When do nations fail?

In The Famished Road, a novel by famous Nigerian-British writer Ben Okri, two characters are talking to each other: “Do you understand what mice are saying? No, can you talk to them? No, but I can kill them… because their stomach is never full, they are like corrupt politicians, imperialists and rich people… They eat people’s things and devour whatever comes in front of them and one day when they are very hungry, they eat us too.”

Today, the state of Pakistan presents a perfect example of elite capture, where big and powerful people have occupied all resources; they are eating everything, and their hunger has turned into ‘the famished road’. These people will now turn to us and eat us all one day. Our bones will be scattered in the streets and highways because they could not be eaten.

If we carefully look around our highways and streets, we can easily see millions of crushed dreams and wishes. Man thinks in three ways. From the heart; from the mind; and from the stomach. Unfortunately we have been held hostage by those who only think from their stomach, and no one is visible to them except themselves.

In his play Merchant of Venice, Shakespeare portrays Shylock as a ghastly Jewish merchant who falls from the position of humanity as he demands of his debtors a ‘pound of flesh’ from their bodies in retribution. In Doctor Faustus, another play by Shakespeare, the doctor sells his soul to the devil for worldly comforts and luxuries.

These stories are old but absolutely true. They are repeated again and again in human life — currently in our homeland where humanity has been completely defeated by the anti-human mentality. The people of Pakistan have become helpless and hollow. They have accepted poverty, hunger and disease as their destiny. We see complete silence all around because the dead never speaks or cries.

Wonder why have nations — well, so many of them — failed? It’s because the people there stopped dreaming and were rendered hopeless; and it’s when social injustice completely took over the societies, all avenues of a peaceful change were blocked, and all state resources, power and authority was concentrated in the hands of a few.

Our name now figures in the list of failed nations. The main justification for the existence of any state is people’s welfare i.e. promoting prosperity, ensuring freedom, empowering the masses and trying to reduce their sufferings.

The ancient Greek states were governed by ancient customs and traditions. It was a time when people did not even think about what social and political laws are. Rulers used to rule in a dictatorial manner according to their needs and wisdom, and the subjects were forced to live a social life as per their orders.

Greek philosopher Archelaus was the first to propose new ideas and concepts for human psychology, human society and human life; and about how a healthy and prosperous society should be. Nearly 350 persons — including Hammurabi, the ruler of ancient Babylon, as well as Socrates, Plato and Aristotle — have presented their ideas so far. A few things have been found common in these concepts: that in a healthy and prosperous society, distribution of wealth should be more egalitarian; state resources should not be monopolised by a few individuals; everyone should enjoy equal opportunities as well as religious freedom; and everyone should have free access to education, health and employment.

English Poet William Godman says it is futile to try to reform a rotten society. But if a positive society can be achieved, the reformation of individuals takes place automatically. According to American essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson, the true measure of the civility of a country is neither the census numbers nor the existence of big cities and abundance of wealth. Its true quality is rather measured by what kind of people a country produces. So, would it be wrong to say that nothing is going to change until good people are produced in our society? Remember all the failures of history were moral failures!

Published in The Express Tribune, December 20^th, 2022.

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