On the Costs of Self-Reliance

Re: ``...Rumplestiltskin...what are our enemies names? Ignorance, myopia, fatalism, a
spirituality we can`t afford or wickedness that poverty engenders ....?``

Tahnoon, here is one plausible ``answer`` to the thought-provoking question posed in your excellent article. Lee Kuan Yew, former PM of Singapore, on return home from his last visit to Pakistan, was asked by a journalist what advice he could give to Pakistan. He replied, ``Sorry, none, I cannot pretend to advise people who believe that life begins after death.``

``Prince Charming, where are you?``- Cindrella.

(A justification for incurring the costs of self-reliance).

I have perhaps read Tahnoon Pasha`s article quite creatively but try to address the questions he has raised here. Unfortunately I do not have the answers (answers are not always required in real life?). Rather I have a whole set of further questions and perspectives on the queries and issues he has raised:

What is the problem? Isn`t the ‘problem` the difference between where we want to be and where we are? Where do we want to be? Is that known? Yes we want to be richer..But specifically how rich? How much do we want? The target is elusive. Yes I know we have five year plans. More like shots in the dark. Even more frighteningly do we know where we are? Do we know which road we are on? Can we know on paper? No it seems not.

Yes, I agree with you, we lack a common goal Yes we are pluralistic, I would say multiplistic. We share (supposedly) a religion; what we do not share is ideology. Pakistan lacks identity. It has no common dream. Soulless as it were. You say its too late for Iqbal. Too late for the passion behind Pakistan. Too late to dream. You may well be right. If we as a nation have become so apathetic, then let us indeed fall by the wayside. I don`t quite agree. I.live in a nation where a rich playboy cricketer loved his mother enough to open a hospital. I live in a country where a poor old man and his wife look after the dead and dying, destitute and prostitute (a term for the exploited/violated not strictly sexual). I live in a nation where a middle-class architect dared to challenge the high-rise scam through an organisation called ‘Shehri`. I live in a nation where a female lawyer causes a lot of commotion by her protection of human rights. I also live in a nation which gave unstinting support to a neighbour nation called Afghanistan against another marauding nation. I live in a country which every now and then surprises the world by winning some international prize in sports. Well whats wrong with my country? Its people who keep dwelling on the bad and assuming that the worse way is the best way to deal with the bad. Why do I say that? If we felt that the long way was the right way and good and right, we would take the long way home. We would be a whole lot less shortsighted in our approach towards business and work. And law. Since we feel its not worth our while to go the long road, we take short-cuts. We also vote for the people whom we perceive will give us riches quickly. Wave the wand presto the carriage is ready Cinderella. But the fairy Godmother (Nawaz Sharif in this case:-) is very fickle. Who will be the prince? to make Cinderella a princess? The problem is I dont see any Prince Charming here. Maybe its time for Hansel and Gretel. People like you and me to get involved.

Why has so much religious fervour still been unable to make us more honest?. Why are we hypocrites? I think (and you are most welcome to raise a fuss here) that its our deepseated sense of inadequacy against the gora. We have a very low sense of self-worth. We do not want to acknowledge our brown skins. The feeling is worse because not only do we want to be ``Fair and Lovely``, we dont want to say we were ever brown to begin with!! Oh heavans, when will we ever meet ourselves without sharam (shame)?

May be we need to repeat ten times a day to de -condition ourselves : ``I am brown and its okay. The rest of the world is white/red/blue/black/non-muslim/successful..its STILL okay. I am all right. I donot need affirmation from any one but myself. I am Pakistani and its okay``.Tell you what, Iqbal is whom we needed then and Iqbal is whom we need now.

No I want to say, my land is not a ``zard paton ka ban`` * ( a forest of yellow leaves) for I will not let it be. I will turn these browning leaves to green. It starts with caring enough then all the rest happens.

You say self-reliance is costly. Its expensive. But then the cheaper alternative always remains cheap___way of the world. Compromise does not build a nation. It gives an inferiority complex at best and at worst it will help us lose this nation. This is the reason why Pakistan was made in the first place. To get out of the sense of failure that British rule had given. To start afresh. To keep Islam alive. Why then do we question our reasons? Because what we really feel is that it would be better to be part of the commonwealth ? We would be richer certainly, the little demon whispers and off to hell for the idealism. What did it get us anyway? What we want is a short-cut to prosperity; interestingly the whole Third World is looking for it.

Yes, I agree we need more money. Who does not?. The question we need to address is a bit deeper though. How do we define money? In USD we will always be too poor. If we keep measuring currencies we have had it. (I know I call upon me the curse of the monster of monetarism in all text-books!) Lets talk of better indicators then pure money. The problem is that LDC`s keep taking loans hoping it means more goods in the long run. Does it though? Not so sure. Lots of the borrowing goes back out of the country as debt servicing. So much for Riba. (I probably light a hornets nest here!). The fundamental inconsistency of interest in a developing economy. The assumption it makes is that money now is worth more than later and then in the economic planning scenario we go ahead and say that in the longer term we will get more than we do now. We had better do so in order to pay the debt back. What if that does not happen in a nicely modular way? We have a situation like Pakistan`s where the burden of debt-servicing is getting heavier by the day. A fundamental contradiction between the time value of money which is expressed in monetary terms whereas ecomomic investment may not generate strictly monetary benefits in an even fashion.

What I really do agree with unreservedly is the need for priority. Its a funny thing though that a sense of identity is what we still need to tell us our priorities. An ideology that is felt by most if not all. If we as a nation have started questioning the very basis of the nation, we probably won`t remain Pakistani for very long.

Let us also remember that we have entered the age where frontiers are no longer geographic. In fact frontiers are retreating further into space. Its the age for bridges not for walls. Ideology which segregate and separate will not ‘work`: Ideology which connects points of commonality with the rest of the world whilst recognizing diversity will probably work.




* Faiz Ahmed Faiz ..(no offense intended!).

Thanks for the perspective...back to drawing board Gao Takya asap!!:-)