Time for Mea Culpa

The genius of one man led to the atom bomb. Intelligence can be destructive. Nations are built on a healthy combination of intellect and wisdom. If there is an imbalance, it should always be in favour of wisdom, never intellect. Yet, in our journey, we often appear to be devoid of both. Rationality and moderation have all but been jettisoned from our behaviour. A biblical thought reminds us that if you have sown the wind, be prepared to reap the whirlwind. We continue repeating past mistakes and singing the praises of our failures. Our Founding Fathers clearly had a vision of carving a nation-state out of the subcontinent. There is no reason to doubt that they understood how it was to be governed, managed and administered. The speech of our Quaid, delivered three days before independence, set out his vision in unambiguous terms. He was clear and candid about Pakistan’s tryst with destiny. However, his departure, followed by the untimely loss of other senior leaders—one through assassination—left the country at the mercy of incompetent and indecisive individuals. The opportunity far exceeded their abilities, virtues, and preparedness. Consequently, we lost the plan. The nation, quite literally, lost its marbles. Police arrest man for alleged sexual assault of minor boy Isn’t 79 years long enough to stop hiding behind the façade of growth that never materialised as planned? We continue to shelter behind excuses and apologies for the condition into which we have progressively descended. It is foolish to escape responsibility through excuses; a bad excuse is certainly not better than none. Wisdom demands that we honestly acknowledge the wrongs committed, individually and collectively, in damaging the politics, economy, and social fabric of our beloved country since 1947. Isn’t it time we stopped complaining and explaining? For how long will we continue attempting to justify our collective failures to successive generations? In any case, even friendly nations have little interest in our explanations, while our adversaries merely rejoice. Excuses for failure amount to self-indictment. We have become a nation of poor workmen blaming their tools. It is time we changed our mindset. Police solve 6-month-old blind murder of rent-a-car driver The last 79 years gave us ample opportunity to distinguish ourselves. We gathered momentum, then faltered. We rose again during the 1960s, only to fail once more after 1971. Since then, our trajectory has largely been downward, interrupted only by occasional economic improvement, mostly under military-led dispensations. Our predicament—politically, economically and socially—is perhaps best captured by Sydney Smith in The Sketches of Moral Philosophy: “We generally find that the triangular person has got into the square hole, the oblong into the triangular, and a square person has squeezed himself into the round hole. The officer and the office, the doer and the thing done, seldom fit so exactly that we can say they were almost made for each other.” Those who fail to understand how accurately this reflects our circumstances do not fully comprehend our predicament. Suspect held in citizen’s murder over minor dispute in Rawalpindi If we do not carry our plans through to completion, they never will succeed. The sails must be set with clarity. The journey is long and arduous, and we cannot afford paralysis through fear of decision-making. If one province bleeds, the rest will inevitably suffer. “We haven’t done what we ought to have done, and the things we have done ought not to have been done.” Our political experiments have repeatedly attempted to reinvent the wheel. We remain uncertain about what form of political dispensation best suits us. We have proved ourselves to be a confused nation. As William Blake wrote, “He who desires but acts not, breeds pestilence.” Under the tyranny of indecision, we have neither thought sufficiently nor acted decisively. The world is grasped through action, not contemplation alone. 2, 000 litres of adulterated milk destroyed Every day, politicians, economists, bureaucrats, diplomats, social scientists, professors, students, and countless others speak of the need for “structural reforms”. Yet what many actually mean remains uncertain. The phrase has become a slogan rather than a clearly defined objective. If structural reform truly encompasses politics, economics and societal values, then the task is undoubtedly arduous—but it is not insurmountable. Our neighbour to the east borrowed from our economic programme of the early 1990s and implemented its principles with unwavering consistency. We, meanwhile, squandered our opportunity. Political turmoil consumed the 1990s and much of the 2000s. Residents demand improved civic amenities in Jhangi Syedan, adjoining areas Leadership must demonstrate the resolve to pursue reform—not through force, hasty legislation or revolutionary upheaval, but through steady, incremental progress. China teaches us that transformation does not occur overnight. It begins with a clear vision of where a nation wishes to stand in terms of human and economic development and well-being, followed by clearly defined milestones. Policy compliance remains one of our weakest areas. We produce excellent policies on paper, yet consistently fail in implementation. Honest reflection, accompanied by meaningful correction, remains one of the surest paths out of the quagmire of our past mistakes. Sirajuddin AzizThe writer is a Senior Banker & Freelance Columnist.

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