Daily Times

Due to recent developments which have somewhat muzzled our media, a rather muted debate has emerged over the freedom of expression and its role in the media. This, in fact, is the real problem which no one wishes to advert to, let alone publicly address; even where debates have become necessary, they are either muted or behind closed doors. Those who dare to bring them out in the open are being silenced.

Individuals are not willing to break the shackles on their thought because life programs them not to do so. Every newborn child is innocent, with a blank mind and innumerable questions that pester his elders with their simplicity or, sometimes, with their complexity, because this raw mind questions even the unquestionable, ‘two plus two equals four’.

Today’s social scientists have for many decades been conscious about the fact that numbers are not absolutes but, today, even physical scientists acknowledge this truism. The child, however, even questions what are “given” absolutes to us.

Instead of reasoning with the child which, undoubtedly, could become an unending debate, we silence the child with responses like ‘Shut up’ or ‘because it is this way’ or, where applicable, ‘it is God’s will’.

Every nation that ever progressed possessed entrepreneurs in every sphere. However, that is exactly what Pakistan lacks

Such an attitude merely results in stunting the growth of what might have been a very healthy mind. In every era, there are a few minds that continue to question, despite everything the system does to prevent this. These minds become the Edisons, the Russels or Newtons, or they die young as the now forgotten Mashal Khan.

While I have written on this subject before, I am once again bringing this topic to the fore because of multiple reasons. First, a discussion with a young thinking Pakistani, M Yousaf, who recently came here for a brief visit.

Second, because of my friend S Malik’s email. Malik wrote of how religions were hijacked soon after their prophet’s deaths by vested interests who twisted these religions towards theology and towards dependence on the clergy, instead of turning them towards bettering mankind.

Yousaf, moreover, asserted that despite everything that was going wrong, Pakistan was still progressing and improving its economic standing. The problem with this argument, however, is that comparable nations are improving faster and thus, Pakistan continues to lag behind.

I do not merely agree with Malik, but feel the same truism applies to honest political leaders as well. The day their priority switches to self-perpetuation which it usually does soon after elections, they, and their successors rule with the end goal of enhancing their control, and not for the betterment of their peoples, as they initially promised.

In my view, the malaise runs deeper than this for the mind of our youth will continue to remain stunted. The very same youth which, if enterprising, could change our future and make it a far better one. We seem to have adopted the word “businessman or woman” to replace the “entrepreneur”. The entrepreneur is the one who “enterprises”. He or she takes calculated risks which in turn bring dividends.

If we use the word entrepreneur more loosely, it could also be taken to mean a soldier, a statesman, a politician, a teacher, a musician, a film maker, or a thinker. Each of the secan take risks. If these risks are calculated ones, their dividends are proportional to the element of the risk they take. That is what every nation that ever progressed possessed. Enterprising entrepreneurs in every sphere. Unfortunately, that is what we lack.

We lack it not only because our teachers merely teach, instead of educating, but more so because society, parents, relatives, and those religious teachers who dare not permit anyone to question them, systematically kill educational entrepreneur-ship to produce uneducated students. And those few who do manage to acquire an education despite these obstacles either cannot find, or cannot hold jobs, while their superiors brand them  as mavericks or worse, as traitors.

Like many others of our generation, I too am a patriot, but one who questions. I have never had any desire to live anywhere else; I never will. I have tried to educate my children to be entrepreneurs in whatever they do. I also encourage them to educate their children similarly. However, I am ashamed to admit that I now encourage my children and grandchildren to move to more hospitable climes. If they are entrepreneurs, irrespective of their field, they have a limited, or no future here.

I cannot claim to be an enterprising entrepreneur but I still question and, I am certain I can appreciate my betters; the entrepreneurs. I have done so all my life. Regretfully and very shamefully, where there used to be many, I no longer see any. Not on our political horizon or anywhere else where it matters. Certainly not among educators, where it most matters.

I am thrilled when I learn of some brilliant child popping up from unexpected places, and indeed many frequently do. But I shed silent tears thinking of the fact that they too will either wither here or flower elsewhere. Either way, Pakistan will not benefit from the fruit they bear.

All because we have been programmed not to quest, nor to enterprise.

The writer is a retired brigadier. He is also former vice president and founder of the Islamabad Policy Research Institute (IPRI)

Published in Daily Times, May 13^th 2018.