Five Solutions Searching For a Problem.

Pakistan is facing serious problems. On that, everyone agrees. However,
beyond that broad agreement, everyone has their own preferred
interpretations of what the crisis is about. Since symptoms abound and are
so pervasive that just about any diagnosis can be legitimately defended, a
whole fleet of self-styled messiahs (essentially people like myself) are
peddling cures on the basis of their own particular disciplinary and
ideological biases.

This is not to say that the cures being offered are necessarily flawed but
only that the situation is like that of the blind-folded scholars probing
various parts of an elephant and concluding that the leg was in fact a
pillar, the trunk a hose, and the ears a tent. The analysis was
immaculate, but for want of ever having actually seen an elephant, the
conclusions were misplaced.

The same seems to be the case with our analyses of Pakistan's problems.
Stemming from a new intellectual elite and rooted in the search for
analytic elegance rather than the everyday concerns of ordinary Pakistanis
they make great copy, but little else. A review of the popular
prescriptions suggests that the solutions being offered fit quite neatly
into five main schools of thought.

MORAL SOLUTIONS
Although less popular now then it was in the heydays of
General Zia, this view sees moral weakness as the cause of all problems.
Interestingly, the West now echoes a twist of this view through the notion
that corruption is endemic to countries like ours because of failings in
our social character. The scary thought is that maybe the land of the pure
is not that pure after all and maybe the root of our crisis does, in fact,
lie in the dopata-less heads of TV announcers. The problem with
implementing such solutions is that they require prophets rather than
policy. Moreover, while such prescriptions might arguably make it easier
for the average Pakistani to enter the kingdom of heaven, they do not make
life on this planet any less hellish.


LEGISLATIVE SOLUTIONS
For this group, the crisis is principally
constitutional. All our worries would vanish if we could somehow adopt a
Presidential system, or create 15 new provinces, or give more (or less)
power to the judiciary, or strike out (or write in) certain constitutional
amendments, or concentrate less (or more) power at the center, or some
other such thing. The argument is that the fault is not in us-or in our
stars-but in our constitution. While there may indeed be many faults in
our constitution, the fact remains that most such solutions can have
limited impact on the life of ordinary Pakistanis-at least in the short
term. More importantly, the chronic problem in Pakistan is not with the
rules but with our amazing talent for bending them.


MARKET SOLUTIONS
This is the most fashionable prescription. "The market
is king", "the invisible hand knows best", "let the magic of the market
work." These are the mantras of the new sages. While these mantras have
started sounding hollow everywhere, the echoes are particularly woeful in
Pakistan. First, we know that kings have a tendency to treat different
subjects differently and the very poorest are often not at the top of their
lists. Second the invisible hand is all too visible and sits at the World
Bank headquarters at 1800 H Street. Third, the problem with all
magic-including this-is that as soon as you scrutinize it, it looses all
its luster. In short, the market is friend to no one except itself, and
certainly shows no signs of being particularly fond of the average Pakistani.


TECHNOLOGICAL SOLUTIONS
The gurus of technology are most attractive to
those who seek a quick fix. Except, in this case it is called
'technological leapfrogging'. The favoured vehicle for this is supposed to
be the Internet. Being a cyber junkie, I know all about the wonders of the
information highway (this article was sent via email). However, why any of
this is relevant to the average Pakistani is beyond me. For a small and
privileged elite these (and other) technologies do make life easier; but
then, life was never difficult for them anyhow. Unfortunately, it takes
much more than imported technologies to change the destinies of nations.
We tried going this route before with the big dams; all that gave us was
more mud to stick our head into.


EDUCATIONAL SOLUTIONS
As an educator I am intuitively attracted to such
proposals. Having said that, most such discussions are seriously flawed in
three ways. First, the principal focus is on so-called 'higher' education,
which means that we are blatantly concentrating on the needs of the very
few. Second, by their silence, these discussions stands guilty of
supporting the criminal injustice of the status quo. The prevailing
multiple-system (English v. Urdu v. madrasah) has institutionalized social
inequities-the many are condemned to forego their potential while the few
are feted beyond their talents. Third, by identifying a lack of education
as the key problem, we perversely transfer the blame on the victim. The
problems that Pakistan faces were caused not by the many who are uneducated
but by the few who were educated at the best institutions of the world. In
fact, the better educated they were the more blows they inflicted on the
country.



What is most unfortunate is that at the heart of these grand theories lies
the misdirected search for A single answer; a magic bullet if you will.
The underlying assumption seems to be that all of our problems stem from a
single cause and if we can identify and tackle that one cause all else will
itself fall into place. One can only wish that it was that simple. In
reality, while each of these analyses identifies a ver important part of
the larger malaise, none is capable of capturing the entirety. Maybe we
are at a stage where our crises refuse to be summed up in any single
theory, no matter how grand it might be.

It was an infinite number of small and misguided steps that led us astray.
Maybe we need an even greater number of equally small steps (this time in
the right direction) to put us back on track. This house was destroyed
brick by brick by brick, with each one of us having a hand in the
dismemberment. Maybe, it needs to be rebuilt the same way.