Build bridges not walls: Psychiatrist urges the nation to use their anger for progress

AKU's Dr Murad Moosa speaks about what is wrong with the mindset in Pakistan today.

KARACHI: As a society, Pakistan is still at the 'Id' level, always seeking instant gratification and opting for the pleasure principle. This was observed by professor of psychiatry at the Aga Khan University (AKU), Dr Murad Moosa at a lecture that was part of the AKU's Sixth Sense Forum lecture series on Tuesday.

Dr Moosa claimed he came up with the title of the lecture, 'Build Bridges, Not Walls: A psychological perspective on tribulations, terrorism and triumphalism in Pakistan', from realising that building higher boundary walls outside his daughter's school was not the solution to fighting terrorism.

"As a nation, we are not mature enough to control our emotions and take the correct decisions," he said, explaining Sigmund Freud's structural model of the psyche, which is divided into three stages - the Id, Ego and the Super-Ego.

Moosa explained that there were several common factors behind every major incident affecting the people. "Public interest, lack of law and order and dehumanisation: all of these highly affect the people of this country," he told the audience. Quoting a bioethicist from Harvard University, Richard Cash, Dr Moosa said, "Whenever you are in trouble look towards history for guidance."

He suggested going back to see where it all went wrong. "In 1947, we didn't just come into being. We were forcibly born, a birth that cost more than a million lives," he lamented. "Unfortunately, we lost the Quaid-e-Azam when we were just a year old and could never get a fatherly figure again. Almost every one abused and exploited the country, which is why we are an intolerant society today."

Sharing figures from across the country, the professor of psychiatry said that more than 144,000 children die every year in the country due to diarrhoea and pneumonia. "We make National Action Plans and build higher walls for those 140 children who died in the APS attack, but never think about these larger numbers," he sighed. "After the Peshawar attack, we are training teachers and students to use guns, which means that our law enforcement agencies are not able to provide us security."

Concluding his presentation, he quoted Joe Hill's saying, 'Don't mourn, organise'. "As a nation, we need to understand the power of our anger and direct it towards the right track. We need to organise ourselves first. Only then, will our country be organised," he concluded.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 4^th, 2015.