Daily Times

Going back to my childhood memories, maybe 20 years ago, I could vividly recall some texts from my Islamic Studies textbook that revolved around one major theme, and that was: Muslims are the best among others and they are born to rule. There were some other points too. That Muslim ummah is the only favourite nation of God, and it is the duty of every Muslim to spread Islam through preaching and practising jihad. Only Muslims will be allowed into the heaven.

There is plenty of other ‘exaggerated’ stuff that one cannot find trace in the authentic historic sources except in our self-created ‘righteous syllabus’ for the Islamic and history subjects.

As the teacher was elaborating on the aforementioned texts, I could see the expression of shock on the faces of my Christian class fellows and friends, who were sitting there waiting for us to join them to play cricket (Islamic studies is not mandatory for the non-Muslims). At that time I could not understood the reason of fear and the expression of insecurity, which was quite conspicuous on their faces.

Today, after extensive research and consulting with scores of history books and numerous accounts by renowned historians and Muslim scholars, I have yet to find any authentic historic and religious reference that could support any credence to some of those fabricated stories, widely projected in our conventional and religious (madrasas) educational institutions. These are only contributing to massive widening between our minority brothers and sisters who are as patriotic Pakistanis as the majority Muslims.

Every present situation, whether it is good or bad, has a historic background or perspective. The fabricated stories in our syllabus, especially in religious and history books, were conceived and created by our arrogant rulers and myopic policy-makers, coupled with the interests of the superpower and her allies, whose interests were to counter their ‘rival states’ to create an uneven balance of power and dominance in this region. Selective educational syllabus is one of the most lethal tools they have used to achieve their motives. The distorted history based on hollow superiority and hate can be as harmful to humanity as a nuclear war, famine and vicious natural disasters, because in either of these cases the outcome is the same — destruction. Presently, we are witnessing and reaping the disastrous results of the miscalculated policies, which only brought destruction, hate, bigotry and, above all, intolerance and bloodshed in our society.

Those wrong policies especially in the education sector have created regressive, intolerant and intellectually impotent mindsets. Presently, this very mindset is being represented by many young men and women active on social media, spewing venom, and spreading false propaganda against renowned Pakistanis like Malala Yousafzai and Shermeen Obaid-Chinoy for their courageous stands for the rights of the neglected segments of society and for their social and universal rights. One wonders why these ‘righteous warriors’ are against any person who challenges the regressive mindset, and tries to overhaul the fault lines that are deeply entrenched in our society.

Only a contorted educational system like ours could produce ‘geniuses’ who thinks Malala ‘managed’ and ‘sponsored’ her assailants. They don’t provide any cerebral evidence to that mindless notion that how could someone even think of putting his or her own life into the extremely dangerous situation of receiving bullets from automatic guns. We as society do not give due status to people like Malala and Sharmeen, and to many others who are doing great work to fix the problems for the very society whose majority vehemently criticises them only because the west and the US is rightly supporting their causes. Malala’s work and support is for millions of underprivileged children around the world by helping them to achieve their dreams through quality education.

It is about time our policy makers woke up and revisited their outdated policies of 1980s and 1990s. They should start from the educational sector, which provides the basic foundation for the progress of any country. It took more than two decades to spoil the historic, social and cultural fabric of this country, and it will take decades to reverse the negative impact, provided if we take the right step now.

The only way forward for Pakistan is to form long-term policies that are based on tolerance and regional cooperation in all major sectors like education, security and economy. Robust, long-term and unflinching polices in these sectors will ultimately raise the status of our country in the entire region. It is the ‘cooperation’ that works in the real world and not the ‘confrontation’. Creators and agents of hate should not forget one thing: hate is evil and evil brings only destruction.

The writer is an entrepreneur and analyst, and can be reached at faraz999.fc@gmail.com