Pakistani Society (Important Articles)

[Roshan wadhwani]

Our fake values

Amin Jan Naim
Saturday, May 05, 2012


Social values in our country are undergoing a change from the traditional patterns. Such changes are causing major alterations and cleavages in our social fabric.

In human history, changes in social values have often led to considerable upheavals and turmoil. Sometimes they have resulted in social stagnation; at other times to an intellectual and cultural flowering. For example, the Hellenistic period and the European Renaissance had led to an upsurge of the human spirit and attainments. In contrast, medievalism in Europe during the Dark Ages had led to dogmatism and stagnation.

In transitional periods of history there is often a mixing and a blending of cultures. Sometimes this is accompanied by a big upsurge in intellectual activity. Such encounters between cultures have at times led to progress and development. At other times, traditional value systems have collapsed under the influence of alien influences, with negative consequences for society.

Despite a confused amalgamation of cultures emanating from the commercial and technological advancement of the West, the world today, including the West itself, lacks a salutary authentic spirit. Although modern technology has spanned the globe, the world is largely chaotic. Large swathes of people still cling to the certainties of tribe, religion and ethnicity. Technology has essentially impinged on only the surface of many lives. According to the late Czech playwright and communist-era dissident (later president) Vaclav Havel, the abyss between the rational and the spiritual, the external and the internal, the technical and the moral, and the universal and the unique, constantly grows deeper.

In Pakistan, we need to generate thought processes which are conducive to progress and to inculcate ethics and aesthetics. Our real challenge is a sociological one. It is a challenge on the plane of social institutions and social ethics. We are faced with cultural perversion resulting from an ignoble and malignant milieu. A sense of crisis and polarisation is the dominant feature in our national life.

In our country, a false sense of values and hypocrisy are common. The individual is conditioned from childhood to look for approval from constituted authority. People are expected to live up to the traditional autocratic social code, rather than to fulfil internal, personal standards. There is no premium on excellence or performance of a job done well for its own sake. Compromises are the norm in matters of personal behaviour, quality of work and sense of moral responsibility. Another unpleasant trait in our national character is the tendency to express opinions which are intended to please rather than the expression of an honest viewpoint.

What type of society are we heading for? One in which beggars make more money than a responsible citizen; in which young children are kidnapped, then maimed and made to beg in order to fill the coffers of ruthless elements; in which the new generation is physically mauled, through malnutrition and first-cousin marriages-thus lowering the mental and physical standards of health and fitness; in which hypocrisy, vulgarity, the rat-race and brutality are at a premium; in which pollution of air and water make life far from being worthwhile. The utterly abhorrent acid attacks on women are bringing us shame around the world. So are the many widespread practices here of the subjugation of women.

If this is the type of society in existence at present in our country, what kind of future lies ahead for our new generation. It is clear that urgent attention needs to be paid to these issues so that a decrepit and unhealthy generation does not grow up in misery and squalor.

The ancient Greeks considered happiness, or eudaimonia, to be an activity of reason or activity in accordance with reason. Thus, the truly happy life is the ideal life of activity and thought in accordance with virtue. If we are to take our rightful place in the comity of nations, we need to imbibe this Hellenic spirit.

The writer is a former ambassador. Email: aminjan@comsats. net.pk

-The News

[Roshan wadhwani]

The real meaning of patriotism

By Bina Shah
Published: May 5, 2012

The writer is an author, most recently of Slum Child (2010). She has written for numerous publications including Dawn, The Friday Times and Chowk

After watching the screening of the first episode of SOC (Sharmeen-Obaid Chinoy) Films’ Ho Yaqeen series, which highlights the work of changemakers doing everything they can to better society and the people who are most underserved in Pakistan, I was forced to think about the definition of patriotism.

The dictionary states that a patriot is “a person who vigorously supports his or her country and is prepared to defend it against enemies or detractors”.
This definition can be seen on every television channel at night, where news anchors and their guests verbally attack one another in their attempts to prove themselves the bigger patriot. It can be seen on social media, where people attack one another through Twitter or Facebook, and when called out on their abuse, say that they’re doing it in the name of Pakistan. “Defender of Pakistan”, “The biggest patriot”, “Love my country” are just some of the phrases bandied about, and pictures of Pakistani flags proliferate in the race to prove one’s patriotism on car stickers, television logos and online profile photos.

What if we’ve got it all wrong?

Watching Sabina Khatri talk about her work in Lyari, where she runs the Kiran School System, a preschool for some of Karachi’s most underprivileged children, not once did she lay blame on anyone, or attack any political party, politician, or government figure. Not once did she blame a ‘hidden hand’ for the problems of the community. She talked about responsibility, ownership, and change, and not only did she talk, but she backed up her words with actions. As she talked about her work amongst the people of Lyari, not just children but their mothers and fathers, there was a smile on her face, and positivity emanated from her like the waves of a powerful ocean. Instead of problems, she was focused on solutions. Instead of hate, she was focused on love.

I realised that patriotism is something far different from saber-rattling and chest-thumping. That kind of ‘patriotism’ is not patriotism at all, but the taking out of one’s personal frustrations on others. Pointing fingers of blame and shouting louder than others is the projection of one’s personal biases, insecurities, and fears onto others. It’s a way of absolving oneself of responsibility, the need to actually get moving in the world. And it’s lip-service to a two-dimensional replica of a more evolved definition of what patriotism really is.

I think it’s vital that we redefine patriotism for 21st century Pakistan: not attacking or defending our real and imagined enemies, but being of service to our country. What will help Pakistan get out of its current morass of problems is not abusing or assaulting anyone in the name of Pakistan, but actually putting in the time and effort to make positive, tangible changes in our communities and societies.

It would be very difficult, if not impossible, to do more for Pakistan than it has done for us — Abdul Sattar Edhi, for example, is someone who only comes along once in a country’s lifetime — but it wouldn’t be impossible for each one of us to sacrifice some of our precious time and energy to improve the lives of others around us. I was delighted to see that some of my former students from SZABIST, inspired by Sabina Khatri, have set up a small montessori called the Orange Tree, and are working with only 12 preschoolers, but that’s 12 lives that they’ve changed forever. My former students are all members of the educated elite, but they’ve decided to “pay it forward”, as the popular phrase goes: to give back in gratitude for the blessings and privileges that they have been lucky enough to receive.

As Sabina Khatri said at the Ho Yaqeen screening, “Upturn any stone in Pakistan and you’ll find a diamond”. But diamonds don’t appear overnight. They’re the result of hundreds of thousands of years of the earth compressing carbon into that elusive, precious stone. And once you find the diamond, it takes hard work to rub, polish, and cut that diamond into a beautiful, multifaceted gem. Look how hard the earth works to give us something so valuable, and learn a lesson from it. Pakistan could be our diamond, if we serve it with time, effort, and sacrifice, instead of chipping away pieces of it to take home with us and keep it in our personal safes to satisfy our greed, and shooting dead anyone who we fear will come to steal it from us.

-The Express Tribune

[Roshan wadhwani]

A half win for science

May 14, 2012
By Pervez Hoodbhoy

First the good news: Pakistanis are increasingly eager and willing to act rationally, set aside traditional human body-related taboos, and embrace possibilities offered by medical science. Many Muslim clerics are now on board too. Although most still oppose contraception, they are willing to make concessions considered unthinkable a century ago.

Significantly, cadaver dissections are permitted in all Pakistani medical colleges; no screams of outrage accompany a dead body being cut to bits. Medical professors complain, however, that it is hard to get one’s hands on hands — as well as feet and spleens and brains — demanded by both research and teaching. So, courtesy the Edhi Foundation, some dead beggars make it to lab tables. I am also told of the availability of dead Americans who have willed their bodies to science. With no local donors, the morbid cottage industry of grave-snatching supplies the remainder.

And, hooray, now there’s blood everywhere! Remember the time when people thought that blood was a non-transferable sacred inheritance? Even today bloodlines determine honour-shame dynamics in our ghairat-bound culture. And yet every hospital in town has a blood bank where you can buy, donate, or sell blood. Few notice the contradiction of the “wrong” kind of blood being injected into their veins.

The sheer benefit of life-saving blood supplies has trumped earlier objections. Clerics have only mild recommendations to make: “one should abstain from the blood of non-Muslims, transgressors and sinners, when reasonably possible, for there is a risk that the evil effects found in such people may affect the one in whom the blood is transfused”.

The news on organ transplantation is even better. The very thought of implanting another human’s organs inside one’s own body was once utterly abhorrent. But today, it is (almost) uncontroversial. Is your kidney about to conk out? Well, take a hike to the SIUT (Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation) in Karachi and get another one. The hospital motto reads: “No patient is turned away from our hospital or asked to pay for our services. The SIUT does it free — with dignity”. Indeed, the SIUT does hundreds of free kidney transplants a year.

Fitted with a spanking new kidney, you can then hop across to one of LRBT’s (Layton Rehmatullah Benevolent Trust) 17 branches and get a corneal transplant. As at the SIUT, all treatment at the LRBT is “totally free so that no man, woman or child becomes blind just because he/she cannot afford the treatment. There should be no discrimination due to gender, caste, ethnicity, language, religion or sect”.

The SIUT and the LRBT are superb charitable institutions; they do Pakistan proud. But, for those who believe in societal progress based upon science and reason, it is an additional delight to behold the triumph of pragmatism. The Enlightenment-era philosopher Rene Descartes should be especially pleased. About 300 years ago, this Frenchman had hypothesised that every human organ operates strictly on physical and chemical principles. With the Christian Church thinking very differently, what Descartes claimed had placed his life at great risk. And now for the bad news: we Pakistanis don’t seem to mind being fitted with somebody else’s kidneys and eyes, but almost none are willing to volunteer our organs after death.

A young American-trained ophthalmologist, Dr Azhar Salahuddin, who spends his vacations in Pakistan doing free corneal transplants for the LRBT, told me that hardly any corneas (perhaps five to ten annually) are gifted by local donors. Although it is impossible to know true numbers, his guess is that most corneas come from Sri Lanka (80 per cent) and some from Canada.

But imported corneas are no solution. First, there are just not enough to go around; some 300,000 corneal blind Pakistanis could see again if corneas became available. Currently the number of local transplants performed annually is probably 500 to 700, a pittance compared with the 40,000 done in America.

A second consideration is inferior organ quality. Dr Salahuddin says the quality of an organ depends on several factors — the cell count of the donor cornea (which decreases as people age and have eye surgeries), the death to preservation time (the time between death and harvesting of the organ), utilisation time (the time from the harvesting to the time of actual transplantation) and the manner in which the cornea is handled. Usually, the best corneas stay in the country of origin, while poorer quality ones are exported. Therefore, Pakistan tends to get the bottom of the barrel — and even then, there aren’t enough. As a result, even the few transplants that are done locally have a higher chance of failure.

Why won’t Pakistanis donate their eyes, kidneys, hearts, and livers after death? Are we less altruistic than Sri Lankans? I am not aware of any survey done in Pakistan, but one in Iran shows that most transplants are live donations; just 13 per cent of renal transplants performed in 2006 were deceased donations. Eyes are a particularly sensitive matter: some Iranians are told by their clerics that, having given away their eyes, they will not be able to see heaven.

Dispelling such popular prejudice against organ donations was the focus of the 2010 International Congress of the International Society for the History of Islamic Medicine in Istanbul. Attended by some 200 experts on medicine and theology from 15 Muslim countries, the conference said that the majority of Islamic legal scholars do permit organ donations. But it noted that the general public remains distrustful.

Eventually organ donation comes down to a matter of religion and culture. In the US, many Hispanics are uncomfortable with the idea. According to organ donation experts, first and second-generation Mexican-Americans are said to be less likely to donate organs than Americans as a whole. The conclusion reached by the Texas Organ Sharing Alliance is remarkably similar to that found by the Iranian researchers: “They [Hispanics] feel that their loved one will be disfigured, or the person will not be able to get into heaven because their body will not be whole.”

Unreason sometimes appears impregnable. But, just as the hardest of rocks ultimately get worn down by wind and weather, so does every castle of superstition and irrationality crumble before the ceaseless battering by science and reason. Say what you will and think what you want, but science shows the human body comprises interchangeable parts, each made of atoms and molecules in a complex arrangement. That’s just a fact of life; one that could help save your life.

The Express Tribune