The energy, time and money Pakistan puts into politics, politicking and the art of wheeling-and-dealing blow the mind and the national wallet. Read any publication and there’s a scandal brewing, a politician staging a “dharna” about something, a scam in the works, or a disagreement about something or the other. All the quotes contained in these stories will shave a few points off your IQ by the time you’re done reading them. There’s no logic and reason, and mostly not a shred of common sense displayed by those who are supposed to have all these qualities if they are to lead a nation to some degree of normality. In short a Vulcan would commit suicide in Pakistan.
For those of you who haven’t ever watched Star Trek and aren’t familiar with the Vulcans I would recommend a trip to the movie wala immediately. The Vulcans are a race in the epic sci-fi series and movies who are immensely enlightened, tolerant, logical and scientific. Their entire society runs on reason and logic, and their core function is to gain more knowledge of everything they don’t know about – which is very little. Basically, they are everything we’re not. My question is: where did all the Vulcans go from Pakistan? Mohammad Ali Jinnah was perhaps the last of the Vulcans and he died. I have stopped referring to Mr Jinnah as Quaid given the number of Quaids who have popped up all over the country and who aren’t a fraction of the man the great leader was. Did all our Vulcans go extinct due to a huge fireball of stupidity and absurdity? Did they just realise that their kind wasn’t welcome in the new Pakistan? Or did the raptors hound them out systematically? We will never know the facts but we can hypothesise for sure.
If anyone doubts that we have very few Vulcans left in Pakistan, please throw on the idiot box and get back to me. Talk shows, analysts, politicians, “leaders” – no one wants to talk any sense anymore. All anyone wants to do is push emotional buttons, talk gibberish and when all else fails resort to invoking religion. I’ve seen more gravitas and common sense in four-year-olds than I do when I watch our gladiatorial pygmies on television. I’ve always maintained that while the South Americans have had their football, and the North Americans have had their soap operas, us Pakistanis are fascinated by our political soap operas. Evening conversation – politics. Lunch conversation – politics. Dinner conversation – politics. When my wife moved to Karachi this was one of her first observations – don’t you guys talk about anything but politics? As a husband it was my duty to give her a long-winded explanation on why it was so important to be involved, but really she was right. It seems that other than business and politics we want to talk about very little else.
Our relationship with science, technology and innovation is also tragic. Tragic as in Greek tragic. Years of indoctrination that somehow science is not compatible with religion, bad schools/universities, series of clueless and uninterested governments later we are at the bottom of the tables when it comes to all three. Most of the great scientists we had were hounded out of the country. Instead we were left with self-promoting metallurgists. Our society’s relationship with teachers and professors also has changed dramatically. Not valuing them in what they can impart but rather more interested in the end results that they can produce. The two-track education system has not helped either. Once the “peela” schools could produce giants like Dr Abdus Salam. Today they’re lucky if their poor teacher shows up – a teacher whose salary is the same as a driver in Karachi. While our leaders prattle off speeches on the value of innovation, science and technology, most of them would be hard-pressed to have a five-minute conversation on any of them – intelligently.
Yet there are sleeper cells of Vulcans who still operate in Pakistan. I think they keep the whole thing going. You can see their work even if you can’t see them. If it weren’t for them there is no way things could go on. As a society we need to believe that things aren’t quite right and that we need to fix them. If not for ourselves then for our children and grandchildren. If we can find logical, elegant and simple solution to our problems without resorting to conspiracies and funny talking men in berets and red fez’s there’s a lot to be optimistic about. Until then we can go back to watching the idiot box and getting stupider.
