Oxford University Press held a discussion on Thursday on the third revised edition of book "Pakistan - Unique Origins; Unique Destiny?" by Javed Jabbar. Giving introductory remarks on the book, the writer said the revised and updated edition retains sharp focus on the country's present and possible trajectories in the decades to come. It would help readers to identify how Pakistan can contribute to global peace, culture and harmony in the 21st century.
Javed Jabbar said that after some keen observations of certain readers on the first and second editions, a few additions and amendments have been made in the new edition. "Of about 1,400 facts or fact-related statements contained in this book, less than 10 were identified as requiring correction. That makes it an error percentage of only 0.77 percent. I conducted research single-handedly without the aid of any assistant or team. I hole no other major factual errors still remain," he said.
The book mentions sixty strengths of Pakistan: forty-four collective traits and sixteen individual achievements. Some of the strengths are Pakistan's being compassionate and generous nation. Its people are a hardy, resilient, capable of absorbing great shocks, traumas and tragedies, and carrying on regardless. They are practical, and pragmatic. Pakistan has a distinguished intelligentsia. People are deeply committed to justice even when they do not always get it.
The writer has also highlighted forty weaknesses of the country, including the tendency of the Army to intervene and influence the political domain, the country's low ranking in the human development index, severe income disparities, grinding poverty, systemic inequalities, misgovernance, rampant corruption, attitudes and practices of feudalism, primitivism, week enforcement of the law, a slow and expensive legal system that delays justice, disrespect for time, neglect of children's rights, juvenile justice and population growth. Javed Jabbar also highlighted eight reasons that make Pakistan's origin unique. In the book he has mentioned that Pakistan is the only nation-state whose name is an invented one based on links with place-names. It's the only country created with its two parts separated by a thousand miles-with no friendly country in between.
The only nation-state created on the principle of religious identity on land which is neither the "homeland" of that religion nor the "headquarters" of that religion. The only country created at ten weeks' notice.
Pakistan is the only nation-state which had to absorb millions of refugees before, during, and shortly after its birth. It was born with two hostile immediate neighbouring states, one of them, Afghanistan, being predominately Muslim too.
The state located on land with a 9,000-year history of human civilization but which began its evolution with a Pakistani national identity only after becoming a new state. The only nation whose future will become its real history.
Earlier, in her welcoming remarks, the managing director of Oxford University Press, Ameena Saiyid, expressed her gratitude to Jabbar for authoring the book.