General Pervez Musharraf declared a State of Emergency on November 5th, 2007. A state of emergency during his own rule—(how strange and telling?)
When I saw the footage on TV, I realized that all of the craziness is happening about 10 blocks from my home in Islamabad—barricades, trucks full of army personnel, all kinds of artillery—so I panicked—because my wife was there alone, so close to the madness. So I called my wife to ask
Me: what is going on?! Are you okay?
Asiya: I am fine, just sitting around catching up on some work, why are you breathing so hard?
Me: There is a state of emergency in Pakistan, there is chaos everywhere!!
Asiya: Well I better turn the TV on because I had no clue.
So there it is. Ten blocks away from what the media showed as utter madness and chaos, my wife had no clue.
At around the same time, a friend of mine from Manhattan, who is now working in Karachi, found out about the state of emergency and frantically called his uncle:
Him: There is a state of emergency, what am I supposed to do!?!?!?
Uncle: umm….nothing?
And so is the state of Pakistan, people are so desensitized to chaos, that the reaction of the masses prevents it from actually being chaos—everyone continues life as usual.
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