NYDS & the State of Emergency
So there we were at Countryside Chalet, facilitating NYDS, mostly attended by the new members who have really really impressed me with their potential. Well, in a nutshell, I learnt a lot more about the culture and I hoped through the sessions made some impact to the newies.The OC members were really helpful, thanks for the T-shirts, and no, I'm not paying for them. ;)
[last minute manual labour at the MC mansion]
[Faci team, we rocked!!]
[Kartik, the Chair, teaches the latecomers a lesson. dip toothbrush in water, squeeze toothpaste, brush teeth, rinse mouth with water from the glass. Spit into the same glass. Pass toothbrush and glass to the friend next in line. Repeat]
[Punishment 2: eat vegemite. Enuff said]
[Conclusion from the punishments for latecomers: toothpaste+spit+water tastes better than vegemite]
[Who says white men can't dance?]
[Brain Masala :) Missing you guys, hope to meet with you all soon!]
[Finally I get to pose with the most popular heartthrob of the conference, Jeremy, faci from Aussie. Should have seen all the girls falling at his feet...]
[Chai after dinner, sweet!]
[Faci team, all dressed up. MCVPER, & Master of Ceremony, Taha, is most relieved having the whole dinner affair past him, phew!]
And somewhere in the middle of all this, Musharraf made a public address, declares a state of Emergency in Pakistan. I found it a bit bizarre, wrote a letter to AIESEC Singapore trainee-sg, that summarises my thoughts for the past week.
"Hey everyone,
Once again, drama from this land called Pakistan. An excerpt from a commentary in the news titled
"What is to become of Pakistan?" ..... I quote Phillip Cohen, one of the leading experts of Pakistan,
"Consider this a true timely confession, I don't know what's going to happen. I don't think even the best Pakistani expert will know what will happen tomorrow"...
Which is quite true. Independent TV channels' broadcasts have been stopped, nothing but the govt controlled channels. The police are cracking down (i.e. beating them away with sticks) on the lawyers, media, political opposition and basically anyone who's protesting. The Constitution has been suspended and the word of Musharraf is Law. For further explanation, refer to www.nomadlife.org and http://emad.nomadlife.org
Living here in the more safer parts of town, we haven't witnessed any protests or clashing. We're actually quite surprised that no one has been killed yet amidst all these clashes in the past 2 days.
It was bizarre, most of the interns were away for NYDS conference last Monday, in the middle of nowhere. On Saturday, we the faci's were half dead from sleep deprivation & workng on the sessions, so a couple of us went for a short nap. 20 mins later we woke up to find Pakistan in a state of emergency.
And that evening of course had a good discussion during Connection Time on what happened, why, what will happen next... I was quite surprised to observe how the Pakistanis here treat the situation so casually. Almost too casually. Perhaps because they're so immune to these occurrences. There's some hope nontheless, when we posed the question about what will they do about it. And the answer, passionately from these aiesecers was education. Raising the literacy rate, and knowledge level of people in rural areas of Pakistan so they would be able to vote responsibly for the next generations of leadership.
A thought creeps in once in a while wondering if I am on the "wrong side" cos here I am working in a nice airconditioned office of a financial investment company, getting tea served at my table, making a communication plan to support company's growth............ helping the rich get richer............. while majority of the country tries to earn for their next meal...."
posted by Zafirah @ PM 07:41
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