Pakistan will only succeed as a nation if it learns to first accept its flaws and agrees to learn from its mistakes.
ISLAMABAD: Mr Naqvi’s article on democracy was excellent. One of the greatest weaknesses of our society is the complete inability to accept and acknowledge our mistakes. And this is unfortunate because this is the step that must come before we can be in a position to learn from our mistakes. Our culture is one in which admitting a mistake is virtually unthinkable at any level of society. As a result, we tread down the same path again and again and continue to be amazed every time we fail. I marvel at the sheer blindness of the people who in spite of all available evidence, simply fail to take into account that they may be wrong.
In fact, acknowledging a mistake is considered such a cardinal sin that the moment a damaging piece of truth is revealed, people are quick to say that it should not have been made public because it is deemed to damage the national interest or hurt people’s religious feelings and so on. Pakistan will only succeed as a nation if it learns to first accept its flaws and agrees to learn from its mistakes. However, as long as the disclosing of a fault is considered a worse act than the fault itself, this will certainly not happen.
Hassan K Bajwa
Published in The Express Tribune, July 1st, 2012.
