Daily Times

The Karachi international Festival (KILF) is a yearly intellectual treat as it encapsulates our socio-economic landscape. KILF best showcases globalization and its discontents in Pakistan. Organised and managed by a British publishing house, the luminaries were all western-educated and trained.

The exception to this rule were those associated with Urdu literature, poetry or the performing arts, including the media. Learning and knowledge referred to as Ilm by Allah is the foundation of human development. Allah SWT himself made Ilm the first commandment with “Iqra” (Quran 96:1) Pretty much everything worth reading is now produced in the western world. No publishing house across the Islamic world regularly publishes world-class content. KILF itself showcases fiction or poetry from Pakistan but nothing to write home about in non-fiction in either Urdu or English. I am always saddened to see a poetry-loving nation when poets are vehemently condemned in the Quran. “And as for the poets only those who are lost in grievous error would follow them.” (Quran 26:224) Lack of Ilm is the root cause of every single issue that plagues not only Pakistan.

No nation can progress without knowledge and learning. At a session on the Pakistani economy with an esteemed panel, it was evident that incompetence lay at the heart of poverty and inequality. Pakistan’s close association with China and the Gulf states opened many doors for trade and business but the Pakistani business community could not make use of the opportunity. It is incompetence that makes room for corruption. Competence comes from academic excellence, which is virtually non-existent in Pakistan. A packed session on the Pakistani judiciary further led credence to this claim, when the incompetence of judges was highlighted as the main cause of the failure of the judicial system.

Pakistan needs to shift from an opulence-loving, brand-obsessed, lazy, parochially driven and egotistical nation to a true Muslim society.

Examples were given of how the incompetent embed corruption in the system to sustain their self-interest. Competence requires academic excellence. Academic excellence can only be gained from hard work, dedication, honesty and fairness. Our nation is ego-driven, lazy, unfair and dishonest. Pakistan is, hence, unable to benefit from opportunities and exists in a state of humiliation perpetually holding out a begging bowl. We have decided to become beggars in front of the west, the wealthy Arab states and China. On the very first day of the KILF, I attended a book launch by Nadeem Hussain, based on his life as an international banker turned entrepreneur and pioneer of EasyPaisa in Pakistan. This was an esteemed panel consisting of three former governors of the State Bank of Pakistan. Pretty much everyone referenced their western experiences before they spoke about Pakistan. Mr Hussain did pioneering work in the financial sector in Pakistan but then sold it off to a Norwegian group.

I could not help but think that his glamorous and high-paying job as a banker with first-class international banks, led him to self-impose a mental glass ceiling of sorts. He just looped back his entrepreneurial effort into the western banking system. It would have been wonderful to see in him an indomitable spirit of enterprise, which spread far and wide. Agha Hassan Abdi Sahib began his career at Habib Bank and the local element instilled in him civilization pride. He did not see himself as just a cog in the wheels. Working and succeeding in his home ground instilled a vision where the sky was the limit. He thus envisaged and created an international banking network at par with the global western banks. At KILF, the session which gave the greatest wake-up call was the book launch of Shahbaz Taseer’s “Lost to the World: A Memoir of Faith, Family and Five Years in Terrorist Captivity.” The Taseer family owns this very newspaper. Shahbaz Taseer’s gruelling ordeal and his tenacity in the face of extreme adversity left the audience in awe. However, the greater question his experience raised is the most pertinent at this juncture in Pakistani history. This is especially true as Shahbaz Taseer referred to the journalist and writer Ahmed Rashid as his friend’s father. It made me think that the militancy which seemed to belong to Waziristan was closer to home. The seemingly unconnected guerilla movement of the 1960s by young men from wealthy and prominent families and the contemporaneous Salafi Jihadi tribal movements such as the TTP have one thing in common, which is their anti-state stance. The Pakistani state is beholden to the western-controlled IMF as it is financially bankrupt. This crisis of leadership has led to a militant response. Ahmed Rashid’s education and connections saved him and reconnected him to mainstream society. The tribals have no such privilege. Their lack of privilege has set ablaze Pakistan. The state’s failure of governance and its lack of inspiring leadership has led to disenfranchisement, where militant groups are now challenging the state, its institutions, and its citizens. Foreign mercenaries have also found a terrorist haven in the border zones of northwestern Pakistan. Their recent attack on the Police Headquarters in the southmost tip of Pakistan in Karachi should send alarm bells ringing. The Pakistani state was created by the Quaid e Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah. He commanded loyalty, respect and obedience from the nation from South India to Khybher Pakhtunkhwa with his pied piper following. We need another statesman like him, who can inspire the nation. We have fallen into an abyss with leaders who promoted parochialism to divide and rule. Pakistan is in desperate need of a leader who can inspire the disenfranchised to have faith in the state. We need a leader who can make the masses rise above ethnic divides to become one nation. Our statesman needs to settle the borders because no country can be at peace to make progress if it has volatile borders. Be it India or Afghanistan or Iran, Pakistan needs to settle complex border issues. Above all, we need a leader who can inspire us to believe in ourselves by becoming diligent and conscientious. The United States of America was a harsh frontier land akin to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in Pakistan. It became a global power with the Protestant Work Ethic of diligence, discipline and frugality. Pakistan needs to shift from an opulence-loving, brand-obsessed, lazy, parochially driven and egotistical nation to a true Muslim society, which prioritizes knowledge and practices brotherhood, diligence, justice, fairness and simplicity.

Only then can the judiciary dispense justice, academia can produce world-class graduates, the economy can become robust and the social landscape can become appealing.

The writer is an independent researcher, author and columnist. She can be reached at aliya1924@gmail.com