CriticalThought
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Every nation has a creed. An ethos that becomes their identity in the minds of others. In this article, we factually analyze the Pakistani creed: Pakistaniat.
A candid description of Pakistaniat is shocking, to the point that most Pakistani readers would adopt an antagonistic attitude if we simply enunciate it at the beginning. Thus, this article will take the reader through a journey of reflection, gradually building the mental imagery until Pakistaniat becomes preeminently clear. At that point, the intellectually honest reader should leave aside nationalistic pride and acknowledge the harsh reality, for only in honest acceptance lies (eventual) salvation.
It is mid year examinations for grade nine in a private school affiliated with one of the provincial boards of education. One of the students is exceptional in his English language skills. His classmates trust his expertise unquestioningly. Thus, he is expected to help them with the vocabularly portion of the exam - meanings of words, and forming sentences from them. He sits towards the middle of the column, and everybody knows it since this has been going on for the past many years. Yet, lately the student feels his classmates are using him for their own advantage. The modus operandi of this illicit operation is that he writes the correct answers and the person behind him copies visually, passing it on to those further down the line in the same manner. Meanwhile, he will whisper these to the person ahead, and the message will spread accordingly. Feeling disenchanted, he writes completely wrong meanings of words, and uses them totally incorrectly in sentences. The cheaters cheat blindly. Somewhere in the line, a student notes that the answers look wrong. The message is sent back that these answers look incorrect, and the student adamantly defends his superior knowledge. In the end, blind trust prevails. The damage done, he then proceeds to rub out the incorrect answers and writes correct ones. The whole matter comes to the fore some time after the exams, when the teacher announces in class that she knows one whole column of students has cheated, but she is unable to comprehend how the cheaters managed to skip through one student. She elaborates further that the same completely incorrect answers have been written down by every single student, but one student in the middle has different - and correct - answers. Nothing happens to the cheating students, who are mostly teacher's pets.
In some corner of Pakistan a young man is conversing with relatives from a rural area. They are explaining how they are under- previliged, systematically marginalized, and deprived of opportunities. The young man, with complete sincerity, explains how they can overcome this adversity by taking the initiative to learn. He explains the scholarship opportunities they can avail if they have superior knowledge in sciences and mathematics. His relatives patiently explain their own plans to acquire help from well placed corrupt officials. They maintain that the gap between rural and urban is simply too wide to fill, and dishonest backdoors are the only way to bridge the gap. The young man counters by explaining how this engenders mediocrity by placing non-deserving individuals into positions they cannot fulfill, and how this leads to institutionalization of corruption. He reiterates the importance of quality education. He proposes realistic solutions to the problem of rural/urban disparity. His relatives, suddenly realizing he is championing the 'proper process', retort: 'That requires too much time and energy. We want everything, and we want it now!'.
Our friend is now in university. To his utter surprise, undergraduate education is more like a glorified match making business. Our friend considers independent thought and analysis as a core part of any undergrad program. Any student awarded an undergrad degree should have spent signficant amount of time pondering over the subject matter of his or her major. A physics major should truly be a physicist in training, a maths major a mathematician in training; likewise for other subjects. But what he experiences is a complete and utter disregard for actual learning. Rote learning is the order of the day, even in scientific and engineering disciplines. There is no quality control over the subject matter. In some cases, outdated texts are prescribed. In most of the subjects, the examinations requires a regurgitation of material directly from the textbook. The aim in life of most female students is to get married after graduation, or soon after getting some work experience. The aim in life of most male students is to enjoy life, fumble through the degree, and get a good job. Almost every student has a desire to settle abroad. Acquiring education with the aim of furthering the boundaries of knowledge, strengthening the nation, and making a contribution to the overall welfare of society is non-existent. Every student is selfish, every student is looking for shortcuts.
During the times of Pervaiz Musharraf, our friend feels encouraged. Here is an opportunity for the quality of education to increase, our friend naively believes. And then the politicization of education starts. The initiative of reviewing the curriculum becomes a battleground between secularist extremists and Islamists. The secular extremists want to expunge all notion of religiosity from the education system. Quranic verses in the biology textbook become the subject of debate. Our friend finds these secular extremists to be malevolently disruptive. It does not matter if the first chapter has Quranic references, if the entirety of the rest of the text is pure scientific know how. Religion has never prevented the learning of science, and science doesn't have a religion. As long as both sides of the argument are honestly presented, science doesn't care. But only in Pakistan we find such issues stopping progress itself. Along with updating the curriculum, there was a dire need to change the examination system, so students are genuinely assessed based on their ability to comprehend and analyze the subject matter, form coherent, well-informed opinions, and present them using cogent arguments. Yet, the entire matter came to a grinding halt.
There was some hope that programs to send students to foreign universities would inject fresh blood into the education system. By 2018, that hope has been lost. The benefits from such programs can be described as marginal at best. What is worse is the manner in which Pakistan's interests have been attacked in the guise of a certain foreign funded scholarship program. The covert aims of the program were to filter out specifically those individuals who have a submissive mentality and who could be groomed to forward foreign interests. Upon their return, with the stamp of a foreign degree, they are held unreproachable, and granted easy access to important positions and funding. These 'scholars' are deep assets of Pakistan's enemies who are ready to uphold their masters' sham values of secularism, democracy, and freedom. Combined with the so called 'civil society', this mafia has deep influence over how events are shaped in Pakistan. Only a slight display of their power was seen during the uprising against Musharraf.
With these evidences at hand, we now define Pakistaniat: an illiterate, backward, selfish, hypocritical mentality that exalts mediocracy, is confused about religiosity, and instead of achieving success through intellectual excellence and hard work, resorts to unethical means, or seeks to submit blindly to worldly powers, even to the extent of beggary.
I invite my fellow Pakistanis to reflect on this and respond thoughtfully. I will continue the discussion further about all the implications of Pakistaniat, and then hopefully the discussion will converge towards a solution.
A candid description of Pakistaniat is shocking, to the point that most Pakistani readers would adopt an antagonistic attitude if we simply enunciate it at the beginning. Thus, this article will take the reader through a journey of reflection, gradually building the mental imagery until Pakistaniat becomes preeminently clear. At that point, the intellectually honest reader should leave aside nationalistic pride and acknowledge the harsh reality, for only in honest acceptance lies (eventual) salvation.
It is mid year examinations for grade nine in a private school affiliated with one of the provincial boards of education. One of the students is exceptional in his English language skills. His classmates trust his expertise unquestioningly. Thus, he is expected to help them with the vocabularly portion of the exam - meanings of words, and forming sentences from them. He sits towards the middle of the column, and everybody knows it since this has been going on for the past many years. Yet, lately the student feels his classmates are using him for their own advantage. The modus operandi of this illicit operation is that he writes the correct answers and the person behind him copies visually, passing it on to those further down the line in the same manner. Meanwhile, he will whisper these to the person ahead, and the message will spread accordingly. Feeling disenchanted, he writes completely wrong meanings of words, and uses them totally incorrectly in sentences. The cheaters cheat blindly. Somewhere in the line, a student notes that the answers look wrong. The message is sent back that these answers look incorrect, and the student adamantly defends his superior knowledge. In the end, blind trust prevails. The damage done, he then proceeds to rub out the incorrect answers and writes correct ones. The whole matter comes to the fore some time after the exams, when the teacher announces in class that she knows one whole column of students has cheated, but she is unable to comprehend how the cheaters managed to skip through one student. She elaborates further that the same completely incorrect answers have been written down by every single student, but one student in the middle has different - and correct - answers. Nothing happens to the cheating students, who are mostly teacher's pets.
In some corner of Pakistan a young man is conversing with relatives from a rural area. They are explaining how they are under- previliged, systematically marginalized, and deprived of opportunities. The young man, with complete sincerity, explains how they can overcome this adversity by taking the initiative to learn. He explains the scholarship opportunities they can avail if they have superior knowledge in sciences and mathematics. His relatives patiently explain their own plans to acquire help from well placed corrupt officials. They maintain that the gap between rural and urban is simply too wide to fill, and dishonest backdoors are the only way to bridge the gap. The young man counters by explaining how this engenders mediocrity by placing non-deserving individuals into positions they cannot fulfill, and how this leads to institutionalization of corruption. He reiterates the importance of quality education. He proposes realistic solutions to the problem of rural/urban disparity. His relatives, suddenly realizing he is championing the 'proper process', retort: 'That requires too much time and energy. We want everything, and we want it now!'.
Our friend is now in university. To his utter surprise, undergraduate education is more like a glorified match making business. Our friend considers independent thought and analysis as a core part of any undergrad program. Any student awarded an undergrad degree should have spent signficant amount of time pondering over the subject matter of his or her major. A physics major should truly be a physicist in training, a maths major a mathematician in training; likewise for other subjects. But what he experiences is a complete and utter disregard for actual learning. Rote learning is the order of the day, even in scientific and engineering disciplines. There is no quality control over the subject matter. In some cases, outdated texts are prescribed. In most of the subjects, the examinations requires a regurgitation of material directly from the textbook. The aim in life of most female students is to get married after graduation, or soon after getting some work experience. The aim in life of most male students is to enjoy life, fumble through the degree, and get a good job. Almost every student has a desire to settle abroad. Acquiring education with the aim of furthering the boundaries of knowledge, strengthening the nation, and making a contribution to the overall welfare of society is non-existent. Every student is selfish, every student is looking for shortcuts.
During the times of Pervaiz Musharraf, our friend feels encouraged. Here is an opportunity for the quality of education to increase, our friend naively believes. And then the politicization of education starts. The initiative of reviewing the curriculum becomes a battleground between secularist extremists and Islamists. The secular extremists want to expunge all notion of religiosity from the education system. Quranic verses in the biology textbook become the subject of debate. Our friend finds these secular extremists to be malevolently disruptive. It does not matter if the first chapter has Quranic references, if the entirety of the rest of the text is pure scientific know how. Religion has never prevented the learning of science, and science doesn't have a religion. As long as both sides of the argument are honestly presented, science doesn't care. But only in Pakistan we find such issues stopping progress itself. Along with updating the curriculum, there was a dire need to change the examination system, so students are genuinely assessed based on their ability to comprehend and analyze the subject matter, form coherent, well-informed opinions, and present them using cogent arguments. Yet, the entire matter came to a grinding halt.
There was some hope that programs to send students to foreign universities would inject fresh blood into the education system. By 2018, that hope has been lost. The benefits from such programs can be described as marginal at best. What is worse is the manner in which Pakistan's interests have been attacked in the guise of a certain foreign funded scholarship program. The covert aims of the program were to filter out specifically those individuals who have a submissive mentality and who could be groomed to forward foreign interests. Upon their return, with the stamp of a foreign degree, they are held unreproachable, and granted easy access to important positions and funding. These 'scholars' are deep assets of Pakistan's enemies who are ready to uphold their masters' sham values of secularism, democracy, and freedom. Combined with the so called 'civil society', this mafia has deep influence over how events are shaped in Pakistan. Only a slight display of their power was seen during the uprising against Musharraf.
With these evidences at hand, we now define Pakistaniat: an illiterate, backward, selfish, hypocritical mentality that exalts mediocracy, is confused about religiosity, and instead of achieving success through intellectual excellence and hard work, resorts to unethical means, or seeks to submit blindly to worldly powers, even to the extent of beggary.
I invite my fellow Pakistanis to reflect on this and respond thoughtfully. I will continue the discussion further about all the implications of Pakistaniat, and then hopefully the discussion will converge towards a solution.
