Out of all the gloom and sorrow come the glad tidings. Pakistan is a happy country, and getting happier. OK, maybe a middling 75th on the world happiness index, but up five notches over last year. The real kick is out-ranking India by a big margin. Some vicarious pleasure out of being ahead of rising China and monkish Sri Lanka too!
The digital warriors have gone gaga, all set for another round of shikanjebin, or whatever it is that pumps them up. What's there to be happy about? Not much, it would appear, if the world development indices are something to go by. Poverty, illiteracy, food adulteration, squalor and deprivation are shown to be our hallowed grounds. Of course, there is always hope but how long does one live off hope alone?
And yet we are a happy lot. Can we ascribe it to our cultural ethos, where the bonds of family and friends sustain us and teach us to accept adversity with equanimity? Or can we attribute it to the comforting thought of being in good company - you look around and you see a whole sea of fellow sufferers? Or is it because we really believe this world to be a caravanserai, a forced halt on our way to the hereafter where it will be all honey and milk, and a lot else?
We do not wish it to rain on their parade, but the happy people can perhaps be usefully reminded of certain flies in the happiness ointment. The idea is not to chronicle a death foretold, or ring the bell on some forthcoming apocalypse. The idea is to probe if the problems coming our way, which we think they surely will if not immediately attended to, will make us less happy.
The first horseman of apocalypse is our human capital. With an aging developed world the 'demographic dividend' is being celebrated in the 'rising rest'. But will the demographic bulge herald winds of promising change in our case? Our population is growing faster than any other country except Nigeria. So is illiteracy. There are no verified numbers available, but assuming (generously) a 60% literacy ratewe have today some 80 million who cannot read and write. The ranks of illiterate will soon swell to something like a hundred million if we fail to bring about a huge change in our literacy rates. That many more to adorn the suicide jackets.
Paradoxically, abysmal literacy rates have not come in the way of a phenomenal growth of institutions imparting tertiary education. Universities seem to be popping out everywhere like anthills in my lawn! Even thinly-populated Balochistan, that had a hard enough time running the first University that it established less than fifty years ago, now boasts of ten Universities (sixteen if you add the campuses).
The mushrooming of Universities has done nothing for quality that continues to plummet because of poor preparation of students, shortage of quality faculty and inadequate research facilities. It is particularly telling in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) that is so critical to national progress.
Overall, we are not producing enough quality material to provide leadership in various facets of endeavor, from Business to Engineering to Medicine to Law and Accountancy.
The second horseman is the nation's state of health. UNICEF has conferred on us the title of world leader in infant mortality rates. In her deeply disturbing Dawn column, Samia Altaf informs us that 45% of children - almost half our next generation - are suffering from extreme malnutrition, leading to 'permanent physical and cognitive deficiencies'. Nothing is lost in translation: educational standards will fall further, adding to our competitiveness woes in virtually every field.
The third horseman, a truly ferocious one promising to leave behind scorched earth, is water. Not long ago we were considered 'water abundant'. In 1990 we crossed the water-stressed line and unabashedly lurched towards water-scarcity by 2005. Between 1990 and now per capita water availability has almost halved to around 1200 cubic meters. Hard as it may be to accept, at least one agency predicts we will run dry by 2025.
Yes, the realization is there, and we hear a National Water Policy is on the anvil. But there is many a slip between the cup and the lip, in this case more literally than metaphorically.
The fourth horseman, leading the pack and whose gallop we tracked last week, is the dysfunctional political system. It is not about democratic versus non-representational. It is about shared values and equality that a functioning political system protects and promotes. It is about preventing social fractures.
The problem with our political system is that both dispensations, democratic and non-representational, have been for themselves. Both have been deceitful: they rule in the name of the poor but self-preservation has been their rule.
Some argue that centuries of subjugation have made 'submission to power' part of our DNA. They seem to be unmindful of the destructive dynamics of political tribalism.
Humans, by nature, are tribal. They extend themselves to groups and communities only partly for greater economic gains. Largely, it is for defensive reasons. It is like a safety net. But if the safety net saves only the privileged, and lets the majority fall through, retreat to tribalism becomes compelling. That is the risk that our evolving Federation can ill afford.
Even otherwise, market-dominant minorities, whether race or class-based, have a limited shelf life. Comes a day when ranks break up and intra-battles begin to take their toll. For the sake of the happy brigade let's hope it happens sooner rather than later.
And who knows, the sun could emerge as the fights among godfathers intensify: between the man on the horseback and the man manipulating the ballot box; between the liberal and the cleric; between the landlord and the industrialist. After all, isn't there happiness in seeing giants fight? That's the stuff all mythology is made of. Even cock-fights draw big crowds.
There is something Biblical about happiness: "for with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge the more grief". Thomas Gray put it more succinctly: "where ignorance is bliss 'tis folly to be wise".
Happiness is a state of mind. Denial or deprivation has little to do with it if you know how to cope with it. Obviously, we Pakistanis have mastered the art.
shabirahmed@yahoo.com