How people talk about unity?

“Whatever our social problems and economic difficulties we believe in people’s unity,” say ordinary citizens, but they also blame leaders for dividing them in their interest. “We all need to understand for all practical purposes that united we stand, divided we fall: are we not suffering from our mistakes?”
“Living in one state, or having one government, doesn’t make us a nation, that’s not enough,” assert a retired professor of Rawalpindi. He is right.
Educated elders, leading life as ordinary citizens, say a nation means a body of people marked off by common descent, language, culture, or historical tradition — the people of a state, preferably an independent sovereign state, for instance Pakistan. What is indispensable for a state, or for a nation, is people’s unity strengthened by the concept of being one in thought, word and action.
Pakistan’s founder derived the idea of unity from one God, one Prophet and one Book. He called upon the people not to forget the motto “unity, faith and discipline” — “faith in God, in ourselves and in our destiny.” Common people, not leaders, catch the point of getting united in national interest. “That’s the only way to meet valiantly the enemy from within and without,” openly say the low-paid employees and vendors.
Pakistan, to its founder, was the embodiment of unity of the Muslim nation, and he expected of his followers to guard and preserve that unity zealously. The father of the nation was mindful of the military and he did not underestimate its role in context of the country’s unity, freedom and sovereignty.
The man, as the country’s governor-general, emphasised to the defenders of homeland that the weak and the defenceless in the imperfect world invite aggression from others. “The best way in which we can serve the cause of peace is by removing the temptation from the path of those who think that we are weak and, therefore, they can bully or attack us.”
The unity of thought, word and action, which the makers of Pakistan wanted to create in the people, was effectively demonstrated during the September war between India and Pakistan.
The national unity was exemplary in the sense that the masses and the armed forces put up a grand show of solidarity and harmony to repel the foreign aggression. They did not think of themselves as Punjabis, Pakhtuns, Sindhis and Balochs, or even Serakis, but as Pakistanis. Such behaviour immersed in patriotism was the basis of true national unity.
“That is needed today, the power-hungry rich don’t realise the fact of the matter,” say the poor who listen to city olds whole-heartedly and pray to Almighty God for homeland’s survival.
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