living with them in the area of Abottabad so that we can spend our summers there because of the harsh temperature in Dera Ismail Khan! After visiting there, I developed a personal liking for that place, not knowing why. But the admiration in my heart for the mountains and the cold weather was there. A dream of building a house on the top of the hill and having something peaceful. The admiration stuck deep down and made it a goal for life, as to live there in the summers while the other time with my own people if I have the opportunities of doing something for it. Well, after all this likeness, I didn’t recognize I had all of these things.

Oh do I?

I don’t know?

How come I didn’t know I have all these things?

Have you been to Waziristan?

Well, the things I have been searching for were right with me throughout but they are kept away from me.

Why have I been kept away from this? Who gave them the right to kick me out of my homeland? How can they call us names? How can they call us residents of Ilaka-e-ghair ( residents of the unknown)? Are we not part of this land? Did we not help this country when they needed us? How come we got lost in between? How come no one ever thought about us and the situation of us. Does anybody know the feeling of being kicked out of their own homes and being called terrorists? Not only by their own country but they make us a symbol of terror for the entire world.  A normal civilian, a person who has humanity, who has the sign of nature in it. Does he like bloodshed? Well, all like the international media. They don’t like to see blood , so do we, and so do I. Then who is it that’s killing us , that is giving us names, that has spread terror throughout the world , Its not me , Its not someone I had seen in my native town , amazed by the character of the people they had, amazed by the love and the gratitude they showed each other while they met in their home, the place called Kaniguram.

Our Agencies are profoundly to be handled by the Supreme of this Country, The President. Agencies named as F.A.T.A ( Federally Administrated Tribal Areas), Questioning myself to this fact trying to believe the being of this statement. Can I confidently stand by this? Sorry, but I am a bit confused, living in the Capital (Federal)  and going back to my Federally Administrated Tribal Area, I can confidently scream of the facts that we are over 200 years back from what we call a modern advance established society. As if comparing the both of them, I can sum it to Technology vs Darkness (A tale that is taking too long to end). A place which makes you lose your identity and forces you to go invisible. A place where one enters he gets cut off from the entire world and there is nobody to ask about him. A place where the beauty of it is utilized by the unknown Evils and yet they call ‘me’ A terrorist.

I ask them, what have you thought of us? What is it that they expect, after kicking me out, after calling me a terrorist, after closing my home gates on me. After keeping me in the dark, open to drugs and nothing else, Shall I produce something good? Will I be able to produce something good? I and my Family, my brothers, and my sisters; MY YOUTH has been destroyed, depriving them of every necessity that they could have landed their hands on. That could have produced gentlemen working for the country. These men are historically strong, capable of work, and history proves it. So how can I believe the fact that they are worth nothing? Even after we study in good universities, prove our worth to them; yet they classify me with Fata by providing me with 2% of everything. A name that is disrespected, a name to which they imply as of ‘NO GOOD’. They treat as if we are trying to fit in, but are not able to.

Are we not part of this land as much as everybody else is? Usually, this concept takes place. When one person goes from his country to another unknown country, where he goes through a process of verification, identification, and everything their government could land hands on in order to grant them a permission. I have an artful series of event to tell. We have no access to go to our area without approving a visa to go. A permit that is taken by the authorities, where they go through your verification, identification and everything these people can grab their hands on to let me grant a leave to my little village. I HAVE NO VALUE OF THE IDENTIFICATION THAT PAKISTAN (MY COUNTRY)  HAS ISSUED ME.  I ask myself, helplessly, is it not enough for me to be a Pakistani? Why do I have to wait for the authorities to grant me leave to my village? They must be mistaken.

Oh NO! Go and stand in the line, Wait for your turn, You are no different than anyone standing here. 

Of course I am different from the 22 crore people of this country. Well done.

I have a personal appeal to my Supreme Government that: What’s happened is in the past. It is gone and cannot be brought back. At this moment, what can be done about us?

I urge my people, nothing is impossible. We can achieve the greatness that lies within us. We know what we are worth. We have been through the worst of times. But we are still living, striving every day for us to get better. Do I, A son of this land, believe in losing? NO! Then how do I expect you to be losing? You have the power to do everything you wish for. The world is waiting for you to prove yourself to them. DO NOT limit yourself to a pond because we have already lost a lot of us. We have to get out of our comfort zones and work for the betterment of us. What has happened is in the past, What is going to come is in our hands . The Sky should be the limit. You are born with wings, Why do you prefer to crawl? Get up, get going and make the world bow down in front of you.

Disclaimer: This post does not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of Writing Towards Change. It is an individual’s opinion which must be given due importance.