The sadistic nature of being Pakistani

It takes a bit of nerve to start writing again after what feels like almost a year. It takes even more nerve when the topic is a negative theory about the Pakistani community, and especially from a person in my position – a fresh foreign return. The phrases “hava lag gaye” and “zyada hi gora ban aaya” come instantly to mind, but what fun would it be if I returned to writing without getting at least a few angry responses. Given my history in article writing, a passive, agreeable return to writing would be no return at all.

So if you opened this article with a slight frown and a grim lip because of the title, my plan is working. Don’t worry, it wasn’t just a publicity stunt, I actually do intend to say some genuinely negative things about our dear country. After that you can hate on me and call me a few names. I know it will make you feel better about your own patriotic spirit. There are few things more reaffirming of one’s national loyalty than bashing a bit of “burger-ness”.

I have often made fun of returning Pakistani kids who find the life difficult to readjust to. But the fact remains that these people are a part of our population, and are in fact a potentially very influential part, after all, they went to attain what we all view as quality education. And while I only barely qualify as one of them, I can testify to the frustrations they feel. Living in Pakistan, over time we become immune and blind to many of the blatantly ridiculous things that go on. Spend enough time somewhere else to forget about them, and the reintroduction is startling.

I have come to believe that making a life in Pakistan, is not just about persisting through adversity and competition. It is not about putting in hard work and making yourself better than the herd. It is about battling frustration every day. Not just at the work place, everywhere, at the signal, at the bank, in the market, all around us. Almost everywhere we can see inefficient systems in place, which we all believe we could rearrange to make better. If only we were in charge, but we aren’t, because we didn’t marry the daughter-in-law of the person with the appropriate contacts. And as for the guy who did, well he’s exempt from the system, why should he bother fixing a system that doesn’t apply to him?

But I digress… that is not what this piece is about. This piece is about a philosophy that is actually not mine at all, but I found so agreeable that I decided to project it to whatever extent I can in the vessel of my words. Generally I’ve decided to write as often as I can, whenever I feel I encounter something worth sharing. Because life is shorter and faster than we imagine, and any opportunity however unlikely to make a mark should be taken.

Anyway, flipping through channels on late night TV the other day, I came to pause on a channel long enough to encounter the views of some random doctor in the audience of some random talk show. What he said really stuck with me, and over the next few days I contemplated the truth of his words. Allow me to summarize what he said:

“As a nation and a community, we are a collection of sadistic people. We do not realize when it is injected in our blood, but it is governed into each of us like a virus. Each and every person, in whatever capacity they are able to, will attempt to cause discomfort to the people they encounter, and derive pleasure from it. This pleasure may be of different types, it may appear as ‘stamping authority’, or ‘demanding respect’ or monetary gains or even just a joke. Whether it is a boss or some bank clerk, their first impulse will always be to break our stride, to make us pause and notice them, and to have to navigate them.”

Perhaps the doctor overstated how bleak things are, or perhaps he just did not have time to qualify particulars. I suspect the latter. Surely not all people are horrible all the time. We know that from our own experience, but I also know from experience that there are times when that person inside us is alive and well and imposing. The charitable helpful guy only seems to surface in times of affluence and ease. In other times the sadistic, selfish part of us comes out to play, and all it takes really is being hard done by one such sadistic encounter and the chain kicks off. Do unto others as you just had done unto you is the lesser stated human reaction.

Even in friendships, those times we’ve been ‘naughty’ or the concept of “taking” (making fun of friends) or spoiling a friend’s attempted pick-up. We’ve all done some of it sometime. Think back or go through a few days in life with this philosophy in mind and I’m sure you’ll see it apply to you too. I didn’t see it right away but after a few days and a little contemplation I now find myself agreeing completely with the doctor’s suggestion.

Maybe it’s just a product of poverty. Maybe it’s a culture thing. Or maybe it’s a psychological disease spread through the country like an epidemic, hitting us when we’re young and operating in our blind spot. Maybe I’m overreacting. Maybe it’s good to be back.

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Is education really the answer?

A recent Pakistani voice in America once again brought my attention to the state of education in Pakistan. In every street of the country, there are stories of children from poor, serving class families attempting to gain education and improve themselves against all odds. Meanwhile government funding and foreign aid is going to non-existent education for the public. The plague of ‘ghost schools’ has drawn a great amount of media attention over the years, but continues to gnaw at our economy.

Teachers and social workers in Pakistan frequently stress the importance of educating our population. The Prime Minister and the Education Task Force have declared an ‘education emergency’ and 2011 is being celebrated as the year of education. It is safe to say that education is being viewed as the first and foremost solution to Pakistan’s problems.

I am hesitant to agree with this view. I do not feel that spreading our current education will be as magical as we are led to believe. Before I raise my concerns, let me clarify a few things so that I am not misunderstood. I completely agree with and support the right of every human being to improve themselves and strive for a better, happier life. I also understand and appreciate the sentiments of charitable people who help educate the serving class. I condemn the bleeding of our resources via ghost schools and phantom publishers and agree that this must stop.

Having said all this, I do not believe that achieving the said objectives will rid us of intolerance, extremism, racism, or poverty. A closer look at our textbooks and teachers suggests that there is a predisposition in existing curriculum to cultivate and promote partisan, divisive and intolerant thinking. According to UNESCO’s Education for All Global Monitoring Report 2011, textbook content and production in Pakistan is negatively influenced by political and elite actors (p. 5).

It also stresses the importance of each individual teacher’s method of instruction and resulting political or religious undertones. The curriculum was revised after 2001 for being intolerant and glorifying war and Jihad, focusing on identity conflicts such as those between Shia and Sunni or Hindu and Muslim. While this reform means that future generations will be subjected to comparatively less venom, it does indicate that parents and teachers who graduated more than 10 years ago were victims of miss-education. One can hope that most elders have evolved their thinking enough to break free of all the propaganda based education system, but the persistence of identity-based stereotypes and targeted violence indicate otherwise.

Even the current curriculum is far from perfect and needs to be made further conducive to critical thinking and tolerance. This is elaborated by the way much of our educated youth still buys into the “they are all out to destroy Pakistan” mentality blaming even internal failures on foreign agencies.

So before we attempt to mass-market our product, we must refine it, or else enhance it. Mohammad Ziauddin, executive editor of The Express Tribune suggests that tolerance be taught as a separate subject. Wise words of a wise man.

Yet, even if we were able to achieve this utopia of an educated Pakistan, would that really be the best state of affairs? If we got one magical wish, would we really wish for every Pakistani to be educated? Or would it be smarter to wish for a smaller population? Our economy has a large and abundant service sector. Cheap servants are a norm, a luxury and an addiction for most urban households. Our exported products sell in the global arena because we produce at lower costs. Abundant and cheap labor is our competitive edge.

Now imagine that each and every person was technically skilled and educated. Would we be able to provide them with enough deserving jobs? Or would we be a nation of underemployed graduates with unhealthy self-images? According to the CEO of a local bank, “We simply do not have the resources to provide 170million citizens with basics like electricity, clean water and gas, let alone a quality lifestyle.” Perhaps entrepreneurship is the answer, but until and unless investor confidence is restored in the country that harbored Osama Bin Laden, this too remains a limited outlet.

Christopher Hitchens (2007) notes that when human beings are densely populated over limited ground and resources, they become more aggressive, competitive and uncivilized. The trait we share most closely with pigs. Yet, in low populations and relatively abundant resources, a more civilized and ‘humane’ behavioral trend is noticed. Perhaps that would explain our crime rates.

The day we have reformed our education system and permanently silenced the expression “Khuda ulaad deta hai to rizak bhi deta hai” (When God gives a child, he also provides the relevant food/income) will be the day I dare to dream again for a developing Pakistan. Until then, with the prevailing policies, the best you can hope for is an underpaid servant with a PhD in hospitality.

PORK: The Final frontier

I have long been baffled by the abundance of Muslims who drink and copulate but refuse to eat pork in any form. While I have come to believe (after exhaustive debates) that it is almost impossible to convince the majority to even try a bite of fried bacon with their egg, I do wish to put these various ‘sins’ in comparative context.

Whether or not you chose to vary your degree of indulgence after reading this, I do hope that you will at least be more mindful of the nature of these transgressions. I will primarily quote texts from the Quran, since the authenticity of Hadith, even Sahih Bukhari, proves to be ‘questionable’ when in contrast with personal beliefs

Drinking:

Let’s take a look at the verses prohibiting drinking:

“They ask you [Prophet] about intoxicants and gambling: say, "There is great sin in both, and some benefit for people: the sin is greater than the benefit.” (Quran 2:219)

This doesn’t seem too harsh, it seems to admit that drinking can be fun but maintains that the sin is heavier. A much sterner plea comes in chapter 5, verses 90 and 91:

“O believers! Wine and gambling and idols and divining arrows are only unclean things, a work of devil (Satan) then save yourselves from them, so that you may prosper.”

“The devil desires only to create enmity and hatred among you by means of intoxicants and games of chance, and to keep you back from the remembrance of Allah and from prayer. Will you then refrain?”

If you trust Sahih Bukhair, then this would also be of relevance:

Volume 8, Book 81, Number 764: Narrated Anas bin Malik:

“The Prophet beat a drunk with palm-leaf stalks and shoes. And Abu Bakr gave (such a sinner) forty lashes.”

Eating pork or non-halal chicken? Is there a difference?

Well not really, but since so many people have managed to force/create one, I must be missing something. Quranic verses prohibit both things in the same breath:

“He has only made unlawful to you the Carrion, and blood and the flesh of swine and the animal that has been slaughtered by calling a name other than Allah. But he who is driven by necessity, eat neither desiring not, exceeding the need then there is no sin on him, no doubt, Allah is Forgiving and Merciful.” (2:173)

The same principle is repeated in (5:3), (6:145) and (16:115) with the addition of dead meat and a few methods of killing.

Friends with benefits?

An increasingly popular ideology among ‘partial sinners’ seems to be that copulation without the institute of marriage is acceptable. What two adults choose to do with each other in the privacy of their home should not anyone else’s business, right? WRONG! When it comes to eating and biting, doing so to satisfying your carnal hunger seems to provoke the most anger.

“The man and the woman guilty of fornication , flog each of them (with) a hundred stripes, and let not pity for them detain you from obedience to Allah, if you believe in Allah and the Last Day, and let a party of believers witness their chastisement.” (Quran 24:2)

“And those of your women guilty of lewdness; take the evidence of four males from amongst you against them; and if they testify, confine them to houses until death do claim them, or Allah ordain for them some (other) way.” (Quran 4:15)

“And come not near Zina. Lo! It is an abomination and an evil way.” (Quran 17:32)

I would also recommend reading Chapter 24 verses 2-8. It deals with the production of four witnesses to enforce these laws (sometimes argued as a basis to nullify these verses altogether). Inability to produce witnesses can result in 80 lashes, and a husband can apparently be equivalent to four witnesses.

Conclusion:

Whatever arguments are strung around the enforcement of these various laws, the fact remains that they are the laws dictated in the Quran. For a Muslim who claims to hold this as the unchanged word of the Creator of the universe, it should be clear that sex is a far greater sin then eating pork. And no more sinful then eating non-halal chicken. To be fanatically meticulous about one specific ‘sin’, while happily persisting with others of equal or greater magnitude is a curious act. Is it really a matter of faith and morality? Or is it just popular culture being inherited?

So if you happen to wake up in a beloved’s arms and refuse to have bacon for breakfast, I hope that you will at least pause to reconsider.

How our compassion fuels child labour and beggary

Should we spare change, or induce change by remaining stern?

ISLAMABAD – So another International Children’s Day has passed and while it has been celebrated in some countries and some part of ours, the state of children in Pakistan remains pathetic. Child labour – that persistent, malignant tumour unleashed upon our country during times of apparent prosperity — simply refuses to go away.

The media was flooded with much of the same institutional blame-game and vague identification of problems areas that we see regurgitated every year. Politicians are blaming natural disasters for the rampant child labour in their jurisdictions while the Ministry of Labour and Manpower is still deliberating the use of international aid to conduct further surveys on the topic. So while six-year-old maids are being beaten to death by employers for urinating on the floor, and entire rest houses are being run by underpaid, ‘horribly’ treated children, it would appear that the government is still wondering if it’s really such a big deal.

Finding little hope in the government, we could learn from US aid strategists and turn to NGOs instead. The Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child (SPARC) has demanded that the government ban domestic child labour. More specific child and labour organizations have been organizing seminars asking the media to do more in solving the problem. This brings us right back here, to this spot, to this opinion piece, one that criticizes the government and NGOs, asking them to take action. Such is the nature of this vicious circle all the major institutions are stuck in.

The role we play:

Let us attempt to depart this circle at a tangent, and examine what we, as common citizens can do to help eradicate child labour. First of all, we need to realize that child labour is a problem that needs to be solved. Researchers at the University of Karachi have concluded that “society has accepted child labour as a stable pillar of the economy”. There has never been significant decrease registered in the number of children involved in labour.

We are part of the problem, and every day, every time we go out on the street, or employ a child in our homes, we influence the future of children in Pakistan. Affluent, urban families who hire children for domestic chores offer justifications like “where will the poor kid go otherwise” and “at least we are putting a roof on his head and food in his stomach”. While this may seem charitable on the surface of it, let’s take a closer look at what is happening here. Most children working in Karachi earn between Rs2,000 and Rs3,000 a month, a fifth of them work more than 12 hours daily. Since food and boarding is often included in the terms of employment, this money goes directly to their parents. So a poor family is earning around Rs2,000 per child. The more children they have, the more this figure is multiplied by. And then we wonder why our poor persist with countless children.

Employers often claim that they are providing their employed children with education and home tutoring. Yet Pakistan still ranks 27 out of 28 Asian countries in regard to literacy of this sector. Obviously all that alleged education is not working.

This means that the children we have ‘charitably’ employed in our homes will grow up and head families of similarly low income. They will want their children to earn for them the same way they did for their parents. A steady family profession has been established, which will repeat and multiply in each generation. Until and unless we remove this economic incentive for having more children, poverty and population control will remain elusive. By refusing to employ a child in your home, you can help solve the problem.

Now let us take a look at begging, because it has become a lucrative enough endeavor to be classified as a profession. We all complain about the increasing number of children begging on the street. We take pity on their condition, hand out a little spare change and drive off, blaming the government for lack of educational provision and the child’s parents for their ‘stupidity’. But what have we just done? By economically awarding the beggar, we have fueled the fire. On average, a donation of Rs20 is made to a begging child. This means that if 15 people ‘take pity’ on the child, he will have earned more in a day then a worker involved in hard labour from 7am to 5pm. Why should anyone continue to labour in the blistering heat or freezing cold? It is much easier (and thanks to us, more lucrative) to simply extend a hand and make a sorry face. So the next time you fumble through your purse for loose change, wondering where all these beggars are coming from, pause to think, the answer might be right under your nose.

The number of children involved in labour has proven difficult to accurately identify. It could be anywhere between 10million and 19million. There are existing laws that dictate the terms of employment for children and others that could be used to stop child labour, but the wait for our government to implement these measures is proving to be an eternal one.

Meanwhile, we could make a difference, but our compassion stands in the way. In current conditions, poorer families will continue to have more children; it is the logical thing to do. Subsequently, more of these children will choose begging, it is the easier, more lucrative profession. These are not the Jahil (idiotic) decisions we too often dismiss them as. Our sympathy has made them otherwise.

We must change our approach. We must be cruel to be kind. Our future depends on it.