Watching
everyday news about Pakistan, one can see a very gloomy image of the country.
Pakistan is moving towards the direction which could lead it to Stone Age or medieval
era. Evidently one can easily observe people's misconception of freedom and
logic, their resentment towards counter arguments, their defiance to new ideas
and their short sightedness. All this is a result of a false ideology
prevailing in our society which was concocted by few opportunists, who love to
exploit the gullible minds. As a result we are knee-deep in this problem. This
difficulty spawns from one of our major institutions, which is education. Our
education, doesn't have the problem of budget or the unavailability of
schools as commonly believed, instead the problem persist in the very
deep, which is curriculum of our schools. I remember reading about an Afghan
king, the great mighty warrior who fought valiantly in the battles and scored himself,
through his high determination a gargantuan treasure chest for his kingdom.
Plus, I learned that he was a mighty warrior, who not only protected Muslims
from outside threats but also conquered new lands for his people to live in,
while his subjects including the ones subdued in the battle worshiped him as
an idol for his display of honesty, truthfulness, and justice amongst all
Muslims and non-Muslims alike. As a kid I wouldn't dare doubt the integrity of
this story, as it was something that relates to my faith. As a result of this
the first idea that got engraved on the walls of my sub conscience was that, we
had a history of warriors who risked and dedicated their lives in fighting
wars.
Moreover,
we are told to never question history as it may somehow weaken our ideology of
Pakistan and or Islam. My rebellious nature forced me to discover other side of
the picture, to read the history from something other than our school text
books, and oh boy was I in for a surprise, turns out the so called heroic king
did not protected Muslims. Instead he straight up slaughtered hundreds and
thousands of them just for a small piece of land. The only reason he left his
land was to pillage unprotected villages and steal from Hindu temple, while
facing little to none resistance on the way. This king never bothered to earn
his treasure and livelihood through peaceful or legal means, this person never
inspired art or inculcated civilized culture or even spirits of Islam into the
minds of his subjects. Yet he is portrayed as a Muslim hero and conquer and a
great leader of this region.
Additionally,
our education system has deliberately modified the history, which has greatly
impacted our thinking. People of this region only admire the history that
portrays them as savages and warriors, or in their words conquerors and
champions. Plus they use it as a reference to glorify their lineage. The petty
wars are so deeply entangled in our culture and history that our culture,
something that has to add colors to our life, teach us poetry, philosophy and
art, is replaced by war rituals. As a result of this people admire the history
that only portrays them as warriors and fighter but not intellectuals. We have
very little in our curriculum dedicated to the scientists, artists and
philosophers. If we ever were to study Friedrich Nietzsche a genius of his time, he would
be studied as a Godless idiot who got famous for blabbing about
useless and unholy stuff.
Additionally,
we have zero focus on philosophy in our education system, there is no concept
of reason and logic in the text books, no instrument to develop logic and
understanding, consequently, this has taken away the ability to comprehend any
complex idea, and therefore for every logical question there is an
"Expert" to resolve it for the common man. Moreover, this disabled
mentality is the greatest cause for the rise in extremism and militancy in the
country. People believe theology is wisdom that cannot be understood by their
feeble minds and by attempting to understand it, they may land themselves in
peril or end up making an unforgivable blunder. As a result they give the job
of thinking to these experts, who very willingly use them to their advantage in
any way they please. None of the common folks ever think that these so called
experts could also make blunders like them. No! these experts are believed to
have poses God like perfectness in their understanding of religion and are
believed as true guide for their life, with our manipulated war history it
becomes very easy to peruse the follower of most peaceful religion on earth, to
kill and murder and innocent human being.
.jpg)
.jpg)