Hi,
The one reason we don't have it is that we are only 60 years old----the reason you have it is you history goes back to thousands of years. You have something to fall back on---we are totally clueless and lost.
But in this day and age---and time moving at warp speed---either nations like Pakistan will make it by facing their problems---or become the likes of Somalia---by keeping their eyes shut.
Hey,
Maybe you are right, and that is the reason for the difference. But your reason is a lame excuse. You see what you have said just changed the form of the problem not its nature. Because of these two reasons:
1) If 60 years is a short time to develop a philosophy and you believe you need a "few thousand years" to develop your own philosophy, then why not use philosophies created by others that are readily available for no cost. You certainly use other people's inventions eg cars, computers, internet, phones etc etc. Why not philosophy of life? In fact, Muslims of Indian subcontinent had been heavily using Iranian philosophy for centuries, until 1980's when it was discarded in favor of Saudi import. I am not saying, you should use Iranian philosophy, you could use Chinese, Japanese, Western or Tibetan. But my recommendation remains Iranian for obvious reasons.
What is stopping the Pakistani state to introduce teachings of Molavi or Sa'adi into the curriculum of students in Schools and Madrassas? Except ofcourse, the state itself or the public? Turkey has even whole departments of Molavi-ology staffed with Molavi-ologists in its universities. Why? Why would Turkey need to spend huge money on such a thing? How much money the Pakistani state dedicates to research in departments of philosophy and literature, specially for those areas that Pakistan's problems are intertwined with? Any money at all? I mean having a couple of squadrons of F-16 block so and so for price tag of a few billion dollars is ok. Buying AIM-120 with its technical support at a couple of million dollars a piece is also ok. How about spending a few hundred million dollars on philosophy, culture and literature? What is the problem with that?
Because the disease that is breaking up Pakistan can not be cured by introducing socialism without pumpkin, or capitalism without pumpkin or democracy without pumpkin or even military take-over without pumpkin? Do you know what a pumpkin is? To defeat the zombie ideology that is destroying Pakistan and has taken over your country, you must use a concrete philosophy capable of defeating it. A philosophy that allows and uses alot of pumpkins. Pumpkins for media, pumpkin for religious education and pumpkins for militarism.
2) Say, you do not like to use some one else's philosophy and you have changed your mind about the need for a couple of thousand years to develop one. Fair point. So your obvious question would be, can a nation in the midst of a fast changing time and turbulence, come up with a philosophy? The answer is yes, if that nation is an alive nation and not a dead one. You see, people like Molavi who introduced the philosophy of rational spiritual love into Iranian culture or Sa'adi who introduced un-compromising moderation or Ferdowsi who reinvigorated Iranian nationalism through his poetic depiction of ancient Iranian mythology did not come during good times in Iran.
They were all products of a turbulent time. The most turbulent time in Iranian history which came about with invasion of Mongols. Iranians say, one thing good came out of the Mongol invasion and it was the birth of these giants in Persian literature. The killings and the suffering of Iranian nation forced some one like Sa'adi, a person who loved to be among the ordinary people, the iron-smiths, the farmers, the merchant and the thieves to write a philosophy of moderation for them to read and follow. The brutality and insecurity of times, forced some one like Molavi who was a staunch Aalem/Mullah to turn towards spiritual love and reason. It was the occupation by a foreign army that forced Ferdowsi to write his epics of Iranian nationalism. These were the needs of time. And the Iranian scholars answered the call.
Because of these people, Iran could rise up again after the Mongol invasion. Arabs never did recover from that invasion went from occupation by Mongols to the rule of Turks and then the British and nowadays live under the thumb of US. And to this day, they are oscillating between extreme religiosity and extreme nationalism, failing at both end. All because, they did not understand their philosophical problems. So the question here would be, is Pakistan an alive nation? Can its scholars answer the call of the nation? Because this is not a war that can be won by soldiers or the common man. It is a mind war. It is a battle of ideologies. And Pakistan currently, is losing it. Can Pakistani state or military build a well funded, well protected and well listened-to, center for a handful of scholars working day and night on this critical problem destroying Pakistan? Or no, the Pakistani politicians and generals prefer to buy private properties in UK, US, UAE and Malaysia?
What ever course of action, you choose, it will not be easy. But what you wrote to me though is a recipe for guaranteed disaster, since that would put you at the mercy of wind of luck. And luck seldom has favored nations.
Pakistani society is fractured along political lines, which makes it impossible for anyone to do anything meaningful.
Any action in Pakistani government is viewed through the prism of political loyalties. If the army supports position (A), then the anti-army people will criticize it regardless of merit. If the same action had been proposed by "their guy", these same people would support it. The same bias is true for supporters and opponents of any political party.
Even now, the media columns on Peshawar betray so much biased agenda for or against specific political entities.
At the end of the day, major national issues get bogged down into political point scoring and one-upmanship.
All sides are guilty of it. The pro-anti army people, the pro-anti PML-N, PPP, PTI, MQM, people etc. etc.
Too many people don't see themselves as Pakistanis; their first loyalty seems to be to their "team".
Those are only of tactical significance. To bring people together, you need a common and rational denominator that every body can relate to. An ideology. It better be a moderate, relevant to people's lives and values and a powerful one. Otherwise, it is only going to divide the society more and create even more problems.