“I lost everything in the floods last year. Now I am waiting for Allah to help me rebuild my life,” says Ali Nawaz nonchalantly. Ali Nawaz is from Naushahro Feroze, Sindh, and could be between 50 to 90 years old, his expressionless eyes and face don’t reveal anything except for the pain he tries to hide.
Like millions hit by the floods in Pakistan, Ali Nawaz’s problems are not over. The flood water has receded now, but at the time he and his family waded in waist-deep water to safety that flowed 52 hours after the flood initially hit the area.
Seven months later, Nawaz like millions of others across flood-affected areas, has been unable to rebuild his life and home. He shifted his family from flooded Naushahro Feroze first to a camp, then to Karachi to stay with family, while he returned to guard what little he had left from thieves.
Ali Nawaz retired from a government job in 2001 and set up a shop near his house. He was quite content until the floods wiped everything out. “The flood took both my home and shop. Right now, I don’t have the funds to rebuild my home or restart my shop – but Allah is great, and I know he will help me. I spend most of my time guarding what is left of my belongings.”
There are hundreds of thousands of people like Ali Nawaz in Sindh, Balochistan and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. According to local journalists, there are still areas in Balochistan inundated by last year’s flood which didn’t get any help.
Unbothered by this, urban dwellers continue to live in their privileged bubbles, only to react to something that is in the media – traditional or social media. If the media isn’t reporting it, it is not trending or viral, it must not be happening and therefore not important. This feeds into the aporophobia that few urbanites suffer from, who are genuinely not interested as it is not their problem.
And just for that, they should be reminded that not everyone from ‘smaller towns and villages’ wants to move to cities and urban spaces and rob them. The majority prefer living away from their noisy, impersonal, and filthy urban spaces. And even when faced with calamity prefer to relocate near their own areas or homes, so they can begin working to get their lives back together in their homes.
However, this seems to be impossible as seven months later post-flood devastation has faded from the media, as well as the national conscience, and people think the crisis is over. They have moved on and returned to the political merry-go-round.
People like Ali Nawaz struggle every day to stitch their lives together. With more than 1.7 million – another estimate puts the figure at more than 2.2 million – homes damaged or destroyed in the floods, the process of rebuilding has not even started.
And on top of this tent camps established for internally displaced people in Balochistan, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, and Punjab have closed. And more than ‘29,692 people remain displaced in Sindh province, with 5,132 people living in temporary tent cities or villages established by the District Disaster Management Authority’.
It is like the crisis is over – well not for the residents of the millions of houses destroyed. The emergency is far from over. Except for the Heritage Foundation supported by the Bank of Punjab, no one else is planning to rebuild and reinforce buildings before monsoon this year which is few months away. This is only going to make rebuilding and rehabilitation difficult and may pose a worse political crisis than the one the political elite are engaged at this moment.
The government has been on a constant financial see-saw with IMF and other friendly nations and things have not been going according to plan mainly because no one seems to be on the same book, let alone the same page in the country.
The monsoon is just a few months away, are the authorities ready to deal with the aftermath or will they be left at the mercy of climate change again? And it doesn’t help that experts are predicting more natural disasters in the near and far future, things don’t look good for anyone.
This is especially so for the voters, who have long memories. Flood-affected areas are in strong constituencies of those locked in the ongoing political tussle on the national stage: ignoring them in time of need may come back to haunt them during elections. Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa to Balochistan to Sindh, as well as parts of Punjab, is a substantial portion of the electorate pie which could become difficult for the victor to swallow once the political dust settles.
There is some good news that funds for the flood affected are in the pipeline. And the bad news is that things may be delayed further due to the constant political turmoil in the country. Everything has been moving too slowly, eroding the public’s patience which is never a good thing for any government or government-in-waiting.
Democracy needs time to nurture and grow. It is the basis of a civilised society and a prosperous economy and all that. But this is meaningless to people who are suffering, scrambling, and fighting like animals for a bag of flour to feed their families and getting killed in the process.
It is time political parties began thinking long-term post-elections on what is best for the people. And even though it is too late to begin the work to patch up lives, which should have begun yesterday, it is worth the try. And the first step towards this is to replace their political sob stories with the human stories of their voters now.
Put the voter first, now!
Like millions hit by the floods in Pakistan, Ali Nawaz’s problems are not over. The flood water has receded now, but at the time he and his family waded in waist-deep water to safety that flowed 52 hours after the flood initially hit the area.
Seven months later, Nawaz like millions of others across flood-affected areas, has been unable to rebuild his life and home. He shifted his family from flooded Naushahro Feroze first to a camp, then to Karachi to stay with family, while he returned to guard what little he had left from thieves.
Ali Nawaz retired from a government job in 2001 and set up a shop near his house. He was quite content until the floods wiped everything out. “The flood took both my home and shop. Right now, I don’t have the funds to rebuild my home or restart my shop – but Allah is great, and I know he will help me. I spend most of my time guarding what is left of my belongings.”
There are hundreds of thousands of people like Ali Nawaz in Sindh, Balochistan and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. According to local journalists, there are still areas in Balochistan inundated by last year’s flood which didn’t get any help.
Unbothered by this, urban dwellers continue to live in their privileged bubbles, only to react to something that is in the media – traditional or social media. If the media isn’t reporting it, it is not trending or viral, it must not be happening and therefore not important. This feeds into the aporophobia that few urbanites suffer from, who are genuinely not interested as it is not their problem.
And just for that, they should be reminded that not everyone from ‘smaller towns and villages’ wants to move to cities and urban spaces and rob them. The majority prefer living away from their noisy, impersonal, and filthy urban spaces. And even when faced with calamity prefer to relocate near their own areas or homes, so they can begin working to get their lives back together in their homes.
However, this seems to be impossible as seven months later post-flood devastation has faded from the media, as well as the national conscience, and people think the crisis is over. They have moved on and returned to the political merry-go-round.
Flood-affected areas are in strong constituencies of those locked in the ongoing political tussle on the national stage: ignoring them in their time of need may come back to haunt them
People like Ali Nawaz struggle every day to stitch their lives together. With more than 1.7 million – another estimate puts the figure at more than 2.2 million – homes damaged or destroyed in the floods, the process of rebuilding has not even started.
And on top of this tent camps established for internally displaced people in Balochistan, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, and Punjab have closed. And more than ‘29,692 people remain displaced in Sindh province, with 5,132 people living in temporary tent cities or villages established by the District Disaster Management Authority’.
It is like the crisis is over – well not for the residents of the millions of houses destroyed. The emergency is far from over. Except for the Heritage Foundation supported by the Bank of Punjab, no one else is planning to rebuild and reinforce buildings before monsoon this year which is few months away. This is only going to make rebuilding and rehabilitation difficult and may pose a worse political crisis than the one the political elite are engaged at this moment.
The government has been on a constant financial see-saw with IMF and other friendly nations and things have not been going according to plan mainly because no one seems to be on the same book, let alone the same page in the country.
The monsoon is just a few months away, are the authorities ready to deal with the aftermath or will they be left at the mercy of climate change again? And it doesn’t help that experts are predicting more natural disasters in the near and far future, things don’t look good for anyone.
This is especially so for the voters, who have long memories. Flood-affected areas are in strong constituencies of those locked in the ongoing political tussle on the national stage: ignoring them in time of need may come back to haunt them during elections. Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa to Balochistan to Sindh, as well as parts of Punjab, is a substantial portion of the electorate pie which could become difficult for the victor to swallow once the political dust settles.
There is some good news that funds for the flood affected are in the pipeline. And the bad news is that things may be delayed further due to the constant political turmoil in the country. Everything has been moving too slowly, eroding the public’s patience which is never a good thing for any government or government-in-waiting.
Democracy needs time to nurture and grow. It is the basis of a civilised society and a prosperous economy and all that. But this is meaningless to people who are suffering, scrambling, and fighting like animals for a bag of flour to feed their families and getting killed in the process.
It is time political parties began thinking long-term post-elections on what is best for the people. And even though it is too late to begin the work to patch up lives, which should have begun yesterday, it is worth the try. And the first step towards this is to replace their political sob stories with the human stories of their voters now.
Put the voter first, now!