I am 96 years old and a regular contributor to various news outlets through my letters in the opinion and editorial sections. I have been writing extensively about looming disasters in form of disease, natural calamities, and economic crunches. I kept pleading to the government through my letters that all these menaces are intertwined and until the government takes solid steps, our country does not stand a chance. Many others also kept pleading to their governments around the world to take these things seriously, but alas all our pleas fell on def ears. More upsetting is the fact that while this disease has devoured hundreds of thousands of lives world over, leaders in most countries are more focused on developing means of destruction than finding a cure to this and other diseases. People die of disease and hunger and resources are being spent on means of further destruction.For example, India, China, and Pakistan seem more obsessed with developing weapons and gaining ability to destroy each other than using even a fraction of their resources for development of human life. The US is more worried about China and Iran than Corona, which has killed more people than all their enemies combined have in the battlefields. The oppressive and brutal regime of Israel is more dangerous for millions of Palestinians and Israeli Arab citizen than any disease in the world. One wonders why the so-called custodians of the human and civil rights all over the world are more obsessed with finishing the very life they claim to be defending. I beg to the leaders of the countries around the world to stop developing means of destroying life on this fragile planet and pool resources to protect human life. In the end, we all have to die one day but what we leave behind in form of our deeds and actions will determine how we are remembered. The world leaders should take a hint from how Hitler or Mussolini are remembered versus Mother Tressa or Abdul Sattar Edhi.
Raja Shafaatullah
Islamabad
