A bleak look at Pakistan

A 5 part series of posts on Pakistan, _a hard honest look_ at the state of the country over at “the chairmans blog”:http://www.emagine-group.com/behindthechairmansdoor/.


The “first post”:http://www.emagine-group.com/behindthechairmansdoor/2007/03/19/i-dont-wear-glasses-rose-colored-or-otherwise/ talks about education – now all and sundry in Pakistan know that government schools are a “complete farce”, but not too many think about how most private schools are run. Simply put, when a school is started primarily to make money, education and the children take a back seat to the pursuit of money.

The “second post”:http://www.emagine-group.com/behindthechairmansdoor/2007/03/20/i-dont-wear-glasses-rose-colored-or-otherwise-part-ii/ moves on the many failings in Pakistani society. He doesn’t talk much about the gora complex, but then many books have already been written on the topic. The gora complex takes interesting dimensions in Pakistani society, ranging the whole spectrum from whole hearted gora subservience to rampantly militant hate, with many offshoots along the way. It’s not just the gora complex – people make fun of India’s caste system, while we have a full fledged apartheid system which puts South Africa’s to shame.

The “third post”:http://www.emagine-group.com/behindthechairmansdoor/2007/03/26/i-dont-wear-glasses-rose-colored-or-otherwise-part-iii/ moves on:

bq.. You take your family out to dinner and have a little au pair sitting along side to take care of your children. You order large meals for everyone, while passing breadsticks and water to the au pair… are you serious? Would you like someone to do that to your child?

…Why do you take the servant with you when you go shopping for your kids clothes and toys? Do you relish the pain that you cause them knowing that they can never, and I do mean never, afford anything in that store?

p. “We are a people that flaunt wealth in front of the poor”, and it is perhaps the most disgustingly perverted thing I’ve come across in Pakistani society. It’s not the wealth per se – but the way it’s used to put down people. The worst part of Pakistani society is not the myriad ills done to so many people, the corruption seeping through every aspect of society, but the casual way in which so many people publicly mistreat those less powerful than them. It starts at a very early age – we inoculate our children to think nothing of mistreating others by our own examples – not out in the jungle of the streets but in our very own homes.

bq. These same Pakistanis that can’t seem to follow the traffic laws, stand in line, behave like educated human beings, and work with some sense of professionalism fly to other countries and behave as model citizens for the time that they are there; but upon disembarking from the plane to Pakistan, they return to their natural behavior.

This is the oft repeated truism muttered in drawing rooms, newspapers and tv shows around the country – the sad part is that all the people pointing this out don’t seem to get that they too, are part of the problem.

“Post four in the series”:http://www.emagine-group.com/behindthechairmansdoor/2007/03/31/i-dont-wear-glasses-rose-colored-or-otherwise-part-iv/ gives a few more examples, though they’re a bit to anecdotal to generalize all Pakistan from.

And now for the fix:

bq. …we have started “Take Back Pakistan:http://www.takebackpakistan.com/, a citizen’s-only initiative to change Pakistan for the better by doing the things that we, as citizens, can do, without government intervention and financial support.

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