Editorial: A stirring response to the Baluchhal

The Balochhal team is extremely exuberant over the overwhelming response it has received from all over the world over the launching of the first online Baloch English newspaper. The Baloch diaspora and the young Balochs living in and outside Balochistan have warmly welcomed the launching of the newspaper as a very positive step.

I know the newspaper still looks very chaotic at the moment. Worse still, it appears to be a one-man show. I am sure we will overcome our shortcomings very soon and soon manage to operate like a regular online newspaper. Before launching this newspaper, we firstly waited to get all facilities — the money, a big office, experienced English language journalists, a swanky computer laboratory, a network of bureau offices, stringers and correspondents in all district headquarters etc. Then we realized that we were not being very realistic. After all, we are working in Pakistan’s poorest province where people are striving to get clean drinking water and basic education. Therefore, it was unreasonable to expect the people of Balochistan to give up their “priorities” (search for water and education, among many others) and come to help us.

So if you see several shortcomings in this newspaper, just keep one thing in your minds in response to all the questions that keep hitting your mind: This is how our Balochistan is. We are poor, illiterate and voiceless. Yet, we are not hopeless. On the ground, we seem poor, under the ground we are the land of the rich mineral resources. All that the people of Balochistan as well as the readers of this newspaper should realize is that we all have to get united and collectively struggle for a brighter future for our children.

Thus, my team reached to the conclusion that no matter what financial and technical shortcomings we face, we have to embark upon our journey. I am sure these lines you will come to help us in whatever way possible instead of hoping, “someone might help these young men, why me?” If you keep this voice alive, Balochistan will have a voice internationally. If you withdraw your support, we will surely miss your assistance.

This newspaper team also acknowledged that Balochistan desperately needed an online newspaper. Until we put something to the people, they will not move forward to cooperate. The only answer we will probably get from them is, “you carry on, we are always with you.”

We would be very glad to welcome contributions from young people who would like to write on a subject but they never get the chance to get published online. I would like to request the college and university teachers and students to break their silence and pick up the pen to write on any subject that interests them The civil society in Balochistan has, unfortunately, been very passive and unresponsive in the recent times. One hardly sees a letter to the editor written by a professor, students or any other professional in any of the national newspapers. Where are all these educated people? Why don’t they articulate their views and share them with the rest of the world? We would like to generously invite them to make use of this platform.

We are going to make sure that everybody gets a chance to be heard and published.

What makes this newspaper different from the Baloch sites?  Balochhal will provide exclusive reports, photographs, articles, editorials and updates to our readers rather than entirely copying material from other websites.  However, we cannot surely resist the charm of articles written on Balochistan in various newspapers.

We are starting this project with the intension to provide Balochistan a regular online newspaper so that the world can easily get a fresh perspective from Balochistan. I am sure our friends will cop up with our shortcomings and keep guiding us with their valuable recommendations.

Last but not the least, we would be glad to hear from volunteers who are willing to work for us as reporters, stringers, columnists, interviewers and those who would like to help us financially or with advertisements.  It is ironic that one gold and copper project in Balochistan is worth billions of dollars; this ill-fated land does not have an indigenous online newspaper because the people of Balochistan do not have a control over their resources.

What is our political agenda? Which political party do we support? An interesting question.  We will not repeat the old cliché that we do not support any political party. We surely support the political process and every political party. We are opposed to the notion of depoliticizing the masses of this country.  Since politics directly dictates the life of every member of the society, it is unfair to make the society apolitical.

In Balochistan’s context, ours is a wish like that of many others: The unity of all Baloch political parties. The Baloch parties may not be willing to sit together on a single platform. All that we can do is to bring them together on the pages of our newspaper. We respect the political ideology of every political party. Sooner or later, the Baloch parties will realize that disunity and lack of mutual trust will drag them to more suffering, disaster and exploitation by the powers that advocate a policy of divide and rule. Balochs urgently need unity. Rest of the things come much later.