Closing of the Pakistani mind

We as Pakistani think in black and white and that is in terms of absolutes never bother to move away from abstractions. Abstractions of a very basic kind for we are also capable of monstrosities. Name calling at which Punjab seems to be a master at the moment. Some things have gone wrong for the Chief Minister Punjab was and is a tolerant person and so is his elder brother Nawaz. What has happened?
Is it the uncertainty of remaining in power? If that be so, then power is no one's handmaiden? It will shift when the people so want it. But will this political system last? Not the way they are going for each other. No it won't last. What will replace it? Another uniformed tyrannical power? The issues are difficult for a country that has refused to play with power as a trust. The other day I was told that some MNA in Punjab had been badmouthing everyone in sight. What was the MNA's problem? Trying to be loyal to his Political party? The representatives of the political parties do so every day on TV channels. The easiest route to filling time on TV is to abuse I suppose.
Politics is about diversity? How was it achieved in USA and India? Partly by the act of tolerance, and in this a considerable amount of experimentation was done. If the constitution as an example is not going to reflect the cultural changes that come about in the country over time then we might as well tell ourselves that we are incapable of governing ourselves. Why live in illusions? The experimentation has to be within a larger constitutional framework. The provinces have to be on board considering that we go on touting ourselves as a fledgling democracy. I never envisaged a fledgling democracy? I never knew that age mattered for I thought either one was democratic or one was not and that collective thought should be acceptable. That does not mean that the rule of maxim is to govern us and that the minimum will not be heard. Freedom of action does not necessarily lead to freedom of thought. Either one was there or one was not there. That's it. The provinces were to be the laboratories for these experimentations and that meant that the center and the provinces were to work in complete harmony and in agreement with each other.
This is always possible when irrespective of creed or colour of the political system it does not impinge on the economic system. The economic system then plays a strong part if this is fair and impartial. The excluded are included in the development process. The economic system then has to complement and supplement each other. They then become inter-dependent. But what if the planners are blind and the policymakers are deaf? There will be mass chaos. The puzzle will not fit and the lopsidedness will always be there.
The question of sovereignty keeps cropping up. It will not go away until the cause and effect are clearly identified. The national Security Council was set up for this purpose. Has it resolved the issues or do they linger. Can they take the foreign policy and clothe it so that Pakistan can take its own decisions. Its sovereignty should never be at stake. In a world that is so large, Pakistan is a mere cog in the wheel. Even that cog is not operating at its potential.
Where is the pioneering spirit of the forties? What was it that made us so unselfish at that time? What made us change? We thought quite naively that the state would be able to resolve itself into a viable one by its own efforts and by the compulsions of time. The colonial legacy will be changed by itself. No one bothered to sit down and develop a new set of rules as all independent countries manage to do. How much non-conformity was to work? How much was required? Was and is there a person who could invent ideas and take things forward? What morons can do the system? Consider the institutions that we have? Suffocating ones as there is no real imagination and no real potential player either. There is complete paralysis. No one had learnt to work paradoxical situations so that conflict resolution was out of the question. Nature has provided us with a natural environment that enables us to be pluralistic. Can we gamble on social issues? We have to in order to catch up for in a modern IT society moods of communication are much faster than our leisurely ones of the past. It does put undue pressure on all of us. The creation of Pakistan was a bold gamble - not in the pejorative sense but in a manner that provided us the right to live and decide for ourselves. Are we not in shambles? Has the Pakistani mind not been one that refuses to move ahead and make its own mistakes? Experimentation and all have been done on behalf of what the West wants from us. Sold for a few nickels and not much to show for it?
The National Security Council met and decided what? It decided that the insecurity was to be handled and that too by a firm hand. The fortitude of the people of Pakistan has to be taken into consideration for there are people in Pakistan that do not receive anything from the government in terms of support and development and yet these are the people to be heard and supported. The snitchers are everywhere tattling their way through life and I am afraid the media gives a twist that is unwanted and unwarranted. The virtue of these people living in the periphery of the country has been taken for granted and when the time came to blame, these were the people that were blamed for one reason or the other. No one ever cared for their right to be heard and to develop some kind of positive intervention for them. Do we then suppose that security can be achieved by resorting to the familiar, the traditional, the dogmatic, the absolute then we are falsifying our positions and deluding ourselves? Do we think that we can somehow exact guarantees from the supernatural or from history or from any other source and derive strength therefrom, we delude ourselves. The game to be played is differently done.
The next generation has to be prepared to take over the country and we should be in a position to leave it in better condition then we received it. The preparation for that has not begun yet. Laws of natural justice have been violated and the law of the jungle is allowed to prevail. How long can this last? The pressure to do well and honestly will build up and before we realise it, we will have to be fighting yet gain for our country for it will not face external dangers but from within. We are exposed to dangerous ideas and the implementation of these ideas by outsiders and other nations when we do not have to work our own ideas. We are as a result of borrowed ideas in the realm of borrowed times. Just consider the reforms that we have undergone as a result of the jerk in the international agency who has decided that Pakistan needs some resources and these are the conditions that can be imposed on the country. To take the easy and convenient route out is the line of least resistance. Countries are made when the leaders take the difficult choice and paradoxically remove the inept and the inefficient ideas. In short, we want security and in the process we forget that 'certainty is an illusion'. The highest document in the country is the constitution and yet the constitution to be organic must undergo changes as cultural and experimentation comes into play. The mind need not be closed to these happenings. Experimentation allows one the right to see in miniature what one wants at the macro-level. Reasoning can go wrong but the rule placed on experimentation never does.
So what has to be done? Liberalise the thought process, open the mind to social experimentation and take a positive attitude. Will the recent colloquium on teachers help in developing a mind that is capable of delivery? The international game will not know about the rural schools in the periphery of Islamabad what to speak of far-off places. Imperfect knowledge used by absolute thought and power will be a catastrophe in this country. The present generation has to build for the future and all wisdom will not die with the passing of the present leaders. That wisdom is horizontal in graveyards is for all to see. The most powerful and the weakest of the weak hit the dirt sooner or later. So beware.