Pakistanis peace-loving
By: Jam Sajjad Hussain
LAHORE – Pakistanis are peace-loving nation who hate extremism and terrorism in all its manifestations like the Americans or the people of any Western country. There is a huge misconception in the US regarding Pakistani people.
Moreover the US media is also playing biased role by attaching terrorists’ activities with Pakistani people, which is quite ridiculous.
An American citizen Todd Shea, Executive Director Co-mprehensive Disaster Response Services (CDRS) expressed these views along with Atif Aslam, a renowned Pakistani Rock Star while giving details of the Sonic Peacemakers “Pakistan-America Peace Through Music-Proje-ct” at a local hotel on Tuesday.
Todd Shea said that this music project was aimed at removing the existing misconceptions between the two nations (America-Pakistan), as these growing misapprehensions may prove disastrous in future. “The people of Pakistan are quite opposite as they are being portrayed in the US media. They love humanity and peace. They are not involved in any kind of terrorists’ activities,” he added. Todd said that those Americans talking about a US citizen Faisal Shahzad, who apparently carried out an unsuccessful attack on Time Squire, should also remember that Pakistani doctors team led by Dr Saeed Akhtar had cured the victims of 9/11.
Todd revealing his entry into social work said that, “I was in New York City on September 11, 2001 to perform at a world famous live music show at CBGB’s Gallery. I ended up working at the site of the fallen World Trade Centre towers day and night for almost a week, assisting the fire fighters, law enforcement officers and workers by delivering needed items and setting up an outdoor pharmacy for rescue workers to get food, water, medicines, clothing, tools, comfort items and anything else they needed to keep them going,”.
He further said that after 9/11, he also continued with his music career by performing music concerts across the US until his friend was victimised by a crisis at his counselling business. Shea said he was planning a charity concert for long-term tsunami victims in Indonesia when Hurricane Katrina happened. As a result of his work on 9/11, he was invited to be a logistics coordinator for some NY City area search and rescue teams. “Within 5 days of Hurricane Katrina, I was working on a Navy base on the Mississippi River across from downtown New Orleans with the US Army 82nd Airborne.
I worked with CDRS co-founder Marc O’Regan and CE-RT team member Jim Kushner (who also came with me to Pakistan) to make supply runs with the truck to depots of organisations like FEMA and The Salvation Army,” he commented. Meanwhile during a journey he was introduced with the magnetic voice of Atif Aslam, which imme-nsely attracted him. Since then he joined Atif and urged him to initiate such a project with could minimise these misconceptions between the people of the US and Pakistan.
On the occasion Atif said he had been working in collaboration with few guys of an eminent American music banned in connection with this project. We have tried our best to realise Americans that Pakistanis are peace-loving people. He said through this project they have done their best to create mutual harmony between the two nations. Regarding his compositions, Atif said that like his other songs, the music tracks being presented in this project would also be remembered by the people acr-oss the world.
Source: The Nation
Date:7/28/2010
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