Concepts are one thing and their application quite another. At the conceptual state the difficulty is that as Pakistanis, we have refused to see and consider the larger picture. The issue is that we have forgotten how to think for ourselves. We have drifted into different kinds of non-thinking by our actions.
That brings us to the concept of consciousness and what have we done about this for the top policymakers, as well as the lower order formations that are responsible for the implementation of what is articulated and discussed in the top forums. The fact is that all governments have to think beyond themselves for the future and what it holds, not for the present generation but the future that will hold the key to better living.
The received wisdom is that one has to distinguish between the conscious mind's ability to think beyond the present to the world in the future and that has to be done consciously. That is a function of intentionality. The factors that impinge on this are the quality of such thinking and whether the current minds are capable of doing this kind of abstraction.
Without doubt it is the democratic governments that are more inclined towards this kind of thinking and not the tyrannical governments led by authoritarian regimes. The fact is that the democratic traditions were sold out by the representations of the new world, where expatriates were trained as 'economic hit men' and sent to us for the purpose of incarcerating this society.
The limited minds of the expatriates [rather than the other way] indicate the inability to think beyond themselves and their coterie and we have seen this in colonial times and every time a tyrant has come to power. The quality associated with the mental states is not available. It is the propaganda that goes with it that seems to have clinched the matter for these expatriates.
The servility actor cuts into the thinking of this kind. Rationality and consciousness has nothing to do with it. Rationality and intentionality is thereby lost to the desires of temptation to be at the highest order and to do the biddings of others.
The argument is that having spent the better part of their life taking orders from their alien bosses, they are ill equipped to handle the complexity that has developed in their own country that they disowned for more than three decades. So the question is how one to understand their actions and sometimes that kind of evaluation has to be done, rather than esoteric research [by the academics] in this country.
The consequences of their actions have left this country in dire straits. The argument that is that rationality and intentionality is critical to the working of a nation state, especially if the future is to be guaranteed. This makes conscious decisions difficult and yet this is critical. Then the question is, even if this kind of quality is guaranteed, what is the basis for thinking that it will actually be implemented.
It is difficult to take ideas to action and in the case of metaphysics, it is even more difficult to understand functionality in materialistic terms. Rightly or wrongly, the last coterie determined that the lasting thing in material terms was the assetizing of their coterie so that when the crunch came, then there would be a level of people that would stand up for them.
The British did it with impunity and the locals sold out to them, but at that time resources were not limited and they made sure that in return, they had their pound of flesh. The feudal system was based on this idea and those given unlimited assets had to provide horses [for the cavalry] and men as foot soldiers.
The number varied with the land given. Such stupid orders were given as take a walk from sunrise to sunset and what ever you can walk or horse ride will be yours. What they were doing was laying the foundations of servility and the feudal maybe whatever they maybe, but they have never been resisted authority. They were not going to be made a policy for reductionism and lose what they had taken for future generations.
Then the question is that whether consciousness leads to rationality and or intentionality, or is it the other way. Rationality and intentionality is responsible for the obvious level of consciousness. So how is this related to materialism in the case of Pakistan? Is it difficult to understand that when a piece of paper allows one to acquire a piece of expensive land, as was done in the last regime, it is not correct.
The agriculture lands of Bahawalapur were given to these guys, favorites of the last regime at the expensive rates of $2 [equivalent] per acre. Then to add icing to their cake, they became Nambardars, a curious institutional arrangement whereby another 12.5 acres were given for collecting revenue and working as agents of the government.
They served two purposes: a. Collecting revenue and b. to put the fear of God in those that did not follow the dictates of the colonial government. Great is it not! Well, what is wrong with that, although an obsolete institution, it had significance in colonial times? This, like the overseer in the building and roads department and the rodman and cattleman in the irrigation department has been overtaken by technological aspects.
Obsolete institutions of this kind put an added burden and are indicative of organisational cardiac arrest. These, like other aspects, have to be changed. The aches of organizational rigidity are not easy to remove for they serve the purpose of someone in the organisation. There is a built-in resistance to any thing that serves a purpose, no matter how lowly or insignificant.
Although conscious of these elements, it is difficult to reduce these to intentional state. This has happened with a number of institutions and where this has been brought about, there have been serious gaps and the governance factors have suffered. One reason is the obvious weakness or inability to take the logic to its logical conclusion and give a system of governance that is better than the previous one.
This has happened in the case of the former Civil Service and the inability of the new local government, though a superior form of governance lacks serious implementation problems. The influence of outsiders telling us that this form of governance is superior is ludicrous. It is like the Americans did in Vietnam, where they located a person and forced him to the top position only to find out that these reforms were inoperative in a culture that was under severe strain.
Take a leaf from such insensitive reforms or deforms and I quote 'the reforms proved ill-equipped, living on theory and high-principle, there was no indication of national and local governance and they shared the general antagonism to what had gone before, yet inherited the general legacy through the class that benefited from it and to which it belonged. [A reference to the reform initiators].
The divisive aspects of the society had to be dealt with [tribal and ethnicity, not to speak of caste system and the religious interventions] and mafia-style actions and this was done in a most inefficient manner... Rigid in ideas, unschooled in compromise, unacquainted with democracy, in practice, unable to deal with dissent or opposition, except by fiat or force [Nawab Bugti] is but a sad reflection of the high offices inflicted on the governance of the country'.
A dictator turned worse by the obvious proclamations of the powerful countries of the world, providing the same source of strength as the Americans did for the Vietnamese leadership. Capitalism is ill-served when such governance factors come in, to distort the principles on which fundamental capitalism is allowed to function, where mafia-style working goes on to support the few that have helped the illegal regime to substantiate itself and create huge waves of disintegration.
Unfettered authority of one country over another is unacceptable and the rich culture that is a source of legitimate governance, overturned in favour of some esoteric system that has worked in another culture, is but a case of political naiveté. Were we in a conscious state when these reforms were allowed to take place and what is the role of eliminative work in this? Nagging questions will remain.
The analytical framework in this working is not available for Pakistan suffers from the same sort of brainwashed culture, where the continual education of the sons of elites in western education is but another nail in the system of localised education.
The end results have been visible with the peripheral areas doing their own, that is not compatible with the culture that was and that is currently prevalent in 'what are modern institutions'. Consider the evidence of the players that come on the electronic media and what kind of poison they are exuding? Leave it to you to take the national route to many things. The questions are simple, even if the answers have become complex.
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