Few people in this world have had the exposure or understanding to know what it means to live in a place like Pakistan and only those that do can understand what it takes; the almost perverse joy that one feels in its day-to-day existence. I feel that it is necessary as the premise of my first column here to give you, my dear readers, context on how I view things in my sphere of existence here.
First of all, not much manipulation can take place in a country like Pakistan. With the narratives being constructed almost purely on emotion, which is in a constant flux given the number of ups and downs the place has, there can be no control exercised on what is about to happen or what should happen. God knows the advertising and media agencies that litter our landscapes at the rate of when every time three creative souls want to get together and disrupt, try and keep trying with the same old formulas to get more juice out of the teeming masses to almost no avail. Same goes for our institutions and what surmounts to the policing that they attempt to do in the chaos that thrives around us, to end up with a shrug as the country trundles along to its own speed and beat.
No manipulation also means almost no visage or existence of control over one’s destiny and the availability of even simple things like water, electricity and justice — which seem to change on a day-to-day basis or depending on how much free cash one has — to lubricate the wheels of the underbelly system or the number of parchis and phone calls that one can make to get their jobs done. It almost feels like a giant sea of chaos in the nation with each individual acting as their own little state providing those around them that they are responsible for everything from the basics to liberties or opportunities again dependent on their own network of influence and chutzpah they have. No manipulation also means that those who we have chosen to govern this state cannot extract taxes or revenue needed from us the unforgiving to do anything meaningful with this country and thus have to rely mostly on flows from foreign shores to the detriment of the common person and the betterment of the ever sparkling development sector and consultancies bound to make the odd road or bridge which seems to be the only solution to all our woes lately.
Yet, people go about their lives here and other people on fairer shores wonder how is that possible with no framework no structure or no system to support this country. Well, it is because this nation is running on nature’s very own organic law and a very pateechar one at that. It works something like this! If there is no traffic signal and vehicles come from all sides to form a roadblock in the middle, what do you think will occur? Usually, one person or more will get out and start marshalling the traffic to try to solve its problems correct? Well take that model and implement it in any situation that a person can face while living here and you can quickly realise how this place works.
How long can that work though is the question we need to ask ourselves as Pakistanis? How long can we go on without water and electricity in places three hours from our urban centres and shiny malls? How long can we survive leaders who we gave votes to because of their popularity as either sporting legends or business tycoons to see them trample all over their own professed ideals due to their egos? How long can we use social media as an alternate voice for justice because the mainstream media does not respond or responds selectively? How long before we can earn a decent living based on the degrees we have worked hard to earn before we can be respectable in our own eyes without having to scrimp and bribe without having to scrape and kneel at the altar of “this is how things are” How long before we understand that nothing will change until each one of us decides to change one thing. How long before that one thing becomes more important to us than earning the next month’s paycheck and finally how bloody long before we wake up?
The writer is CEO Mindmap communications