Not the military but economy stupid!

Enlightenment continues to elude us because nobody cared to push forward the its drivers

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) was a great German scholar and one of the central enlightenment thinkers. He defined enlightenment as ‘man’s emergence from self-imposed immaturity’. Enlightenment which was the dominant philosophical movement in Europe in the 18^th century challenged all kinds of authorities and signified that ‘reason was the main source of authority’.

When I think about our failure, I am forced to focus on what Immanuel Kant refers to as our ‘self-imposed immaturity’. What is this self-imposed immaturity and why couldn’t we emerge from it as a society and a nation? Alright, we were colonised for a long time but then why are we still in chains and not free? What accelerated our extremism and what prevented our enlightenment? Why we are still part of the ‘left behind word’?

We must reason why even after two centuries of European enlightenment we haven’t been able to reform, modernise and enlighten ourselves like the rest of the world. I think our universities should hold seminars to ask this most crucial question and invite not only the politicians but the generals to speak on the occasion of 23^rd March — Pakistan’s Resolution Day. Why we faulted on our resolution to make this country as good as the Quaid-e-Azam believed it could be. Wouldn’t it be better to debate and reason this than to sit and watch the parade on our ‘resolution day’? We must do that to know what do the politicians and the generals think? Why have we continued to backslide, remained so regressive and clearly backward? Why did we fail? After all, both the civilian and military governments of the past must take the responsibility for our current predicament.

We continue to live in a dark and not so enlightened world because nobody cared to push forward the drivers of our enlightenment — progress, fraternity, liberty, tolerance, constitutional government and the separation of religion and the state. Living in the 21^st Century, our society is still attached to the preconceived ideas of how to make a great nation state. We won’t be able to do that without hard work, honesty and resilience. Surely just raising false slogans, dancing, singing and acting won’t take us there.

There is dearth of reason and insightfulness and it is clearly reflected in who all are the recipients of the pride of performances award given by the President of Pakistan on 23^rd March 2021. This year out of 14 Pakistanis who got this award, four are singers (including Abida Parveen who was decorated with Nishan-e-Pakistan), three are actors belonging to the film industry, one dancer and a religious scholar. This is more than 60% of pride of performances going to actors, singers, dancers and religious scholars, who no doubt are exceptionally talented in their fields but where is the rest of the talent in the society? Will we just continue to sing, dance and act and become renowned only for this? What about economy, science and technology, health, IT, engineering, education? I do think that it is through better performances in these fields that we will manage to break away from the ‘stay behind world’ and usher into a reasonable world that not only sings, dances and acts but reasons and progresses under an enlightened environment.

As of December 2020, our external debt was around $115 billion: we owed $11.3 billion to Paris Club; $33.1 billion to multilateral donors; $7.4 billion to IMF; and $12 billion to international bonds such as Eurobond. About 15% of this external debt is owed to China due to CPEC which is estimated at $17.1 billion. In three months i.e. by March 2020, this debt must have increased and not decreased. So, in retrospect should we be holding military parades with great pomp and show or should we be looking at our economic predicament with more soberness and maybe practise more financial restraint and austerity? An insightful state led by an enlightened leadership is expected to be more candid and honest in its self-assessment.

The 23^rd March is the day that reflects our commitment to defending the sovereignty and territorial integrity of our state. The military parade organised on the day clearly demonstrates to the outside world how well prepared we are and how great is the military prowess of this nuclear state. But if Immanuel Kant is to be believed and enlightenment does mean taking ‘reason as the main source of authority’ and ‘our emergence from self-imposed immaturity’ than let us reason well to admit that we are knee deep in debt that we owe to the world, and the continued political and democratic instability that shackles us as a state is making us a laughing stock in the outside world.

In today’s world, wars will not be won by guns, tanks and bullets but with ideas and only an enlightened mind is expected to compete and win the war of ideas. Shedding away ‘imposed immaturity’ requires ‘ability to use one’s understanding without guidance from another’. For politicians it means growing up enough to be your own daddy and for the military it means what Chester James Carville, an American political consultant and Bill Clinton’s successful 1992 presidential campaign strategist, said: ‘It’s economy stupid.” For the state it means while dealing with the outside world stay as sovereign as it gets.

We have remained very optimistic as a nation and no matter what the challenges we never allowed our optimism to die down. But I sincerely hope that all three, an enlightened politics, military and the state that they both represent will start clearly distinguishing the difference between optimism and hope. Optimism continues to look at the bright side of the life despite the evidence that suggests otherwise. Optimism is a mindset and an attitude that breeds contentment, complacency, procrastination and inaction. Hope is radical, it is more active and as much as it reminds us about the prospects of success it also recognises the possibilities of failures.

Living in an ‘age of now, right here, right now society’ there are more people that are frustrated, oppressed and exploited than at any stage of their lives. The ‘culture of optimism’ built by both military as well as civilian leadership is fast waning in the face of multiple challenges that the society faces to survive and exist.

I sincerely think that optimism is getting dimmer by the day. This fading optimism in the society has got everything to do with our forged, fake, bogus and self-serving politics that has crashed the dreams and financial future of the people of this country.

If we want to make the life of our children’s generation better than it has been for us then we will have to honestly build our dreams on hope ‘with all possibilities of its failure’ and stop living in a country of only military grandeur with flashy uniforms and pomp and show parades. Someone will have to realise in this country what Chester James Carville said: “It’s economy stupid.”

Published in The Express Tribune, March 28^th, 2021.

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