Progress and toothpaste

LAHORE: This is with reference to Aziz Akhmad’s article ‘Progress is like a toothpaste’ of July 19.  It is true that the enormous economic progress the US has made since World War II is attributed to the diversity of its population and the freedoms guaranteed to it in the constitution, and, of course, to education. This is just in line with the nature’s desire to design the universe with diveristy seen in everything. To promote uniformity is indeed to oppose the rules of nature. The question to address is whether making sense of Pakistan allows diversity or uniformity?

Pakistan might have remained a non-discriminatory society for the first two or three decades but was it possible to remain so when it is rightly claimed that Pakistan came into being in the name of Islam and later on when the Objectives Resolution finally delineated the course this country must pursue in the future.

It is also claimed that the Objectives Resolution, which combines features of both western and Islamic democracy, is one of the most important documents in the constitutional history of Pakistan. At the time it was passed, Liaquat Ali Khan called it “the most important occasion in the life of this country, next in importance only to the achievement of independence”. So how can it be said that Pakistan was a non-discriminatory state in the first few decades or it could be wished to remain so for any long.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 22^nd, 2010