Daily Times

Pakistan is a tiny part of the globe and is undergoing multivariate issues caused because of intolerance.

Be it any official group or a combination of individuals, all have been found resorting to violence without any dialogue or argument that could be employed to solve the issue. The only solution in or at the hands of everyone is physical violence. Probably, this very factor is responsible for the persistence of sociopolitical issues even after 76 years of our national existence that we never listened to the people nor attempted to understand the issue and instead, always, went straight forward to beating, injuring, and cutting the opponents to silence the opposing thought, even when it is right.

This has over time generated hatred, dislike, and divide among the people at a much larger scale and overall, we have grown into an intolerant and violence-prone society. The ever-increasing gravity of the situation calls for understanding the issue of tolerance and hence alleviating its harmful consequences.

We have propagated the hero worship of the machos and consequently, their following is also that of machos.

Not only this, Pakistan is experiencing a sharp but steady rise in the street crimes, especially in megacities like Karachi. No one feels safe or secure because people are being attacked and killed only for a petty sum of money. Sometimes, young, and educated people are also reported to be the culprits. There are a few territories of the country where the state is still struggling to establish its writ. These and many other crimes are interconnected to the intolerance and violence germinating in the very spaces where most young people are found learning the arts of life.

Over time, we have grown into a less tolerant nation the manifestation of which is visible on the road and the style of commuting on the roads. We violate the rights of others on roads and love to break the rules and signals of traffic. Violating lane systems, crossings, one way seems to be the favorite part of the whole scheme of things.

The breeding grounds of such scenarios of intolerance are at home and school. Unfortunately, if a home undergoes any type of demonstration of violence, the young kids take up glimpses of their surroundings and unconsciously implement them in their adult lives.

The same is the case with schools of young children where the scenes of teachers’ violence can be found here and there to prove the prowess of the teacher but that renders the student’s vulnerability level extremely high. The young mind begins to think that violence is the only solution to conflicts. Madrassa school system is especially prone to this. No social setup can be healthful and positive unless these spaces of violence are turned into breeding grounds for learning and training because the same violence, after a few years begins to travel outside into the streets and then to the general strata of the society.

Moreover, unfortunately, we have propagated the hero worship of the machos and consequently, their following is also that of machos. This tendency encourages violence used as a tool of discussion. It means the definition of our heroes should transform into someone who is socially advantageous, like Edhi sahib. If this happens more people would prefer dialogue to violence.

Over the years, all the above-stated factors have contributed to enhancing the hate sentiment in the communities that we are unable to digest the opposite opinion and attempt to assault anyone who is not from our clan or brotherhood. This factor is highly detrimental to our growth as a civilized and cultured nation. The control of violence in educational institutions will go a long way in making our streets free of hate and violence.

If Pakistan, at all, needs to become an egalitarian society, we shall have to bury down the class segregation and differences which means the middle class may be allowed to expand as much as possible while the upper and lower classes must be curtailed and contained in every way.

Another way of saving our grace now is that our youth must be provided jobs to use their energies for a positive and healthy activity because when they are free, they begin to work like Devil’s Workshop. We have plenty of sources and we need to develop the skills of our students so that they can be useful members of society by working on the sources, we need to repossess. The developed societies of the world claim to be well-developed and cultured. Before this, they have also passed through similar stages but have faced it broadly and grew mature enough to contain any such toxicities. These measures associated with the little bit of modifications of course contents and teaching methodologies would also go a long way in creating a society that caters to love for all and malice towards none.

The writer is a professor of English at Government Emerson University, Multan. He can be reached at zeadogar@hotmail.com and Tweets at @Profzee