Pakistan's youth and the rebirth of civic imagination

Listen to article

For those of us born in the early 1990s in Pakistan - who came of age in the 2000s and entered college at the turn of the first and second decades of the new millennium - our formative years were shaped by a nation still grappling with the aftermath of a military coup and the shifting contours of a post-9/11 world order.

Our civic sense came not from open dialogues, but rather through hushed conversations, censored newspapers and television broadcasts. Student unions were not a lived reality, but an almost mythical chapter our teachers recalled with reverence. For our generation, political expression felt like an inheritance that had somehow bypassed us. We were encouraged to succeed in academics and services, but seldom to interrogate the systems and structures that governed us.

Fast forward two decades, and the transformation is palpable, but paradoxical. Today's youth are more informed, more connected, and arguably more courageous. They challenge gender norms, demand climate action, and question inherited power structures. Yet they do so in a civic space that is arguably even more hostile, and sanitised than the one we grew up in.

This new generation is not just resisting; they are reimagining. They are building alternative civic narratives not through formal political channels, which remain inaccessible or discredited, but through poetry slams, podcasts, Instagram reels, community kitchens, and digital campaigns. Their resistance is not just political — it is cultural, emotional, and deeply personal.

Consider the contrast: in the early 2000s, political consciousness was a luxury, confined to drawing rooms or classrooms of privilege. Today, young people from Gilgit to Gwadar, and from Layyah to Lyari, are asserting their place in the national story. The language has changed - from one of obedience to one of ownership.

But instead of being seen as visionaries, these youth are often treated as agitators. Student protests are dismissed as disruption, demands for inclusion are met with silence, and digital dissent is tracked with algorithms. The structures of exclusion have simply modernised. We've gone from physical censorship to digital shadow bans, from overt bans on speech to quiet manipulation of discourse.

This isn't just a national crisis; it's part of a global pattern. From Bangladesh to Egypt, Turkey to Tunisia, young people are leading movements to reclaim democratic and civic space - often in the face of regimes that prefer compliance over conversation.

The lesson from these global comparisons is clear: youth need not just inclusion, but influence. Cosmetic youth advisory boards and token consultations are not substitutes for real power-sharing. Pakistan must move from managing youth to meaningfully engaging them.

This means reforming curricula to foster critical thinking rather than rote obedience. And it requires investing in youth-led media, arts, and social innovation that speak to real issues — from unemployment and mental health to digital rights and climate justice.

We must also stop treating youth as a homogenous mass. A young woman in Khuzdar, a rights activist in Lahore, a medical student in Skardu, and a working-class techie in Karachi all experience civic space differently. Recognising these diversities is crucial if we're to design interventions that empower rather than patronize.

There is still hope, and it lies in the resilience of these young people who, despite constraints, are refusing to be invisible. They are not waiting for permission; they are building their own civic sanctuaries, often in the margins. And in doing so, they are forcing all of us to reconsider what citizenship, participation and patriotism truly mean.

The real question, then, is not whether Pakistani youth are ready. It is whether the rest of us - state, society and civil institutions — are ready to meet them where they are.

Because if we continue to conflate critique with disloyalty, and activism with anarchy, we risk not only alienating a generation—but forfeiting the very future they are trying to imagine.