Evolution vs production

We were driving to Nathyagali last month. At one point on the road, we saw some monkeys and decided to stop and take a look. There were many people there taking pictures of the monkeys and whatever was left of the beautiful trees in the mountains. My brother had a bag of chips in his hand. One monkey came running aggressively and snatched the chips bag from his hand and went running to eat it. It was a funny moment. The people nearby offered us their bags of chips as a polite gesture. And that right there is the topic here.

The difference between the monkeys’ and the human beings’ DNA is less than 2% — an almost negligible difference. Sure, we humans have stepped over the moon and made tools to outpace and outsmart any animal, but we are an evolved form of the ape. The monkey’s first instinct is to snatch what it wants and run while humans have culture and manners and offer their own food to fellow humans as a polite gesture. While the DNA difference may only be tiny, there is, however, a massive geologic time scale in which the ape evolved into human.

Now let us look at the current situation in Pakistan. When values and ideals such as feminism, democracy, free speech, free journalism and so forth are shown to such cultures, their first reaction is no different than the monkey snatching the bag of chips. The bag of chips is not bad, neither are feminist thought and democratic ideals. The problem arises when we grab them or they are rammed down our throats without us going through the evolutionary process required. The bag of chips is not the food of the monkeys. It is introduced to the monkeys by its advanced cousins who consumed it for decades.

Every time I come to Pakistan, I see copycat products mimicking what I have left behind in the west. Even restaurants are named after American states such as Texas Steak and New York Pizza. There are also Houston burgers in Islamabad. I have lived in Houston for over a decade. There is no such thing as a Houston burger. Such restaurants are frequented by the so-called liberal boys and girls. By the way, the same liberal girls post pictures of themselves on Facebook where you can only see their hair or shoes or polished nails. Not their faces. So much for liberalism. No different than the chips in the claws of monkeys.

Watching the western society with awe and yearning to recreate what they have is a common urge. Production can be done quickly. Evolution, however, takes time. The mistake we make in Pakistan is that we treat evolution as production. If we can reproduce it or use it in Pakistan, we think we have evolved into the beings that are fit for it. The problem arises and the conflict deepens when values and cultures are adopted overnight. There is a difference between having feminism versus having an iPhone. One can be bought or manufactured fake in China but the other one needs time. For an iPhone the parts can be obtained or made in a factory overnight. For feminism, our minds are the parts that can’t be prepped overnight in a factory. It took centuries for the west to mature into societies where feminism, democracy, free speech and so forth are not a fashion or pressure points but lifestyles.

Pakistan and many other such nations are adopting these values and cultures in the same fashion as an iPhone. Pakistan may not need the maturity to digest the use of products but it sure needs the maturity to digest the values it’s ramming down its throat. Again, these are great ideals to have. The problem is that they are abused no less than TikTok. Instead of producing the next generation of fake dummies, let us evolve into better human beings.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 16^th, 2021.

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