Perhaps it is my nation’s derived identity, plagued by an incessant struggle for independence, communal warfare, and the nascency of its democracy.

Perhaps it is the trains packed with limp, lifeless bodies, or the roads marred with the blood of my people, stains that rain cannot remove.

Perhaps it is the nature of the Pakistani community itself, which has given birth to a unique and reluctant acknowledgement of the inherent need for the destruction of notions long held to be true.

Perhaps this acceptance could only be achieved through bloodshed and warfare, divisions and death. Perhaps what necessitates change within us, through the cruel irony that characterizes the world, is our inability to accept it.

I believe the intertwined, complex nature of the world necessitates destruction, in order for creation. Only if we begin to question what we have come to believe to be undisputedly true and invalidate false notions can humanity hone its true potential and create wonders. Perhaps the true anomalous nature of mankind exists only due to man’s ability to accept the destruction of a city, for the creation of a civilization.

The formation of my state 70 years ago was a direct manifestation of the new world order that had been established. This evolution itself stemmed from the ability of our colonial rulers to accept the death of an ancient order, for the creation of an inclusive and representative nascent one. Perhaps it was this basis of our existence itself, which has all but forced us to look at the destruction of an idea as the creation of a better one. And perhaps it is this belief that will be our salvation.