Fostering a civilised society that is tolerant and open to self-examination is no easy task. As Mr Musharraf found to his consternation, ‘enlightened moderation’ is not a simple matter of telling a people that from now on, this is how they must behave. So the project to modernise Pakistan, to somehow convert this violent and perverse society into a peaceful and tolerant one, can be achieved neither overnight nor by force. The issues we face, from militancy to extremism to terrorism and the general rigidity of outlook, have been decades in the making. It follows, therefore, that it will take at least as much time – probably longer – to reverse the tide.

Sadly, it is the state itself – as represented over the years by various governments – that has been complicit in reducing the country to the current state of affairs. The Zia era had perhaps the bloodiest hands: those were the years when Pakistan, aided to no little extent by western funding, managed to arm an entire generation with not only guns but far worse, the ideological certainty of being warriors of the faith, tireless defenders against the ungodly and the evil. While the ungodly in those days were Soviets, it is hardly surprising that the jihadi definition of ‘the enemy’ expanded over subsequent years and now appears to refer to practically everyone.

But subsequent governments cannot be absolved of guilt either. As much ill was achieved by those who either chose to do nothing, or took half-hearted, ineffectual steps. Much of the havoc wrought in this world was not because a lot of people said ‘yes’ to evil and criminality, but because not enough people said ‘no’. The shadowy ‘agencies’ that are today being accused of running a virtual supra-governmental state have been around for decades, and no doubt proved very useful to various governments over the past two decades.

But there are two other, far less well-understood ways in which the state has over the years colluded in turning Pakistan into what it is today. First, the manner in which the arts, particularly theatre and film, have systematically been bowdlerised and stripped of all contextual legitimacy; and second, the manner in which the system of education in the country, such of it as there is, has been reduced to little imparting little more than vocational training and a right-wing ideology.

Take the performing arts first: these fields have, for at least thirty-odd years, been the targets of a sustained campaign aimed at obliterating them, whether with the tacit consent of the state or through its active participation. Censorship, the lack of state support, bans and the slandering of these fields have had their effect.

What do theatre or film and extremism have to do with each other? Put simply, it is through these arts that a nation or a people explore issues of identity, and carry out exercises in self-examination and critique. And what are terrorism, militancy, and religious or ideological extremism if not at root questions of identity? Who are we? What do we believe? What are the merits or implications of that belief? In 1947, Pakistan was created, so they claimed, ‘by the Muslims, for the Muslims.’ Over sixty years later, the mosque was amongst the most heavily-guarded and most targeted institutions in the country, and the place which gave birth to the bulk of the anarchy. What does that say about the country and its citizens?

These are not questions that can thoroughly be delved during talk shows or seminars. For a real effect to take place, these matters ought to be allowed to play themselves out – and therefore initiate dialogue, debate and foster change – on the artist’s canvas, the dramatist’s stage, the screen-writer’s plot. It is there that reality mixes with imagination, the dreamworld with the nightmarish, to first explore and then hold a mirror up to reality, eventually engendering a more nuanced understanding of one’s place and meaning within a given context. Pakistan ignores or targets the performing arts at its peril.

Then there’s the issue of education, which in its true sense is denied to even those few lucky ones in Pakistan who manage to get themselves into schools and colleges. They have training, sure. They’re more qualified than many million others and have some opportunity to earn a living. But education? The honing of the mind, the nurturing of the ability to think and to challenge, to dream and invent? These vital areas are not part of the ‘education’ system in Pakistan, even less than in other parts of the world.

One of the most eloquent indictments I’ve heard on this matter was delivered by British writer and actor Stephen Fry. In the late 80s, Fry worked on a BBC radio show called ‘Loose Ends’ for which he created a fictional character called Professor Trefusis who delivered ‘wireless essays’ over the radio. Here is what he had to say on the matter of education and its falling standards in Britain:

“We are to regard education as a service industry, like a laundry, teachers the washers, children the dirty linen. The customer is always right. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. And what in the name of boiling hell do parents know about education? How many educated people are there in the world? I could name seventeen or eighteen.

“Because of course education is not the issue. […] This new England we’ve invented for ourselves is not interested at all in education. It is only interested in training, both material and spiritual. Education means freedom, it means ideas, it means truth. Training is what you do to a pear tree when you pleach it and prune it to grow against a wall. Training is what you give an airline pilot or a computer operator or a barrister or a radio producer. Education is what you give children to enable them to be free from the prejudices and moral bankruptcies of their elders. And freedom is no part of the programme of today’s legislators. Freedom to buy shares, medical treatment or council houses, certainly, freedom to buy anything you please. But freedom to think, to challenge, to change? Heavens no.

“[…] ‘Teach Victorian values, teach the values of decency and valour and patriotism and religion,’ is the cry. Those are the very values that led to this foul century of war, oppression, cruelty, tyranny, slaughter and hypocrisy. It was the permissive society that it is so horribly fashionable to denounce that forced America to back out of the Vietnam War, it is this new hideously impermissive society that is threatening to engulf us in another. […] When will we realise that we know nothing, nothing. We are ignorant, savagely, hopelessly ignorant – what we think we know is palpable nonsense. How can we dare to presume to teach our children the very same half-baked, bigoted trash that litters our own imperfect minds? At least give them a chance, a faint, feeble, glimmering chance of being better than us. Is that so very much to ask? Apparently it is.

“Well, I’m old and smelly and peculiar and I’ve no doubt everything I’ve said is nonsense. Let’s burn all those novels with naughty ideas and naughty words in them, let’s teach children that Churchill won the Second World War, that the Empire was a good thing […]. Let’s run down the arts departments of universities, let’s string criminals up, let’s do it all now, for the sooner we all go up in a ball of flame, the better.”

Which is precisely what Pakistan appears to be doing.

— hajrahmumtaz@gmail.com