Wider horizons

In facing giant challenges, enormous threats, nations need to overcome futile machinations, manipulative entanglings.

In considering the uplift of our society, we need to rise above narrow viewpoints and petty-mindedness. Xenophobia, bigotry and fanaticism are nasty and undesirable traits in people anywhere. They lead to regressive outlooks and oppression. An exposure to other societies and diverse cultures can broaden horizons. Similarly, learning from the thought, experience and achievements of other countries can assist our own progress and development.

Xenophobia and religious fundamentalism are also found in the United States’ Bible Belt and almost every other country. Nevertheless, the predominant ethos of the West is one of tolerance and the rule of law. The bulk of their people are emancipated and forward-looking. In Pakistan, on the other hand, hatred of foreign customs and religious intolerance are widespread, without there being concomitantly an emancipated social order and rule-based governance in compensation.

If we wish to probe the outer reaches of space, we utilise radio-telescopes. If we wish to delve into atomic particles, we need electronic tools. In the same manner, we can look at mankind from the point of view of humanity as a whole or from that of an individual soul. The crux is the extent of rationality we bring to bear upon our examination.

In a recent study by the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, the macro and micro dimensions were conjoined to stretch back across space-time to 13.8 billion years ago and the trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second. This study indicated that our universe, extending 14 billion light years in space, with its hundreds of billions of galaxies is only an infinitesimal patch in a larger cosmos, whose extent and architecture are unknowable.

When we contrast these achievements with the outlook and fate of an inhabitant of Cholistan desert, mired in ignorance and starvation, the dire need for a transformation becomes compelling.

It seems human nature cannot be altered fundamentally and human beings are destined, as in the past, to be always laden with the utmost cruelty as well as the highest sublimation. Examples of gross cruelty are evident in the medieval Inquisition by the Catholic Church, the water-boarding torture by the American CIA in Guantanamo Bay and the abhorrent beheading of our 23 valiant FC soldiers recently by the Taliban.

It should fall upon the nation-state as well as the international order to curb such inhumanity.

Directly contrary to the abominations just mentioned, is the vision of an ideal world prompted in Plato’s dialogue Phaedrus. Socrates, in his inspiring speech, considers love as a form of madness or divine possession. In Plato’s Symposium, Diotima bases her exposition on the premise that love is the consciousness of a primeval human need for the beautiful and the good. Though illustrated by myths and allegories, Plato’s vision of the ideal world is based on rigorous reasoning as well as great clarity and precision of thought. Statesmen in the modern world would do well to imbibe such lofty teaching.

In facing the gigantic challenges and enormous threats prevailing all over the globe today, nations need to overcome futile machinations and manipulative entanglings. Basic human decency and good sense must prevail instead. We, in Pakistan, need to be cognisant of the directions in which we are heading and the best way forward. It is a tall order; but not any the less desirable in itself.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 3^rd, 2014.

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