If after 64 years I am still asking who I am, then I am a certified nutjob. But come the month of August, that is the debate that Pakistanis kick-start once again. Jinnah’s famous speech about the business of the state is dusted off and placed at the centre of the public discourse. Definitions of secularism and Islamism are fought over — again — and the unenviable politics of the early years begins to haunt us like the rerun of a boring movie. We scratch our heads and wonder for the umpteenth time: what went wrong, who is to blame, why the wrong choices?
Enough, dammit.
Pakistan is a reality. It is here to stay. Whatever disasters we have gone through; whatever bad choices we have made; and howsoever horrendous the consequences, the fact is Pakistan is alive and (kind of) well and kicking. This obsolete debate about who we are, is well…so obsolete. This debate is a hangover from the decades past, when Chevys were still on the roads, and people could still wear bellbottoms, or Rampuri caps in public.
That is so retro.
Here is why: the pace of change in today’s world is faster than ever before in the history of the human race. And I am not just talking about technology. Human thinking is evolving, innovating faster. New ideas are shaping new realities, which in turn require new ways of dealing with these realities. When Pakistan attained freedom, the Second World War had just ended two years ago. A new global order was taking shape. Pax Britannica was slowly receding in favour of Pax Americana. A new post-colonial world was emerging on the map just as the Cold War was getting hotter. Ideological winds were sweeping across the post-war landscape, germinating new ideas in the minds of peoples used to suppression and physical oppression by colonial or neo-colonial masters. The times moved on. Experiments failed. Debates fizzled out. Passions cooled down. Some nations began to attain material, technological and social success, while others began to choke on their own ideological juices.
Fast-forward to now and take a reality check: Pakistan is not a successful state. Period. It has muddled through six decades, and continues to do so. Something somewhere went terribly wrong, and we know it. In fact we know it so well, that we refuse to stop harping on it. Those Pakistanis who have lived through these repeated failures, have a right to be bitter, angry and resentful. They have a right to crib and moan.
But this is not our daddy’s Pakistan. Today what matters is not yesterday, but tomorrow. The Pakistanis of yesterday number 40 percent, whereas 60 percent of the Pakistani population today is under 30 years of age. This 60 percent — 110 million or so Pakistanis — dream of the Pakistan of 2030 and 2050. They do not remember the Ayub or Bhutto or Zia years. They were not born when the country broke up in 1971 and they were probably in school when the Afghan jihad was raging across the border.
Today these Pakistanis are either suffering the toxic fallout of these eras, or oblivious to them. Today the ideologically laced debates of those times are irrelevant to the young Pakistanis, who want a bright future for themselves; a future that they see shaping up in the discourses they read on Facebook and Twitter, or see on YouTube. Some of these Pakistanis are privileged enough to have acquired the fruits of education and the awareness that comes along with it. Others still live in darkness, devoid of the rights that were promised to their fathers and grandfathers in 1947. They are trapped in poverty, illiteracy and a medieval social structure that refuses to acknowledge the brave new world shaping up around them.
This is the world of tomorrow, and it is a very intrusive world. The forces of modernity shaping this world have come knocking at the doors of Pakistan, and they will not go away. The knock will get louder with each passing day, and sooner or later we will need to answer. But here is the problem: the ossified political system and the oligarchy that runs it are so out of touch with the requirements of modern-day Pakistanis that they will not know what to do when they open the door. This clique is so neck-deep in its own quicksand of petty vested interests and political one-upmanship that they have forgotten about the day after today. This neglect may explain why we are still talking on issues that were relevant six decades ago; why we are still embroiled in debates that could not be resolved by our grandfathers; and why we still cling on to national policies and priorities which went out of fashion a long time ago.
The truth is we have got to bury the past in our history books once and for all. Let’s just move on. The agenda for the Pakistan of tomorrow is simple: rule of law, education for all, empower the citizenry, strengthen the economy, and peace with the world. After 64 years of state failure, that is all we ask for.
The writer hosts a primetime show on ARY News. He can be reached at [email protected]