I CAME across the sweetest picture on social media of a bearded man, wearing a white knitted cap, taking a photograph of presumably his young children in front of the Christmas tree planted in Lahore. It was so heartwarming — and unexpected.
So this photograph of the father and his children in front of the tall, 13-metre tree, which was planted by Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz’s administration, won the internet over with comments like “the country is healing”.
She tweeted how the tree and Christmas celebrations across the province “reflects the message that minorities are not only safe in Punjab but are also valued, respected, and an integral part of the social fabric”.
As one user on X wrote: [It was] “a glimpse of the country Jinnah wanted to see.”
Everyone across the political divide tweeted good wishes for Christians. I hope I live long enough to see the day when Christmas wishes are expressed in a more universal spirit. At the moment, there is apprehension that any sign of inclusiveness can be misconstrued as a disrespect of religious sensitivities. What are those sensitivities? Anything that is seen as a slight to our sentiments that can result in misplaced allegations of blasphemy, for example.
One can seize the moment and look towards the future.
A report by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan last year, on “the alarming increase” in violence against minority communities in the country, makes for a depressing read. “In a chilling development, two individuals accused of blasphemy were extra-judicially killed by the police while seeking protection from hostile mobs,” it read. “Such incidents underscore the urgent need for reform within law enforcement and accountability mechanisms.”
Against this backdrop, a Christmas tree in Liberty seems like a very small peace offering to the minorities who live their lives under the shadow of fear. I can’t deny that but I’m going out on a limb to say that the Liberty Christmas tree, and the response to it, offers a chance at optimism.
As this paper reported, “the festivities [around the tree in Liberty Chowk] were unprecedented for many, being one of the rare occasions that Christmas had been observed at a public venue on such a grand scale”. It is commonplace for many officials, civilian and military, to mark Christmas at church events, sometimes as interfaith celebrations or to commemorate it by issuing wishes to Christians on Christmas. But this tree in Lahore felt different. As the paper reported, many spoke “of the thrill they experienced seeing ordinary Lahoris joining in the Christmas cheer”.
This says something, even if I’m not yet sure how to define it. I dare not use hope because that gets crushed so quickly — by leaders who promise to be different only to be the same once in power. By other leaders who promise to usher in eras of economic prosperity only to crush us under the weight of taxes. Heck, even our cricketers let us down. Only we manage not to let each other down. But we’re struggling to stay resilient as is expected, especially from those of us who are Karachiites.
For the last eight years or so, I have had to tell my students of the founders’ pluralistic intentions for Pakistan and we always regret how they have never materialised. We know that Aug 11, 1947, speech because it’s reproduced every Aug 14 in the papers. It’s never been implemented in spirit so Jinnah’s pluralistic vision is just that — a vision yet to materialise.
I’m here to suggest we let go of the past — not by erasing painful memories but by softening their hold. You can seize the moment and look towards the future. I believe the tree was a small step towards imagining some-thing new.
I’m reminded of the opening lines from L.P. Hartley’s 1953 novel, The Go Between, “The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.”
We don’t have to be who we were. The way we have told ourselves about our founding — a betrayal of an inclusive vision, the abandonment of pluralism, the unfulfilled promises — is a story told by a country that felt trapped by its failures.
The photo of the father with his children in front of the tree tells me we don’t have to live in the past anymore and that we’ve changed.
Maybe we can see our past as foreign because memory is unreliable. Some historians say we reconstruct the past through the lens of who we’ve become. Maybe we are finally becoming people who can look back at an inclusive founding vision — not as a broken promise, but as an aspiration we’re finally ready to move towards.
The writer is an instructor of journalism.
X: @LedeingLady
Published in Dawn, January 4th, 2026