From: jawad@ecst.csuchico.edu (Jawad Ali)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.pakistan
Subject: Re: Pakistan: what can be done?
Date: 23 Dec 92 11:04:04 GMT
Organization: California State University, Chico
NNTP-Posting-Host: cscihp.ecst.csuchico.edu


Salam alaikum Saad,
We are still talking about what Pakistan needs (besides a good opening
stand :)

>Thank you for your initiative, Jawad.  I think its fun to talk about
>how to improve Pakistan and your idea to float a dialogue on those
>lines is very welcome.  It might be useful also, but that depends on
>what we can do with our ideas. 

There is a very good chance that it might come to nothing.  But I
am still optmistic about Pakistan and about effective use of this
forum that I have not given up hope.  The day that I become convinced
that this communication with my brothers and sisters will bear no
fruit - that no work will ever get done -- then I will simply stop posting.

>As for your request for a flame-free
>environment, I don't find it necessary.  Flames are excellent indicators
>of deep-seated emotions and are quite revealing about the flame-thrower.
>Often, a flame will serve as a red flag that further discussion will
>be futile.  So I wouldn't count them out.

I know that it is an unrealistic expectation.  What you say above about
flames is true for all rudeness and hatred.  I'm just trying to stick
my finger in this proverbial dyke :).  Lets NOT bring on the dirt.

>
>Ayodhya has provided the pornography for some high-class intellectual
>masturbation.  Much of the auto-eroticism is rhetorical. 

Here is one more reason to protest flames.  Atleast you should have
been explicit about including yourself in the above catagory, or about
why yoyu think you need to be excluded.  With it we might have had
a discussion -- without it we have name calling.

>Practically
>all scp subscribers would agree with the need for tolerance and for
>better and more widespread education.  The difference between talk
>resulting from Ayodhya and change resulting from Ayodhya is money.
>I know you disagree with this notion, but try the following thought
>experiment.

OK. I'll go along in good faith.  I just dont have very much
in common with people who think money is everything, which is basically
my reading of your argument so far.

>You are a talented and gifted Pakistani with excellent ideas about
>tolerance and education and you wish to improve your country.  The
>first thing is to acquire a position of strength or influence.

I'm with the experiment, but I dont buy this assumption.  There could
be any number of "first things" that one might want to acquire.  One may,
for example, want to acquire a sense of purpose, or a sense of ethics.
[which is partly what I hope to gain from this discussion.] 

Surely you would agree that a person with a sense of purpose and ethics
but no power is _atleast_ as useful as one who has power but no sense
of purpose or ethics. 

>You >don't want to end up as the urban middle-class professional who's
>a perennial armchair critic but is basically a castrated monkey
>when it comes to effecting change.  Therefore, you have a limited
>number of options:

Maybe you made a mstake in assuming that I am a talented and gifted
Pakistani.  Unless I am talented and gifted at only spending money, I 
would never be a "castrated monkey" no matter what my social standing.
I am much less than middle-class professinal now and have a great 
deal of faith in my (and everybody's) power to change things.  My argument
has never been to deny the influence on money -- only to put it in its
proper context.  Creativivity is a tremendous tool for social change.


>
>1.  Attain elected office.
>2.  Attain a grade 21 or better post in the civil service.
>3.  Become vocal about your ideas in the media - this will only work
>    if you're a journalist, celebrity or distinguished academic.

This is a false dilema.  Once again I can think of dozns of ways to
change education without doing any of the above.  This time I'll skip
the examples.  I do believe in the power of the ordinary individual.
I cannot stress this enough.  We have stopped relying on our imaginations.
It is very easy to be a thorn in the side of curruption and incompetence,
it just takes a little commitment and sacrfice.  Every day I see people
doing it.

If I were truely a gifted and talented Pakistani, I would not even
consider the traditional routes.  I would be constantly on the lookout
for new and creative ways of producing change.

BTW, I am also convinced that any solution in our country will have
to be bottom-up and not top-down.  The climb to the top, using our
current structure of power, is so treachrous that anyone who successfuly
attains status has already rendered him of herself inable of effect change.
This is one of the main pitfalls of Pakistani political thinking and
would make for interesting discussion someday.  I will not try to convince
you here because I'm aready having a hard time with this relatively
simple argument about the role of money.

>Now let's say you took the CSS and eventually became secretary of
>education in the federal government (it doesn't matter what you become
>so long as you fit in the options above).  How do you improve
>education ?  You have a few options:
>
>1.  Overhaul the curriculum: rewrite the textbooks to reflect the
>    values of tolerance (amongst other things) you wish Pakistani
>    kids to acquire.
>
>2.  Recruit better trained and qualified teachers.
>
>3.  Organise a major seminar of school principals and provide them
>    with guidelines for management.
>
>4.  Upgrade the physical state of school buildings throughout the country.
>
>5.  Introduce diverse recreational facilities (gym, playground, sports
>    equipment) that allow students to channelise their energies
>    constructively.
>
>
>Now here's the crux of the experiment.  Imagine yourself trying to do
>any one of the above without a budget request. 

If I have the political will, then I could do all of the above just
with the current state of the economy.  If the will was lacking then
no amount of money will do the trick.

>So now what do you say ?

Need I say more? :)  We seem to have digressed from our discussion.
I have never denied that we dont need to generate wealth, and I don't
expect our breaucracy to do it for  us.  I just don't agree with your
evaluation of what wealth will be able to do.  It is just one variable
in a very complex equation.

I'm getting sleepy now.

j n a.
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