IT is again that time of the year when we start talking about how bad things are, how irreversibly corrupt and inept our system is, and how we need to entirely substitute the old with the new. A new judiciary, a new security apparatus, a new people, perhaps, and as is the mantra every decade or so, a new political party.
Sadly, however, it is always the same story. The system has failed us, so it needs to be changed. Those benefiting from it are bad, but we are not. They are corrupt, but not us. They are disingenuous, but we are not. They represent the status quo, and we are the change you want to see in society. In a nutshell, they promise immediate change, and instant results.
But is such a change sustainable or permanent? The history of Pakistan teaches us that it is not. In fact, if anything, change tends to be incremental. It envisions a step-by-step approach to making things better. The goal is not to craft a perfect solution, but to acknowledge the deficiencies in the existing ones, and to improve upon it on a day-to-day basis. Some call it tweaking, others refer to it as adjustments, whilst others still refer to it as streamlining. Whichever way you look at it, however, it represents the ability to appreciate the value of what has already been built, whilst acknowledging that it is not perfect, requiring constant work, effort, and improvement. In other words, you don’t necessarily have to raze the house and remake it every time you see a problem with it.
But what happens when you don’t realise the value of what you already have, or it becomes increasingly difficult to see any positives amongst a sea of negatives? Or when everything seems useless and without justification, simply wrong or unsustainable? In a nutshell, what do you do when all is seen as corrupted and nothing can be saved?
We seek to upend everything because it’s easier to look forward to something new than look back at something ugly that was of our own making.
You reject the validity or utility of the existing solutions altogether, whatever their actual worth, and envision a clean break from the past as the only path forward. It is essentially an attempt to press the factory reset button. It is to acknowledge that all that has preceded the situation was wrong, and what shall proceed now shall be different, and hence, right.
If such a desire stemmed from lessons learnt from our collective past, or an attempt to correct ourselves, one could perhaps be more sympathetic to those who seek to ‘substitute’ the entire system with something new as opposed to trying to incrementally build upon it. But unfortunately, that is not the case.
The consistent desire to ‘substitute’ stems from our collective desire to seek quick changes without putting in the effort to bring them about in a sustainable and permanent manner. We seek instant gratification, and the work required to obtain it is a mere inconvenience which need not distract us. This has been our problem for almost all our existence.
Whenever we face a difficult period, we choose to uproot what is already established and substitute it with something entirely new. After a while, when again confronted with difficulties, we uproot that new system and then try something else. When faced with further tribulations, we simply rinse and repeat and hope for the best. Our faith in uprooting and re-rooting as a solution to all our ills is extraordinary and astounding, if not perplexing, especially because it has not worked for 75-odd years. Yet, we still believe it will fix everything — the next time.
But it won’t, because those talking of a new order or new beginning have yet to learn from the mistakes of the previous order. In fact, talk of substitution and breaking from the past, without actually learning from it, is the highest form of abdicating any responsibility for all that has gone wrong, refusing to understand where we went awry, and still hoping that the mistakes of yesteryear miraculously won’t be repeated. It’s an attempt to course correct without correcting anything. It is essentially more of the same, and less of what you need more of.
And we are very skillful in this way, that is, in pretending that we actually have the answers to all our problems. But seldom do those answers revolve around rational and incremental paths to progress.
On the contrary, they always start and end with knee-jerk reactions and invasive ideas which seek to destroy what exists in favour of something that does not.
Our problem has never been that the system needed replacing. It is that we don’t have the patience to commit to the work and effort required to bring about the change we want to see in ourselves and our country.
We seek to upend everything because it’s easier to look forward to something new than look back at something ugly that was of our own making. It’s easier to forget the past than to accept it and acknowledge our role in it. And certainly, it’s easier to promise to the public a new beginning rather than looking in the mirror, admitting to our colossal mistakes, assuming responsibility for those mistakes, suffering the consequences of it, and then making the painstaking effort to actually correct them.
It’s just easier, less of a hassle, and plainly more convenient, and that is why we prioritise revolutionary changes over incremental progress, because, let’s face it, in revolutionary changes, the past becomes irrelevant, and so does any accountability for it.
The writer is a Karachi-based lawyer.
X: @basilnabi
Published in Dawn, July 27th, 2024
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