I have a feeling…

I want to tell you something: I have a feeling that very soon we will win this battle. That we will get democracy, the constitution, the judges and the media back.

I have a feeling that victory is just across the corner and a better tomorrow is about to break even as the night grows dark and chilly.

Sleepless nights, hesitantly waking up every morning to the attend phone calls from worried family members, Action Committee members seeking assistance, Vice Chancellor’s secretary and all sorts of people, running barefoot to grab a look at the papers to see if everything was still fine and calling friends up to be sure that no one had been arrested, joking about the rumours that we were on the ISI list and that there were policemen were standing at the gate with arrest warrants, and hoping dearly in our hearts that the rumors were just rumors.… And in our private moments, usually during and after namaz, praying for turning of the tide, if it be the will of God.

And I have a feeling that the passion of three weeks have been accepted and it is His will that the tide will turn very soon, and a time will come when I would be able to go back to my quiet old life, sit quietly on terrace, sip tea in breezy but sunny winter mornings and reminisce about the great green city of my childhood and all else that is good in life.

Blessed Friday draws near. Back home in Islamabad, I do not feel left out of the Students’ Movement. When my peers will rally at Liberty Chawk, I shall, inshaAllah, join other peers in Islamabad, most of whom I shall be seeing for the first time. But a time has come when the students stand united and there is no alienation any more.

Just think about it. More than a month ago when BB landed in Karachi, ostensibly after striking a deal with Musharraf, it looked as though the powers-that-be will stay forever and that the people had lost out in the power-game once again. Then three weeks ago, on November 5, as the police brutalized lawyers and retired judges in front of my eyes, I felt as though they will never have to pay for it. In the brightness of that day, I felt the last ray of hope in my being finally give in, and then it got as cold and dark as it ever could. Who could know, then, that the state would have to allow all major parties to contest elections, and that these parties would in turn demand no less than the removal of emergency and curbs on media and the reinstatement of the constitution and all judges. Who could know that day that civil society would put up such a major show and that its efforts would even bear fruit.

And yet, somehow, such is the doing of the real doer of all acts that He brought things to a point where I can now see a new dawn breaking. A time is near when there will be an honorable place, even for the conscientious amongst citizens, other than that on the streets with other protesters and out of jails. That day is near, I feel.

But I know for a fact that that day is not here yet. This Friday the streets still await us. If all of us can answer the call, that may be the end of it.