Lately I seem to be getting more and more angry. My anger is not directed towards any person in particular, it is not directed towards the ‘West’ as seems to be the popular past time these, days nor is it directed at our Pakistani government – the last one just makes me laugh hysterically in despair, not anger. I am angry at the rampant hypocrisy running wild amongst our nation.
We are a nation that starts to wave the banner of Islam at the slightest, most trivial issue, which claims that it is founded on the ideology of Islam and which is so very concerned with the rituals of the religion that they are willing to take up arms on the mere differences in which these rituals are practiced. Yet the very reason any religion needs to be followed i.e. love, tolerance, equality, joy and salvation are completely ignored. Religion is supposed to give us courage to face our challenges and yet we seem to have become a nation who finds great solace in blinding ourselves to our problems. Religion is supposed to make you accountable for your own actions so that you correct and repent whenever you stray from the right path, yet we hold everyone responsible for everything that goes wrong – except ourselves.
Avoidance of responsibility is our best defense against everything. In our individual capacity we blame the society, our bosses, our colleagues, our relatives, our social structure, our destiny etc for everything that goes wrong in our lives. As a nation we blame our government (it doesn’t really matter who is in power, we’ve been doing this for decades) anti-Islamic forces, vested interests, global economy and global politics for everything that goes wrong in the country. Never once have I come across anyone who says ‘my life sucks because of my own choices’ or ‘the only person who I can blame for my failure is me’.
This avoidance of responsibility is taught to us at a very early age by over protective parents. Children especially teenagers are hardly ever given the chance to make their own decisions hence they are never taught to understand the concept of being responsible of the consequences. Since we have never been given the confidence to make our own choices and stick by them, as we grow older and more mature we panic when faced with any major decisions in life. We tend to seek advice of anyone and everyone we can get hold of, not because we want to improve the quality of our decision, but so that in case anything goes wrong we can turn to all these people and say ‘I asked you and you told me to do this’ – basically we line up people upon whom we can shift the blame.
As a nation we bring this characteristic into our politics as well as economy. The capacity of every Pakistani to find, discuss, and analyze convoluted conspiracies in the most mundane incident is amazing, we put the best mystery writers to shame – Dan Brown spend 1 month with us and you will go away with material for your next 6 books! But not once do we hold ourselves accountable for our shortcomings. If the whole world seems to be gunning for us and if the West seems to be running our country by proxy, then who is to blame? Eleanor Roosevelt once said “Nobody can make you inferior without your own permission”. No power can destroy our nation unless we give them permission. But spouting rhetoric and spewing out clichés is not going to change anything. When every individual finds the moral courage to make his/her own choices and stand by the consequences of those decisions without blaming others, that’s the day we will become invincible.
We are a nation that starts to wave the banner of Islam at the slightest, most trivial issue, which claims that it is founded on the ideology of Islam and which is so very concerned with the rituals of the religion that they are willing to take up arms on the mere differences in which these rituals are practiced. Yet the very reason any religion needs to be followed i.e. love, tolerance, equality, joy and salvation are completely ignored. Religion is supposed to give us courage to face our challenges and yet we seem to have become a nation who finds great solace in blinding ourselves to our problems. Religion is supposed to make you accountable for your own actions so that you correct and repent whenever you stray from the right path, yet we hold everyone responsible for everything that goes wrong – except ourselves.
Avoidance of responsibility is our best defense against everything. In our individual capacity we blame the society, our bosses, our colleagues, our relatives, our social structure, our destiny etc for everything that goes wrong in our lives. As a nation we blame our government (it doesn’t really matter who is in power, we’ve been doing this for decades) anti-Islamic forces, vested interests, global economy and global politics for everything that goes wrong in the country. Never once have I come across anyone who says ‘my life sucks because of my own choices’ or ‘the only person who I can blame for my failure is me’.
This avoidance of responsibility is taught to us at a very early age by over protective parents. Children especially teenagers are hardly ever given the chance to make their own decisions hence they are never taught to understand the concept of being responsible of the consequences. Since we have never been given the confidence to make our own choices and stick by them, as we grow older and more mature we panic when faced with any major decisions in life. We tend to seek advice of anyone and everyone we can get hold of, not because we want to improve the quality of our decision, but so that in case anything goes wrong we can turn to all these people and say ‘I asked you and you told me to do this’ – basically we line up people upon whom we can shift the blame.
As a nation we bring this characteristic into our politics as well as economy. The capacity of every Pakistani to find, discuss, and analyze convoluted conspiracies in the most mundane incident is amazing, we put the best mystery writers to shame – Dan Brown spend 1 month with us and you will go away with material for your next 6 books! But not once do we hold ourselves accountable for our shortcomings. If the whole world seems to be gunning for us and if the West seems to be running our country by proxy, then who is to blame? Eleanor Roosevelt once said “Nobody can make you inferior without your own permission”. No power can destroy our nation unless we give them permission. But spouting rhetoric and spewing out clichés is not going to change anything. When every individual finds the moral courage to make his/her own choices and stand by the consequences of those decisions without blaming others, that’s the day we will become invincible.
2 comments:
I am sure there is a method in all our apparent 'madness'!! While not averse to conspiracy theories myself, I prefer pursuing a more positive, but nonetheless creative, line of thinking trying to unravel the silver lining in the darkest and stormiest of clouds. It's actually an article of faith, come to think of it, to remain positive and hopeful of the way the future will pan out. We are experiencing the throes of maturing as a people and learning through a process of trial and error. The Quaid is supposed to have said that Pakistan will be one big laboratory where all manner of grand, often hair-raising experiements will be conducted geared to fast track the rousing of the subcontinent's Muslims from two centuries of hibernation. In that at least we have exceeded the founder's expectations! I am half way through reading, rather belatedly, Christina Lamb's book 'Waiting for Allah'. It presents a no-holds barred view of the circumstances that have led to our present predicament. A must read, in addition to her more recent book 'Small Wars Permitting.'
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