A way out of the woods

The writer is a freelance columnist
and former newspaper editor.
It may go unnoticed. Only some of it is reported, but we do have a great deal of pioneering work taking place in our country – often taken on by young people, sometimes working against all odds. We also have an astonishing amount of talent, which seems to simply melt away perhaps because it is not properly harnessed and utilised in any meaningful fashion.
This is something we need to consider so we can assess how we can bring efforts together and utilise all that for our future. Our failing is that we too often tend to undermine people who achieve, pull them down, in some kind of national trait involving jealousy and a desire not to allow others to move forward. This could finally be our undoing. We do not like to see success in other places.
Let’s take just a few stories from the past few months. In Sindh, a handicapped 14-year-old, Aansoo Kohli, from an underprivileged, low caste Hindu family has been honoured by the Malala Fund and was invited to New York for the premiere on the life of Malala by the Malala Fund for her work in opening up schools in her village near Umerkot, one of the most deprived areas of Sindh. Aansoo’s efforts have mobilised the community in her area to promote education, especially for girls, and won support from the Sindh government.
There are other people as brave as her. Far away in Swat, Hadiqa Bashir, only 13 years old, has won the Muhammad Ali Humanitarian Award, given by the centre set up by ex-boxer Muhammad Ali and his wife Lonni for work in the area of human rights, for her activities to prevent child marriage and raise awareness against the practice.
In the Swat area, the marriage of very young girls is not uncommon and Hadiqa has been able to conduct a door-to-door campaign to speak against it while also bringing together girls and families to explain why it must be avoided. It is strange that in some ways we first heard of her work at a wider level through the international media rather than our own.
There are other high achievers. Shah Mir Aizaz, an ‘O’ Levels student, won second prize at the annual Nasa design competition, competing against thousands of young people from all across the world. The Pakistan U-19 English language debating team reached the semi-finals at the World Schools Debating Championship in Singapore and was honoured as the best team competing from a country where English is a second language.
There are others. We hear of some; we never hear of the rest. There are probably dozens, perhaps hundreds of stories out there that do not get told. We need to look out for these stories and weave them together to build a new tapestry against which our life can continue. The one we have right now is a drab one; we have tarnished it with blood and with a sense of despair that has dulled its colours. We possess a great deal of talent that can put those colours back in our lives.
The challenge is to discover talent, not to stomp it down, and instead build on it so that it can be used to better the fate of our country. To achieve this successfully, we also need not only to honour those who work in their communities, at whatever level they are able to do so, but also keep at home those with the highest skill and educational attainments who attempted to move abroad and take with them what they could give their country. This drain has over the years been an enormous one. It is one of the reasons we today struggle to find competent people to fill important niches in almost every sphere.
Yet the abilities are there. What we need to do is cross class barriers and find ways of inducting those not educated at elite schools into our system. There is no reason at all to undermine the thinking power and ability of these people. Plenty of them, such as Aansoo, Malala and others have demonstrated the extent of their ability to achieve. We need to get past the barriers we have set up ourselves by putting language or family connections as a key priority when choosing people for leadership roles and instead set up other criteria.
We must draw in people from the mass bulk of society that lives almost unseen in our country. Yes, an occasional headline is made, but then it fades away once again into oblivion. The darkness needs to be lifted and the amazing resilience and courage of ordinary people recognised. This courage is the hallmark of our people and the basis on which our nation is in so many ways built. It is the only reason we are able to survive.
Many small achievements and acts carried out in cities, towns and hamlets across our country are never recognised. We do not even know about them. But in the small, remote villages, people talk of the villager who offers others help in whatever way he can. Of the teenager who helps the disabled. There are many stories. We need to discover them and put them together to make some kind of whole. By doing so, we will also discover our nation is essentially a good one; it is filled with good people and they outnumber the bad who of course also exist among us.
The important thing is to find these people and draw them into positions where they can make a difference. Various individuals have attempted to at their own level. We had the commissioner in Jhang who did so much to eradicate corruption; we have policemen who do really care, even if their efforts are lost among the general incompetence and inadequacies of police and we have doctors, teachers, medical students and social activists everywhere keen to make a difference.
The fact that they include so many young people offers us hope. The question is whether we can build on this hope and utilise it before it dissipates; fades away like a vapour blown apart by fierce winds. There is now less and less time to lose. We have already waited too long. We must act quickly and put together the good so that it can form a whole.
At the moment, it is too scattered and perhaps too little known. Only the occasional story is heard now and then, but we do know that much more beyond these stories is taking place in villages, in towns and in cities. There are many who act quietly and anonymously to try and benefit others.
Essentially, we are a nation of caring people – with some exceptions, of course. We need to bring together this sense of humanity so that a difference is made. It has been too many years since we saw it in action. But when disaster strikes, as it did in Kashmir in 2004, we saw extraordinary acts of courage from very ordinary people. Yes, some were disorganised, some were ill advised. But the motive behind them was good. These acts are a reminder of what we can achieve, and of the need to move swiftly towards this cause.
Email: kamilahyat@hotmail.com