The mystery of our national unhappiness

A comic, bizarre and a tragic story — that is the story of Pakistan. For our young generation, which is the product of information age, this story seems to be falling apart and they seem to be no more in love with this story. The disappointment of the young generation rests with not what they have read in the history books but with their personal experiences and their struggle with the circumstances created by the characters in this ongoing story. This story of Pakistan is still developing but there is little optimism about its happy ending. Why?

People have been seeing and experiencing the performance of the various individual characters in the story line of Pakistan and they have been watching the sequence of events and the role these characters perform in shaping the events. And as the plot of the story thickens, the people, especially the youths, realise that in this age of acceleration we are fast deaccelerating which is not what they want. They realise that these characters have ended up gifting them a geographic space where only one reality endures — unhappiness.

If one digs the history of our past seventy years or so we will find generals and politicians as the principal actors/performers in our story line, the heroes and villains of our film, the creators of our circumstances, which have gone from bad to worst. In this evolving story, I don’t want to dwell on the usual criticism of lack of economic, political and social opportunities and our societal degradation, my core concern is with the presence of the element of unhappiness in our society. Are we not a bunch of very unhappy people? To understand the significance of this unhappiness, let’s visit the origin — the history. How can national happiness or unhappiness have an origin or a history? Is there a clue that can guide us through the mystery of this national unhappiness?

Having something is one thing, valuing it and maintaining it is another. All founders of nation states are respectable people who are always remembered in nice words. They are the referees that lay down the rules basing on which the game of nation-building is eventually played. These founders leave us with actions and statements that we quote over and over again to ensure that as we evolve, we don’t forget the ideological framework, the promises that were made at our birth as we continue to embark on the long journey of nationhood. When Benjamin Franklin — one of America’s founding fathers — was asked about the shape his nation state would take and if the nation will be monarch or a republic, his prompt answer was: “A republic if you can keep it.”

His statement actually sums up the tragedy of Pakistan — we had a country but were we able to keep it as we should have? A country that has crawled forward to become an unhappy autocracy rather than the modern welfare democracy that we were supposed to create and keep. To understand the causes of unhappiness of Pakistani society I decided to visit the origin of the American society which seems to be the destination of a majority of immigrants and presumably the happiest place on earth today. What seeds of happiness were sown by the American forefathers that resulted in a big yield of happiness? Here is what I found.

American founding fathers viz, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and Robert Livingstone decided right at the outset that America must fear both the government and the people — the government because the governments accumulate power and become tyrants; and the people because they peruse their private interests and divert the governments into looking after the good of a few rather than engaging in the common good of all. So, the only way to rise to the power in America was made possible only through character, ability and talent. Rather than the birth right, the blackmailing, or the right connections — only ability, character and talent could lead you there.

The American founding fathers summarised that restraining both such people and governments and preventing the fears that they create is the only way a society can pursue happiness. There was a need to create a balance of power and ensure separation of power amongst the pillars of the state. In order to achieve that, the American founders created a system under which three things became extremely difficult to execute.

One, they made passage of law enormously difficult. Not like in Pakistan that you can indulge in corruption, stage manage elections, come to power, create laws to throw out of window your own process of accountability and pretend you are the most spot-free, the cleanest and the most dirt-free politician that ever made it to the Pakistani parliament.

Two, they made sure that American president would be incapable of becoming a tyrant.

Three, they made the actions of Congress, America’s most powerful organisation, limited by American courts in what it could achieve.

No wonder Americans are a bunch of happy nations.

Originally, a comparison may be drawn on many promises made by the America forefathers of ours. But let’s examine one — the state emblem of Pakistan adopted in 1954 and the American Great Seal. The crescent and the star on the Pakistan emblem are symbols of Islam. Quartered shield in the centre shows cotton, wheat, tea and jute — our major crops on the independence. Floral wreath that surrounds the shield is of jasmine flower that is our national flower and lastly the shield contains national motto — unity, faith and discipline which are written in Urdu language.

The front of American seal represents an eagle and words written next to eagle in Latin read — E pluribus unum, meaning ‘out of many one’. Meaning out of many states the creation of one United States. On the backside is an unfinished pyramid which represents ‘a massive undertaking of wealth, resources and labor of a nation’. Above the pyramids is written in Latin, Annuit Coeptis, which means ‘He has favored our undertaking.’ The creators of American seal clearly understood an issue that Americans may face in future — whether America would be a Christian or a secular country? So, they decided not to use the word God. There is no mention of Christ or God even in the American declaration of independence or even their constitution. Lastly, under the pyramid there is a third motto written in Latin on the seal, novos ordo seclorum, which means ‘new order of the ages’. The message this conveys is that a new age has begun and America will be at the centre of this age.

Some of the crops on our emblem are now in Bangladesh. Jasmine as national flower symbolises abundance of friendliness and modesty — two symbols of national cohesion we did little to promote. The slogans of unity, faith and discipline have been set in the background and instead General Zia’s dictated Iman, Taqwa and Jihad (faith, abstinence and holy war) encroached into the history books and retook the ideological space not only in the books but in society too.

We are unhappy because the main characters of our national storyline have done everything to make us confused. We have failed our young generation and only in this admission and regret lies the hope of any future reform. Else remaining unhappy has become a national pastime and it may continue in the future as well.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 14^th, 2024.

Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.