Daily Times

Nobody listens and nobody obeys. If you want to create an ideal recipe for a dysfunctional individual, institution, country or society just do the above. The country as it stands today, at best, can described as torn apart by conflict, uncertainty and chaos and, though these issues are highlighted 24/7, on every forum and table, no solution seems to be forthcoming. Energy, economy, old actors, young doctors — you name it, they all seem to follow the same principle of shout, cry, scream and maybe, you will be heard and probably some short-term compromise may be reached. However, there is a surfeit of people feeling stranded, disengaged and wronged. When human beings feel uncared for, they retaliate and respond on not caring and this gives birth to the uncontrollable virus of actions and reactions of disobedience and disregard of rules, consequences and results. And like many other things, it usually starts from the top.

In a society, where institutions are reduced to brick and mortar and individuals become the all empowered guarantors of what can and cannot be done, stability and certainty are just the toss of a coin. This personality dominance results in each powerful individual flexing his muscle with the other power contester. In this game of power wrestling, the result has to be a win-lose with one party out-powering the other party. However, the other party then becomes even more determined to get back and get even. This starts a never-ending circle of people delivering power punches to prove their power rather than doing the right thing. More often than not it ends up being a lose-lose for all. This is how politics has initiated a vicious circle of animosity and deprivation at all levels, finally damaging the society as a whole. The role models for our younger generation are the so-called leaders in charge of the mess in the country. When the president and all his men have this devil-may-care attitude and flout rules and laws under the guise of protecting the constitution, how is it possible for them to ask others to behave.

Contempt of court should be changed to contempt for human values to truly reflect what is going on in our country. The government dismisses the court orders. The ministries dismiss the rules of business. Hiring in every department is being done in flagrant violation of the policies and guidelines outlined in the manuals. From PIA to OGDC, it is who cares about which rule attitude. The present MD of PIA has been declared unfit to lead by the Public Accounts Committee as he has failed to deliver. However, he continues to be the MD as he is a direct appointee of Mr Ijaz Haroon who was a direct appointee of Asif Zardari and so on and so forth. With an airline that is financially crashing, an MD who is being paid Rs five million a month is totally inexcusable. He was specially recommended to boost up the engineering and safety record of the airline and that is exactly what has dipped to an extent that the EU has actually suspended some of our flights on these violations.

If we think this is more of a federal issue, take what has happened in Punjab on the young doctors’ strike issue. It is a sad story of mishandling of a problem that could have been resolved much more amicably than what happened. Every other month, the young doctors went on strike. This in itself is an indicator of problems left unsolved. When dialogue takes place and actions are promised and not taken, the credibility of the parties in negotiation goes down. Young doctors initially were over-promised on job structure etc and their expectations had been built up for more. On the doctors’ part, their total strike action was unwarranted and there were better ways of protesting without harming patients, but on the government’s part, not being able to anticipate, negotiate and prevent, the damage is a clear case of not having the ability to envision outcomes and do preventive planning. With each side not ready to trust the other, the deadlock has as usual damaged the poor patients who have become victims of the poor crisis management policy of government. The only tactic the chief minister knows is first to shower and promise it all and later, to suspend, apprehend and dismiss. With the threatening stance adopted by government, the doctors have also gone into a stubborn retaliatory mode that will be very difficult to get out of. The young doctors’ reaction of taking the government on is uncalled for as doctors by their professional ethics are playing with lives and cannot just abdicate their duties. The alarming thing is that despite being more educated than an average graduate, they are also feeling the pressure of a society that is edgy and imbalanced. All around them, they see disobedience, protests and violence. They repeatedly state that when they saw that these were mere talks and negotiations were not going to solve the problem, they resorted to harsher methods. This, of course, is no justification for endangering the lives of so many patients but does explain the mental and emotional fatigue the society is going through.

What goes around comes around as well. Government having set the example of taking on institutions is now finding it difficult to stop their own ministers from taking on their own orders. If government announces the removal of a certain individual, the said individual stubbornly refuses to stay on until some threat or pressure technique is not used. Ahmad Mukhtar issued orders for removal of Rasul Mohammad Khan MD NTDC but the MD stayed put until he was given some ultimatums. With this culture of brash disobedience, the negative values of contempt, intolerance and arrogance have bred a culture where people laugh at rules and laws and feel great pride in breaking them and proving them to be merely some fancy legal phraseology. These values then manifest themselves in reactive behaviour, loose language, and many times, very serious physical damage both on material things and human lives as well. Every day, we see people entering into brawls on seemingly minor issues. It is the feeling of denial of justice, of merit, of care, of equality that leads to dysfunctional societies; and it is the intensity of the desire in each individual to contribute to change that determines whether the downward spiral will continue or the process of reform will restore the emotional balance in the society.

The writer is an analyst, consultant and a coach and can be reached at andleeb.abbas1@gmail.com