We have excelled in cruelty, we have created inequalities and perpetuated injustices
ISLAMABAD: This is in response to Amin Jan Naim’s article titled “Larger dimensions” published on June 19th. I consider this write-up one of the most fascinating from his writing desk. It is both incisive and multi-dimensional. Mr Naim does justice to human achievement and point to the enormous potential for good in human endeavour. But he also captures the paradox of history. We have failed the poor. We have excelled in cruelty. We have created inequalities and perpetuated injustices. His writing compels us into asking why such Herculean performance has gone side by side with such brazen blindness.
Why have we been able to turn space-time into energy and darkness into light, and yet allowed that light to revert to darkness in ourselves and in our dealings with fellowmen? One could not agree with Mr Naim more when he places emphasis on vision, institutions and education as comprising the great tripod on which a better structure of civilisation should be conceived and constructed. In Pakistan itself, the march has been uneven for all three as enablers and providers of opportunities for the majority of its citizens. We have suffered from military interventions and executive dictatorship in equal measure. Our educational system has remained inexcusably lop-sided. In fact, in one of my observations at a recent workshop, I gave my view that our primary education system is the biggest fraud we play on the people of Pakistan.
But the hope is that voices of reason and enlightenment, such as Mr Naim’s, will be heard and taken to heart.
Ejaz Rahim
Published in The Express Tribune, June 22nd, 2017.
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