Desperately seeking imagination

If we can’t laugh at ourselves, if we believe we are only born to die, then something is seriously wrong.

I travel a lot and have occasion to meet all kinds of interesting people. Sometimes someone says something that just grabs your attention and makes you think. A few weeks ago, I heard Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy speak about ‘memes’, the cultural equivalent of genes, at Karachi’s The Second Floor. All memes need, he said, are a receptive host, i.e. a preconditioned mind that retains and even propagates a particular idea or thought. We keep talking about this dangerous mindset that seems to have overrun Pakistan. The dangerous mindset and with it the receptive host that has taken decades to create. We have allowed the memes to move in and make themselves very comfortable. As a result, we don’t seem to be talking about or doing much about dislodging that dangerous mindset.

So have we managed over the years to breed a non-thinking nation? What is this inherited human behaviour? Has the window on independent thought closed? Or is the human mind this truly amazing thing that we can actually change collective thought?

Dr Hoodbhoy believes that by changing the memes we can gradually reclaim the space that has been lost over the past 30 years. For that, we need to be able to influence the way in which we nurture our young. The influences in their lives are the home, the school, the media — essentially television — and the mosque. Sounds too simplistic to be true? Sounds too difficult to do? Perhaps, but then again, perhaps not.

I, as I am sure many others did, left Dr Hoodbhoy’s talk thinking of how.

A few days ago, I was on a flight to Islamabad and met someone whose enthusiasm and energy need to be harnessed, bottled and served chilled to all those in government and positions of power. He talked of evolution, of how language and methods of communication and social interaction had changed. Of the power of the human mind and what it is capable of when challenged. The world has always been driven by innovation. Today’s world is powered by information and revolves around technology.

He talked about the internet, the unlimited information it offers, about internet cafes and the access they provide a starved nation to the world and beyond. Did you know that internet cafes provide booths, that come equipped with toilet rolls, to their customers so they can surf in privacy? Broadband the entire country, he said, and give everyone an iPad. See what they do. Let them look at whatever they want to, it will automatically lead to a quest for more, more knowledge and more information and will open the mind to new ideas. I can already hear people screaming pornography. Well let them. I am screaming inquiring, imaginative, innovation.

If everyone is so worried about pornography, we need to address this fear at it seems to be standing in the way of our access to all the other information and material that should be available to us. Once the mind opens up and the imagination soars, there are no limits to what we can do. The minds we have are naturally inquiring and imaginative and if you allow them to be both these things, you will see innovation.

So if we go back to Dr Hoodbhoy and look at his prescription for changing things, he calls for critical thought, scientific thought, thought that is not boxed in by sets of rules created by people who seek to control you through fear. For introspection, which inevitably is a product of the inquiring mind. And, most importantly, he calls for a sense of humour.

If we can’t laugh at ourselves, can’t see the fun in living, if we believe we are only born to die, then something is seriously wrong. Then we are not looking at utilising our time on earth. Then collectively we shouldn’t bother getting out of bed. Oops we are already doing that. And in our quest to regulate morality, we have decided it’s better that the masses don’t get their hands on computers and their access to the internet be restricted, lest the moral fibre of this nation be corrupted. Forget the real corruption of keeping a country in poverty, just don’t let them evolve.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 11^th, 2011.