Daily Times

The top most important thing for Pakistanis, undisputedly is cricket; I may not like it but the evidence is insurmountable. It is not education, it is not employment, it is not health; all that matters to Pakistanis is cricket. Admittedly, even for someone who is not crazy about the game, and yes the specie Cricket us Ignoramus actually exists, the PSL final was a great achievement. Kudos to the organizers and the Government for an outstanding job and more to the point, Alhamdulillah all went well.

I have always maintained that during cricket festivities of this nature, the government can get away with most everything, since the populace is not capable of processing or absorbing anything else when afflicted with this particular hysteria. The haves and have-nots equally were sucked in by the lure of the PSL final, which for me is utterly remarkable. The haves willing to bear all hassles to get into the stadium and the have-nots willing to pay a hefty price, in some cases beyond their budget, to do the same; all of which is mind boggling. The Finance Minister can probably meet his budget and sleep easy if Pakistan Cricket Board could arrange a match with India every month, and tax could be levied on tickets. On a separate note, a colleague who, rather amazingly, travelled to Lahore to watch the match live, was full of praise for the arrangements made, in spite of the tight security and eleven check points; well-done Punjab Government.

This obsession with watching the match in the stadium provides a firsthand explanation of why the Romans needed the Coliseum; keeping the masses entertained, but distracted, during hard times is a useful strategy for any ruling elite. Curiously, one of the finalist teams were called gladiators, all we need is a team called lions next time. While this is more a pun than sarcasm, I suddenly realize that I need to tread carefully when writing about cricket. The risk of being branded a tasteless moron is high.

“One of the most favored propaganda tactics of establishment elites and the useful idiots they employ in Marxist and cultural-Marxist circles is to re-label or redefine an opponent before they can solidly define themselves. In other words, elites and Marxists will seek to “brand” you (just as corporations use branding) in the minds of the masses so that they can take away your ability to define yourself as anything else. Through the art of negative branding, your enemy has stolen your most precious asset — the ability to present yourself to the public as you really are”, submitted by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.com.

The above is a very precise, if not concise, observation. Perhaps the existence of establishment elites molding our minds verges on conspiracy theory, but have you noticed how the initial response to any opposition is to label the opponents as an imbecile while at the same time sidestepping the issue altogether. Curiously, even on talk shows on the electronic media, the majority of celebrity anchors are passionately focused towards encouraging reactions which have more to do with petty name calling than the underlying debate. Unfortunately, the mainstream media also, rather than highlighting and reporting key issues facing the country, is more interested in who said what about who rather than anything of substance. The even more unfortunate fact is, that such news apparently sells!

By the way, this particular insight also has its origin in the PSL final. Arguably, holding the PSL final in Lahore is potentially a winning slogan for the next election for the incumbents, despite everything else; already their social media campaign is in high gear. Perhaps, frustration emanating from this particular realization might have been the motivation behind the ungentlemanly Phateechar outburst; it may not have been opposition for the sake of opposition alone. Irrespective, the outburst was unwarranted and under the belt. To digress a bit, taking cue from the “under the belt” idiom, I came across an article titled “Bullshit Economics” in another domestic publication; never knew that word was publishable in our environment. So if the editor lets this one pass, the particular word, Bullshit, has a great future in this column. Notwithstanding, considering the protagonists meritorious association with the game, he should have known better and thought twice before making such a comment; cricket has the potential of uniting Pakistanis in celebration, joy, heartbreak, anger and hate. Whatever the causes, the deed is done; the social media went frantic immediately thereafter and the branding exercise is over; it was idiocy. Frankly, it might be very difficult to get rid of a branding which has its origins in the nations love of cricket. On the other hand, “Sometimes a Cigar is just a Cigar”, Sigmund Freud.

Dear readers, somewhere along the line, the discussion got sidetracked; notwithstanding all of the above, I have not come to praise anyone or bury cricket, or vice versa. Undoubtedly, anything which can bring so much happiness to my fellow countrymen cannot be a complete waste of time; so don’t brand me.

Except that, moving on to the punch line, it got me thinking. If the desire and wishes of the masses, the will of the people, can motivate our government to hold a cricket match in Lahore under the current circumstances, and all of us were united in making it a success; then why we, the people, fail to move our government to do what is the top most important thing for us individually and as a nation. The entire civic society, the movers and the shakers, were jumping up and down on the social media offering their perspective on the PSL final and the related controversies, and the nation was ferociously passionate and completely united; but when it comes to perhaps what should be the top most important thing for Pakistanis, we fail miserably.

And what is the top most important thing? By any stretch of imagination, it is not cricket. Take your pick from the second sentence at the very beginning. For me it’s educating the children of Pakistan. I recently came across a list of 22 top universities in emerging markets, no Pakistani university was on the list. For the record, if you go to the HEC website, they recognize over a 125 universities in Pakistan. China had a few dozen; which makes me wonder why CPEC did not include assistance in setting up world class educational institutions across the country.

Beyond a bit of Hula Gula during budget time on the size of the education budget, and some individual write ups now and then, literacy remains on the back burner. Remarkably, education does not even feature in electoral debates; are our children not more important than cricket? Ultimately, the dilemma is how to generate the same kind of passion and unity in the masses for the top most important thing, our children’s education!

The writer is a chartered accountant based in Islamabad. He can be reached at syed.bakhtiyarkazmi@gmail.com and on Twitter @leaccountant