By Shumail Hassan
Freedom and liberty come from hardships, miseries and afflictions. The freedom has price, the price which cannot be paid. Hey, who will pay? Who will get paid? The answer comes in denial and repudiation. The freedom has no price. It is not to be talked of. It is priceless. It has inestimable value and price. Why the phrase ‘price of freedom’ has become a cliché? Any reason? The reason for this platitude? Why people feel themselves at ease to have this truism? The reason is something really lies in it. Something really has been shrouded, being concealed. That is ‘Martyrdoms’ of our ancestors. They suffered to let us bask in the shine of glory. We are lolling cause of their sufferings. For this country we and more precisely our forefathers have lost. They fought for freedom-power lost and gone, they recovered, defended, established, strengthened and passed it to us. You cannot consign those tribulations to oblivion. There is never late. It is time to buck ourselves up and come with solutions to our problems. Where we are lacking today?
Song from Jagriti-(1954) goes:
Hum laye hen toofaan se kashti nikaal kar/
Is mulk ko rakhna mery bacho sambhal kar
Not confined to humans, it stretches and unfurls to even all animates. Iqbal’s Parinday ki Faryad comes as allusion to it.
At times, we are asked to stay natural. Freedom is natural. From nativity to death-bed man is supposed to be free until the mundane affairs envelope him.
The freedom is a vast concept even more than the stretches of Sahara. The freedom is also related to your mind. But then, it is not just exploiting others in name of freedom of expression, speech and thought. It is not being you without anyone’s permission. You know Sultan Fateh Ali’s famous quote, see what Roosevelt says:
“We and all others who believe in freedom as deeply as we do would rather die on our feet than live on our knees.”
It reminds me something. Have it in voice of Saleem Raza:
“Jis ki khatir hum ne di qurbani lakhon jan ki!”
Realization of responsibility is the dire need of hour. Today our people de facto do not know their duties. The simplest you can do is to consider the vice a vice. Know your values. Identify your goals as a nation and as a society. Think free and in the most efficacious way. Saying it priceless, freedom is not also free. You have to fight for it or lose it.
The epitome of all this discussion is to make aware the youth of Pakistan about their freedom and national heroes.
Published in Young Nation magazine on June 18, 2016