Pluralism and Future Leaders
“The democracy has ruined us
all”, he said. “Our last five years have gone down the drain and we cannot
throw our next five years to the dogs”, the other shouted. “We must have Islamic
Political system in the country”, a young but fire brand delegate cried. I was
sitting as an Expert Panelist in Pakistan Future Leaders Conference (PFLC)
2013, St. Peter’s college Oxford University. The conference room was full to
the brim. The organisers had to borrow chairs from other rooms to squeeze in
the increasing number of participants.
We were talking about the
contemporary political situation and its various tentacles cutting across our social and political debate. Being the lead Panelist, I set the tone by giving
the brief background of the current political system: its contours, dynamics,
undercurrents, flaws and the growing discontent among the masses about the the system.
In my view, the parliamentary system has some of its inherent flaws but the
current governments’ failure to include its basic constituent elements (e.g
local governments) has only partially allowed the system to work. Rampant
corruption coupled with square incompetence at invariably all levels and lack
of planning has only added to the problems. Since we have had numerous system
somersaults already in our history, we can ill afford to start afresh. However,
I emphasised that we must keep on working and adapting the current model in
accordance with our peculiar needs and deeds.
“No, we must uproot this system
and bring Khilafa in the country”, one delegate retorted. Now, this was the
time when other delegates who disagreed with him jumped into the discussion.
They said that the analogy was incorrect due to time and space differences
between the two systems. A young girl was vociferous in her defiance to the
very thought of derailing the current political arrangement. I was feeling as
if I was sitting in a boiling pot. It was evident from the proceedings that the
‘Islamists’ were trying to focus the discussion on the replacing the current
system with the Khilafa while the others, while accepting the flaws, were
geared up to give some more time to the Westminster democracy and let it evolve
over a period of time. As the time went by, it became clearer that the
‘Islamists’, though very vocal, were outnumbered and outweighed by the others.
While punctuating the discussion
intermittently, I was also thinking of our future educated lot. I had no doubt
that they were passionate, fiery and itching to turn the tide. Also, I was
impressed by their desire to change the destiny of the people of Pakistan and
quickly, too. At the same time, I was worried about their intolerance, outright
dismissal of the others’ point of view and lack of mannerism at many times. And
I am talking about the so called ‘cream of the nation’ who were studying in the
‘best British universities’. Mostly, they came with pre-conceived ideas which
they did not want to budge a shade from. I must confess here that their apparent attitude of the dismissal of others may be attributed to their youthful
exuberance. Most of them were good listeners with polite manners when we had
informal chats during the breaks.
But my real cause of concern was
something else. It was the lack of creative and critical thinking. The ancient
Greek adage “I know that I know nothing” that makes you a humble learner, was
missing, too. For me, the ‘all knowing’ attitude was particularly disturbing.
For example, they were extremely eager to demand from India that It should
accede to the aspirations of the Kashmiris. They argued that the modern states
are based on social contracts and force only cannot compel a people to live within
a state for long. I agreed to them by citing the swelling number of the member states
of the United Nations from a few in the forties to more than two hundred now. But,
to my horror, they were not ready to apply the principle of ‘social contract’
in Pakistan in any way, even for the sake of debate. They lacked creative ideas
to solve a problem by trying to approach it from various different
perspectives.
I think that we need a serious
rethink of the dynamics of our cultural creative processes in Pakistan. That
includes education, family, society, literary and professional circles and the
media. The current style of debate in our media has a lot to do with this. I do
not mind pluralism and diversity of thoughts. However, it demands tolerance and
mannerism.