The author, Ambassador (R) Tariq Zameer, has over three decades of experience in bilateral & multilateral diplomacy in various diplomatic missions and International Organizations including Washington DC, SAARC Secretariat Kathmandu and, Italy. He served as Pakistan’s Ambassador to Sweden & Finland.
We are passing through unprecedented times of international and local changes. Most of these changes overtake us and leave us to deal with the fait-accompli as a nation, as families and as individuals. This age has also been called the post-truth age- an age in which facts are relegated to a tertiary position in favor of appeal to emotions to earn political or other mileage. There have emerged, and fully entrenched, new power centers that defy the traditional state boundaries. Social media’s ever growing influence in our daily lives has further exacerbated the limited potential of our decision makers- be they bureaucrats or politicians. Civil society, in the absence of a national narrative on key issues facing the nation presents a picture of incoherent mass of people unsure of their destiny.
Our Education system, if it may be called a system at all, does not prepare the pupils to come up to the challenges our nation faces. We do produce good scientists, engineers and doctors, but miserably fail to produce responsible citizens. The electronic media has also failed to fulfill its role of educating the people. Most talk shows are devoid of any scholarly content and issues are trivialized in a manner that viewers are left confused and misguided. We have collectively failed to inculcate a sense of social and corporate responsibility in our populace.
Optics has replaced performance. For instance, on Twitter and other social media, the Police present themselves like angels, offering cold drinks to the public, helping the elderly cross the roads or even saluting the people before talking to them. (Interestingly, the public servant has also learned from the politicians to keep a camera handy, while performing such acts of benevolence). These are praise worthy things, but the proof should be in the pudding. A visit to the Police station or a local court shows us our reality.
By our own mistakes, or by tyranny of time and space, we are confronted with a situation where we don’t have credible individuals or institutions that a common Pakistani can look up to for guidance or inspiration. There are new realities all around us, but you hardly find any scientific study to deal with them, let alone the capacity and capability to deal with them. A case in point is the drastically changed demography of the capital city and its surrounding areas. The growing uncertainty in masses about the future leads to all sorts of psychological, social and law and order issues. One doubts if there’s any scientific study available to our decision makers. In any case, our so-called research institutions don’t get high ranking amongst the research institutions of the world. The situation is further aggravated by high-sounding promises followed by little progress on the ground.
Our capacity to deal with civic emergencies is pathetic.
There is still no concrete effort to educate the sectarian religious leaders and put them to better use like convincing their followers to have smaller families.
We are not cognizant of our assets, both material and human. On the one hand, we failed to control the population explosion, on the other we don’t have plans to make productive use of a hardworking and intelligent youth. Skill training would make them attractive to countries in Europe and Japan.
The world around us is changing fast. Here’s a glimpse of it from the writer’s perspective.
There are concerted efforts to gradually reduce the Nation State as an entity. Presently, it is being presented as a redundant institution.
The financial and political architecture that was brought into being after the Second World War is either being redefined or eroded. A new financial architecture is being discussed in the capitals and institutions that hold the power. Our understanding of that is minimal at this stage. Unfortunately, our understanding even of the current financial architecture is also far less than satisfactory; let alone the capacity to deal with institutions like the IMF, the World Bank etc. We still largely look at interstate issues as political.
Reputed writers even in the US have already started to discuss a post-US world. This can be found in the writings of Henry Kissinger, Richard Haas and others.
The challenge for us is to prepare ourselves both intellectually and materially to ensure we are not consigned to the dustbin of history as by standers while opportunities to live honorably and play an active role internationally are abundant.
