The hell we quietly build together

Pakistanis complain constantly - and often legitimately. Consumers complain about poor quality products sold at unreasonable prices. Shopkeepers complain about unbearable business costs, unstable policies and excessive taxation. Government officials complain that citizens evade taxes, violate laws and resist regulation. Citizens complain about corruption, inefficiency and humiliation in public offices. Everyone appears frustrated. Everyone appears wronged. Yet the most uncomfortable question remains: if everyone is suffering, who exactly is creating this misery?

That is Pakistan's great irony. We have gradually become a society where almost everyone sees themselves as the victim of a broken system while simultaneously participating in its reproduction! Corruption is condemned publicly yet justified privately. Dishonesty is criticised morally and rhetorically yet practised pragmatically. Rules are demanded from others but considered optional for oneself. In this strange moral contradiction, the nation resembles a house where every resident complains about the smoke while secretly adding fuel to the fire! The tragedy is not merely political or economic; it is deeply psychological and cultural.

In societies where institutions weaken over decades, people slowly stop believing that honesty, merit and rule-following produce fair outcomes. Cynicism becomes social wisdom. The businessman evades taxes because he assumes politicians will steal public money anyway. The official takes bribes because salaries are deemed inadequate and corruption is justified. The citizen violates traffic laws because nobody else follows them. Each individual act appears rational in isolation but collectively they produce chaos.

This creates a society where people no longer trust institutions, strangers, or even each other. Everyone becomes defensive, transactional and suspicious. Ironically, many people trapped in such systems are not inherently immoral. They are products of repeated disappointment and institutional betrayal. Yet this does not reduce the damage. A society does not collapse merely because bad people exist; it collapses because ordinary people slowly adapt themselves to dysfunction until abnormality starts feeling normal.

And then comes the most dangerous stage: romanticising disorder. We often glorify "smartness" that involves bypassing rules, manipulating systems, exploiting loopholes, or using influence instead of merit. Over time, moral inversion occurs: honesty becomes weakness, while manipulation becomes intelligence. Such societies may produce short-term winners, but eventually everyone loses.

Yet there is another way of living - one that many Pakistanis unfortunately consider unrealistic because they have rarely experienced it collectively. In functioning societies, people generally understand that fulfilling responsibilities ultimately serves their own interests. Citizens pay taxes because they expect relatively better public services. Businesses maintain standards because reputation matters. Officials avoid blatant corruption because institutions punish misconduct. People follow traffic rules because order benefits everyone.

The difference between functioning and dysfunctional societies is often not intelligence, talent or even resources. It is the presence of shared ethical expectations. Where rule of law becomes culturally internalised, societies gradually stabilise. Pakistan's challenge, therefore, is not merely changing governments or policies. It is rebuilding public morality, expressed through everyday conduct: honesty in trade, fairness in offices, discipline on roads, merit in hiring, responsibility in leadership, and dignity in public dealings.

This requires a painful realisation. We are not merely victims of the system; we are also participants in it. That truth is uncomfortable because it distributes responsibility widely. Yet it is also hopeful because it means reform does not depend solely on rulers. Societies change when enough ordinary people stop treating ethics as idealism and start recognising it as social infrastructure.

In the end, injustice always appears profitable in the short term. But over time it turns societies into collective prisons of distrust, frustration, and exhaustion.