Tsunami 2.0

The honeymoon is over. At this time last year, the educated, middle-class Pakistani was electrified by the prospect of actively changing the trajectory of his country by voting for a Naya Pakistan. Frankly, it’s too premature to pass a verdict on whether Naya Pakistan is a stillborn child, but it’s clear that the tsunami of young people who voted in last year’s elections are increasingly beginning to feel like rebels without a cause. Perhaps, the time has come for the most educated, energetic and capable (read privileged) members of society to engineer a second tsunami of change. A tsunami that doesn't involve us voting once every five years and then sitting on the sidelines to watch the country fall apart.

The way Pakistan’s middle class is raised has a lot to do with the lack of political and social activism that we traditionally display. “Politics and religion are two things you should never discuss with your friends.” I remember my parents repeatedly telling me when I was young. It’s always difficult to accept that your parents might be wrong — especially if their advice usually helps in the long term — but the time has come to disregard what we've been taught about the benefits of political disengagement.

More often than not, the lives of the brightest minds in Pakistan are a mad dash to accumulate value in their own lives. For example, when you interview bright, young Pakistani candidates for a job and ask them why they’d like to take that particular job, their answer is almost always something along the lines of ‘this will look good on my CV’ or ‘will help me grow my skill sets’ but they almost never talk about the value they will add to an organisation or how their skills will help an existing team grow.

What we need today is a ‘tsunami’ that reforms the individual before it seeks to reform society. Pakistan is a country anchored in patronage; we survive by exchanging favours and thrive by seeking to trade up in a zero-sum game. A mindset shift is needed to turn this game on its head. In a society where everyone is scrambling to accumulate value for themselves, can you imagine the impact one individual can make if they dedicate their life (or a part of their life) to create value for others. If you want to understand how men and women, who create value for others, make an impact on society, look no further than Abdul Sattar Edhi.

Now, let’s come back down to earth and understand how we can create value for others in our everyday life. Mentoring a younger colleague, cousin or an underprivileged child for just an hour a day is a great start. If you work in marketing, join a political party you care about and help them re-brand their image for a demographic group they’re struggling with. If you’re a banker, spend an hour designing a fund-raising campaign for a charity you care about. If you don’t want to do ‘real’ work, speak up within your circle of family, friends and colleagues to advocate causes you’re passionate about, for example, tolerance, respect for minority rights and a violence free society. The great thing about being a Pakistani citizen, apart from never being bored by the news, is that we have enough problems for each and every one of us to make a real impact in society, without having to wait for the government to tell us what to do and how to do it. Imagine the multiplier effect of a second tsunami — one that doesn’t seek to rally people around one leader but instead, seeks to make leaders out of people.

The flip side of the coin that views Pakistan as a dysfunctional country with a broken system of governance is that we as individuals have the opportunity to make a disproportionate difference in society. It’s infectious — the energy that comes with dedicating a part of your life to a cause bigger than yourself. A movement of individuals who seek to create value for society can snowball into an unstoppable force for good in the country. Perhaps, the time has finally come for us to rise to the occasion and become the leaders we’ve been waiting for.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 27^th, 2014.

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