You can't choose your neighbours

I’ve been inactive for a few days on this platform. So much is happening around the country, and lately, I’ve found myself deeply invested in it, not by choice, but because something has shifted inside me. Some part of me refuses to stay uninformed anymore.

They say you can’t choose your neighbours, true, but what do you do when the ones next door start acting strange?

Once, some odd people moved into our neighbourhood. They were loud, intrusive, and their morals didn’t quite align with ours. My mother disliked their presence; she said they bring a kind of restlessness with them. If only she could build some kind of fence to keep them at bay.

_{If you plan to build a shared fence on the property line or if your neighbor contributes to the cost, create a written agreement covering ownership, maintenance, and replacement}

Almost everyone was disturbed by their activities, and yet, no one could do anything. Concerns were raised, proofs of their unethical activities highlighted, but no solid solution could be achieved. Times have changed, you can’t just throw people out anymore. It doesn’t happen like it did in the old days.

At the time, I didn’t understand much. But now, looking at the world’s larger stage, it feels eerily similar — only the houses have turned into nations, and the troublesome neighbours into forces that disrupt peace until patience finally wears thin.

Talking of neighbours and borders, one is not always fortunate enough. Our region has always been a complex web of loyalties and betrayals. The uneasy dynamics between Pakistan and its neighbour on the western border are no secret. Decades of open doors, shared refugees, and cultural bonds, yet somehow, distrust always lingers.

The neighbour on our western border has always been a difficult one. I don’t blame the people themselves — they’ve endured unimaginable suffering: decades of conflict, the Soviet invasion, internal divisions, and now a regime that strips women of their basic rights. I truly feel empathy for them.

But what concerns me are the choices their leadership has made. They’ve weaponized religion — using Islamisation for their own benefit. On one hand, they enforce rigid interpretations in the name of Nafiz-e-Islam, and on the other, they shake hands with those who openly oppose Islamic values. Their ideologies are so deeply contradictory that it’s hard to make sense of them.

It seems their goal isn’t peace but chaos — not harmony within their borders, but extremism spilling into ours. And ironically, they always seem to side with those who are anything but Islamic, despite claiming to be the flag-bearers of Islam.

For decades, we’ve borne the brunt of their so-called Islamisation. They turned their wars and twisted ideologies into our burden — their chaos became our casualty. Time and again, terror spilled over our borders, taking innocent lives, tearing through schools, mosques, markets — places that should have been sanctuaries. Our people kept dying, our soldiers kept sacrificing, while they kept hiding behind religion for their own gains.

Pakistan’s recent engagement along the border became inevitable after years of repeated terrorist attacks, unprovoked fire, and infiltration attempts from across the frontier. We tried restraint, we tried diplomacy — but how long can you watch your own people fall victim to someone else’s chaos? I don’t support war, and I never will, but I also can’t accept seeing our sons, brothers, and children killed in the name of a distorted ideology. At some point, a nation must act to protect its own.

And how can we forget 16th December, the Army Public School attack, the darkest day in our nation’s history. Innocent children were targeted, their only fault being their identity as Pakistanis. 149 lives were lost that day, including 132 schoolchildren. Those who orchestrated it, and those who silently backed them, cannot be separated from the blood that was spilled. Behind every smiling face that condemns terrorism on stage, there often lies a shadow funding it offstage.

Pakistan has paid an enormous price in this war against terror. Over 80,000 Pakistanis — civilians, security forces, and law enforcement officials — have lost their lives since 2001. The economic cost has crossed $150 billion, and yet, our resilience hasn’t faltered. These aren’t just numbers. They are faces, names, stories, and sacrifices that the world rarely stops to acknowledge.

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When the cost shows up in the most brutal ways, when young men fall as martyrs in day-to-day life, when schools are attacked, when suicide bombings strike at the heart of our communities — and when these attacks are traced back to hubs operating from across a border — the calculus changes. There will be collateral damage, there will be consequences; there will be hard choices. But there are moments when a problem must be uprooted before it uproots you.

Pakistan has repeatedly told the international community and the United Nations that it has paid a heavy price to terrorism over the past two decades — more than 80,000 lives lost and thousands more injured, as Pakistan’s mission stated at the UN in April 2025.
pakun.org

This tragic total sits alongside other long-term tallies collected by independent trackers and researchers that document the waves of violence, displacement, and loss Pakistan has endured since the early 2000s. (For historical breakdowns and year-by-year fatalities, see compiled records such as those on the South Asia Terrorism Portal.)
satp.org

And the violence has not stayed constant. Recent years have seen worrying spikes; for example, reporting noted a sharp increase in deaths from terrorism and counter-terrorism in 2024, with thousands killed that year alone — underscoring that the security pressure remains acute.
idea.int

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And then comes the neighbour on the eastern borders...

It’s not paranoia, it’s pattern. Their own media is trying to cover this peak hypocrisy. If you watch their news channels, (the Godi media) it’s a circus these days. They don’t even seem to know what they’re talking about. Just a few days earlier, they were vehemently anti-Taliban, and now they’re applauding the recent meetup. They are hosting someone who faces international sanctions, a six-day mulaqaat (visit ), with someone, they themselves label as terrorist organizations on global platforms. Meanwhile, we have never glorified such alliances. Pakistan’s stance has always been rooted in diplomacy, not duplicity.

An enemy’s enemy is a friend — I’ve heard this phrase often in international affairs and diplomacy. But what about a country that once declared someone a terrorist and now, in the name of Pakistan’s enmity, embraces the same group as a trusted ally? What kind of diplomacy turns towards supporting those it once condemned, simply because their hatred aligns with yours? And mind you it was not in the distant past... Just a few months back!

The irony of our times is this: those who once claimed to be the torchbearers of justice now find comfort in the company of the very forces they once condemned. Diplomacy, perhaps, has become less about principles and more about convenience — and maybe that’s the real tragedy of modern politics, when morality becomes just another bargaining chip on the world’s chessboard.

Both ⬇️ videos are neighbour's media outlets! What shifted? God knows only...

Versus

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We are not perfect as a nation. We have our faults, our divisions, our struggles. But hypocrisy has never been our policy. When we call out terrorism, we mean it. It’s the duplicity of others, those who preach peace but practice provocation, that poisons the region.

We are, at heart, a moderate nation — in our daily lives, our religion, and our dealings. One thing I’ve grown increasingly proud of lately is that we are not people driven by rogue media or blind hatred. Despite provocations, we still choose balance, dignity, and dialogue. That, perhaps, is our quiet strength — the ability to stay grounded when others choose chaos.

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_{PS — sorry for such a long post. I want to write much, much more, but restraint must be practised. I do not want to hurt anyone’s sentiments, yet I cannot be the one to stay silent when these things need saying. There will be arguments and thousands of counter-arguments, but facts sometimes speak for themselves. Sooner or later people see — of course we do not know the whole story, but we see the killings, the blood, the homes destroyed. These coffins are unbearably heavy.}

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