Dual shades of darkness

Ignorance and inability come together to create much of the misery that constitutes the lives of people all across the country. The two fan together, creating a shield that is hard to break through.
Lack of education contributes to poverty and the inability to gain upward mobility. But our system also delivers education of such poor quality that most of those who complete primary, secondary or higher education still remain essentially completely ignorant about many of the factors that most influence their lives.
Healthcare is an example. In most cases the patients who pour into government hospitals or other facilities lack the knowledge to understand what is being delivered to them, and of course in our culture are never encouraged to ask questions.
We have women suffering, for example, from gallbladder problems delivered a whole range of medicines none of which are likely to help the basic condition. And of course injections are a favourite among patients, and it seems physicians as well, based on the flawed premise that they are somehow more effective than medicine consumed orally. This opens up its own dangers given the risks posed by re-used syringes and problems linked to poorly stored injections.
The issue spills over into many other areas of life. Beyond the conventional healthcare system lies the realm of ‘pirs’, faith healers and quacks disguised as doctors. For most in the country, these are the people they turn to when in need of help. Their potions or their prayers can have only limited impact and to make matters still worse, we appear in some cases to have transferred these persons onto the television channels from where they mete out the same medieval ignorance to larger audiences, badly misguiding them and in some cases possibly preventing them from seeking the kind of care that could genuinely help them.
This is downright dangerous. It is something the broadcast media needs to unite against and demonstrate its responsibility. So far, just the opposite appears to be happening.
We hear from Kerala, the Indian state which almost miraculously has a literacy rate of over 90 percent, of how just this learning has immensely improved the quality of life for people, and especially for women who are able to take control over their own reproductive health and the health of their children by questioning doctors and carefully reading labels before they consume the tablets or syrups dished out to them. This can bring huge benefits into households. Those benefits are denied to most of our people who spend a large percentage of their lives worrying over concerns related to daily living and healthcare.
The problem runs deeper. Widespread advertising campaigns mean that people have come to believe that purchasing a fancy phone, a tablet or other electronic device matters more than putting nutritious meals on family tables. The manner in which people spend their limited incomes would make for a fascinating study.
Consumerism has taken over to a greater and greater extent and this continues to be driven forward ruthlessly. The idea that carbonated beverages or other foods flashed across television screens are somehow good for people or provide energy is widely promoted. Most believe it. In contrast, traditional foods which do have huge benefits including items sold on the roads such as sweet potato or gram are simply not considered something worth purchasing for children or the family.
Studies need to be carried out to determine to what degree ignorance, promoted by misinformation, plays a part in depriving children of the nutrition they require in a country where malnutrition rates climb by the day and medical studies report huge deficits of essential vitamins and minerals in the majority of children and young adults.
Ironically enough, in education too this plays a part in leading us towards disaster. The flawed belief that children need to be pushed towards the sciences has brought doom to many families. So has the desperate bid to deliver to them an education in computer technology. These realms do not always lead to jobs and jobs are urgently required almost everywhere across the country.
We need to look at the problem in a far broader frame. In nations around the world, a deliberate effort has been made to bring general awareness and education into the lives of people. In Honduras and other Latin American countries this has been done by teaching schoolchildren about the immense significance of safe drinking water for health. We have conducted some campaigns, but the sporadic and generally inconsistent nature of these means the message has not been delivered home.
We also do not use our school system to effectively deliver messages about other simply measures that could help save lives and keep families safe. Health programmes in Indian schools played a part in that country’s defeat of polio. India was officially declared polio free in early 2014 after remaining free of the disease for three years before this. the feat is an immense one in a country of that size and scale, and looms even larger when we look at it from our own perspective with over 300 cases – about 80 percent of the world’s total – reported from Pakistan alone last year.
Clearly then what people are taught in schools and through community centres, which in our country would mean mosques, clinics and hospitals, can play a very important role in the way they live and what their future holds for them. We need to clarify misperceptions that exist regarding health, eating, education and a great deal else. We have not really endeavoured to do this.
Around us, other nations have moved ahead. We need to ask why this is the case. Are we essentially indifferent to the plight of our people? Do we not care if they live or die, starve or survive? Develop their capacities or fail to do so? Certainly this appears to be the case. We have not built on the potential we possess and have allowed the bulk of our population to slip into greater and greater darkness. Yes, poverty will take time to be eliminated. But ignorance is perhaps something that can be challenged more rapidly. The fact that we have not attempted this is terrifying.
Governments need to ask how they can set about this task. It is not an especially high profile one. Certainly, it does not show up as clearly on maps and on pictures as the massive road building projects underway in Lahore. The fact that these projects serve few people and inflict huge damage on the environment and the city seems irrelevant to our rulers.
It would arguably be far more useful to work on improving the facilities within a group of selected government hospitals. The service this would offer people could be groundbreaking. But such initiatives, such as those in other areas of social life, require far greater effort and far greater commitment.
We appear to lack the zeal necessary to genuinely attempt to improve the plight of people rather than simply putting on a big show without examining precisely what is happening within homes and how this is affecting people in so many different ways. The exercise is one we urgently need to undertake at various levels so we can better understand the kinds of lives people lead and what their problems consist of so that we can move more effectively towards resolving these.
The writer is a freelance columnist and former newspaper editor.
Email: kamilahyat@hotmail.com