Coming from a family that considers going to a convent school as one of the strongest family traditions, I speak English as fluently as any native. Perhaps, the biggest ‘compliment’ that I received during my university days in England as well as in my professional life so far is on the ease in which I can converse in English.

Speaking of my days in England, the more time I spent abroad the more I realised that I had, just like many others in Pakistan, a very confused sense of identity. From the very beginning I was encouraged to only speak in English whether I was at home or school. Gradually, it became a habit. A point came where even thinking in any other language was a rarity. There are still classrooms full of students in my school and many others in Pakistan that are churning out girls and boys with excellent English skills, without realising the price they are paying for it. I, like many others, know English better than our national language, let alone our mother tongue.

I am an experienced public speaker who gets an inexplicable high when addressing large rooms full of people, but ask me to give a presentation in Urdu alone and watch me run out the door like a frightened mouse. Perhaps, this is not even the worst part of our obsession with English. The worst, in my opinion, is the pride we take in not knowing our own language. Are we as a nation too embarrassed of our roots and traditions to own them? Perhaps, we are.

The worst part of our obsession with English is the pride we take in not knowing our own language. Are we as a nation too embarrassed of our roots and traditions to own them? Perhaps, we are.

No country in the world has been able to reach a point of success without embracing its identity. Be it China, Turkey, Japan, or any European country. Until when will English be our official language? For how long will we keep 90 percent of our population excluded from quality education, just because they don’t know the language that was imposed on us? Our country’s sovereignty was decolonised in the 20^th Century, but when will our mindsets?

I have no objection to adoption of Westernised or foreign notions and practices. That’s about preferences and beliefs, and everyone is free to make their choices and align themselves with ideologies they tend towards. However, not at the expense of our own identity, because if we are under the impression that it might somehow bridge the ‘us’ and ‘them’ divide; it is high time we realised that it will not.

It was not until I moved abroad that I realised that the Pakistanis, or the ‘Westernised’ ones, do not really have a sense of identity. We have taken parts of other cultures and traditions as our own; whether it is from the West or the Middle East or from the neighbouring India.

It can be argued that there’s nothing wrong with that, but let’s first analyse the opportunity cost of doing that before we blindly influence generation after generation that are responsible for the future of our country. When will we rid ourselves of the shackles of the curse of colonialism?

The writer is a training and development advisor at a German development organization. She can be reached at saniyanasir3@gmail.com