AZM E AALI SHAAN!

by Sadaqat Ali on Friday, June 24, 2011 at 3:40am

Public

'Turmoil' is a word flashed around quite frequently in recent times. International news without a miss associate it with Pakistan. Pakistan in turmoil! Three words that put innumerable feelings in the heart of a common Pakistani. Feelings of insecurity, anger, hatred, doubt and fore mostly fear! Fear that what we hold most dearly our honor, freedom and way of living is in the process of being hijacked ironically by the very agent of the world that claims to be the ardent deliverer of such rare commodities. Fear that somehow a plan is in process to malign our nation at every International level. Fear of our beloved country to be portrayed as a lost cause and a dying state. These negative emotions in an individual cannot be downplayed and marginalized in wake of more pressing needs of our country for such emotions lead to National Paranoia. Nation not in its senses is severely handicapped to counter any threat, internal or external. Yes, we do have problems and many at that! We are victims to every 'ism'. Sectarianism, regionalism, provincialism, extremism, Red-tapism. Mullahism, Adhocism and the to many 'ions'. Enlighted moderation, corruption, Inflation etc. We are party to a tussle between two giants. Stuck in struggle with a brooding neighbor, in argument with long unwanted guests, sea at our south to drown in and escape our woes! The picture is grim, our spirits down, thoughts dispersed and ideas scarce. We are the disorderly scattered sheep without a shepherd, a team without a leader and a nation without a destiny! We did not get at this elusive spot over night. There were few dedicated souls among us who burnt midnight oil and strived hard to put us all under this predicament. They were successful not just in plundering the gold eggs but ravaged the poor hen in the altar of their greed. Then there was the common man, equally responsible for his woes, for not standing up to this despicable modern savagery. For electing same old rotten faces again and again as harbingers of disappointment and colossal destruction of the fibers that bind us together. For being a complacent, docile dot among many dots and not realizing the potential strength in numbers. Our roots have been rendered hollow and rotten by such systematic cleansing of our national wealth and character. Any strong gust of wind can uproot this precious shade and shelter away from us. We had for long quelled many of such advances owing to our strength in unity and unwavering national character. This has ceased to be our defense anymore. The doubts and cracks have started to appear in our nation's confidence in facing conflicts as a unified force. Plague of ethnicity and provincialism has furthered the decay. The solution is very simple, contrary to common beliefs but yes, the road is very bumpy and tedious ahead. It took us decades to come to this state and will take decades to revert back from this sorry state. There are no short term measures. The so called short term measures so eagerly flaunted by our leaders in past have always distracted us from our course many times before. As a consequence we always forget about what we were set upon to do in the first place. We have to understand that ours is a nation with a very short term memory. We need to continually remind ourselves about the destination and our collective goals. Ehtisab, accountability, justice, Law and order, security and economics have generally been our distractions over the course of history. All our

governments either military or civil had a very myopic view regarding our problems. We have spent several decades lost and directionless in pursuit of these myopic dispositions of our ruling elite. We grabbed what we could, ran little bit in pursuit and then frustrated changed our direction at the slightest whims of our masters. Education of masses on emergency basis and as a long term therapy is our only way out. We need to broaden our education base. We need to create a nation of free thinkers, with resolute ideas and evolving minds under wide array of challenges and problems. We need people with mature decision power, judgment and innate system of filters screening out malicious, anti state and keeping anarchist ideologies at bay. Economics have and will never be improve in Pakistan. We will have to learn to provide efficient yet cost effective education. Its of relatively no use producing hundreds of PhDs when the primary education in our country continues to suffer. we need to chalk out a national strategy to address radical education reforms in our country. The practical solution to education reforms lies in utilizing our traditional resources rather than creating scores of schools. Overburdening our national exchequer further. Madrassah reforms are the major step in achieving these desired goals. Madrassas in our country produce highly motivated individuals. By channeling this energy with its religious fervor and adding a national zeal to it ,with careful planning, we can create a force of change. Our focus needs to be the rural population that forms the bulk in our demographic. This however is a very difficult task and will require years of meticulous planning and preparation. It is very difficult for a national and religious sentiments to co exist in our parts. We need to create awareness that stronger Pakistan will be a guarantee of stronger Islam ,an Islamic force to reckon with and a stronger Pakistan is in the greater interest of Muslim Ummah. Formal education needs to be introduced in these Madrassas to slowly bring them to mainstream. Our academic curriculum needs rapid over hauling and review. Modern and progressive educationists together with renowned religious scholars and intelligentsia of Pakistan should formulate a curriculum with national as well as religious signature .A unified system of education all over Pakistan needs to be created and governing bodies established to monitor education standards, making sure it follows a pattern in the spirit of greater change in our society and nation. Nation of scholars should not suffice for us, a nation of army of scholars needs to be our ultimate goal. A unified, disciplined and robust Islamic nation of Pakistan needs to be our destiny. A motivated, educated and focused Pakistani nation will be an answer to all our problems.We had been fighting the symptoms for too long now.Law and order, economy, accountability and speedy justice are the venues that only a vibrant and a strong nation will be able to deal with in a very short span of time. Ignorance, illiteracy and apathy have been the greater ills of our nation from the very start.Conquer these and the other heads will fall on their own. There are however few bumps and irritants along our way and will need to be addressed. Electronic media in our country has flourished recently and has been a topic of debate and conspiracy theories. Freedom of the media is a farce phenomenon. Media cannot be totally free. As commercial organizations, electronic media has the same strings of commercialism attached to it as any other commercial organization. Anybody with adequate investment in such ventures can greatly influence the line that the media will take under certain circumstances. In addition to this electronic media in our country has not demonstrated the maturity and responsibility as a source of positive

change in our society on the contrary, under the garb of info-tainment, it has started to be an agent of discord , anarchy and chaos. A constant source of hopelessness and bleak portrayal of our state of affairs furthers the mental anguish on individual and fear-paranoia on national basis. Media should bring about a change in its operations and be a deliverer of hope, creator of consensus and a source of unity. Problems should be discussed to create a solution rather than to cash in their shock value. However if this internal change doesn't take place its imperative now that media in Pakistan should be reigned in! Recent debacles, biases shown by our media smells of sinister tidings and worrisome doubts. Our nation needs heroes. It needs the will to work for a better future. It needs to get out of weakness that is fear and be an efficient well oiled machine. To be in a form of mind readily able to fend of every foreign and domestic insult. This can only happen if this constant bombardment of dirt spewed across their TV screens stops. Our Armed forces are the guardians of internal and external boundaries of our country. The day they fail, we all will go down with it. There is no second opinion to this that to create a gulf between the military and the civil society is to destroy a nation. Criticism never harms anyone but propaganda does!. It ruins the morale of those who have spend their lives fighting and bleeding for those living in cozy quarters and passing indiscriminate and cruel judgments about them. As I speak there is a faithful son of land bleeding with wounds inflicted by a well motivated enemy. No amount of rewards and medals can fill up his wounds or return happiness to the eyes of a grieving mother back home. We need to stand behind these few brave men! We need to safeguard the honor of the martyrs of our land. Our children will need a few to look up to.

'The Story of Pakistan, its struggle and its achievement, is the very story of great human ideals, struggling to survive in the face of great odds and difficulties'..Quaid e Azam Muhammad Ali
Jinnah (Address to the people in Chittagong, 23rd March, 1948.)

By: Sadaqat Ali