Author: Ardeshir Cowasjee
Publication: The Asian Age
Date: November 30, 2000
No one denies that the bigots in
Pakistan outstrip by far the educated. No government since: the government
of the founder of the nation has acknowledged the fact that the educated
have a natural ascendancy over the bigots and that therefore something
has to be done to eradicate the dangerous deficit.
This past month 'm the Islamic Republic
of Pakistan, the large majority of bigots have had a field day. They
killed a Shia because he was a Shia. They killed 10 Ahmedis because
they were Ahmedis; they orphaned 40 and injured 30. The government
of Pakistan, in its powerful wisdom has announced that the suspect is "the
hidden hand" of our traditional enemy. It goes-without saying that
this perennial ubiquitous "hidden hand" has never been found and chopped
off by any of our brilliant governments.
From the better educated of the
educated world, we and the government should learn. A recent issue
of the Journal of the Royal Society of Arts (London) carried the transcript
of a lecture given by Professor Bob Fryer, assistant vice-chancellor at
the University of Southampton. To. quote: "I sign up completely
to the government's slogan of 'education, education, education' and I admire
recent, initiatives. I make that clear because I want to say a few
critical things. My theme is the relationship between schooling and
lifelong learning, and while I believe wholeheartedly in the importance
of education I believe it is dangerous to assume ' that it can be the sole
or even the most effective tool of social change. It is wrong to
assume that there is a clear relationship between learning and happiness
or learning and work..."
Fryer talked about David Blunkett,
the blind British secretary of state for education, a man who had been
in the education field for years, having been allocated the education portfolio
in the shadow cabinet whilst the Labour Party was in Opposition.
His guide-dog, Lucy, a black Labrador, used be a great favourite in the
House of Commons. She retired honourably as an old lady not long
ago and has been replaced by a younger, more agile yellow labrador guide.
To quote Fryer on Blunkett: "David
Blunkett has a wonderful vision which he expressed in the Green Paper,
'The Learning Age', and which remains 'for me a benchmark against which
all initiatives need to be tested." In his foreword, the secretary of state
wrote : "We need the creativity, enterprise and scholarship of all our
people. As well as securing our economic future, learning has a wider
contribution. It helps make ours a civilised society, develops the
spiritual side of our lives and promotes active citizenship. Learning
enables people to play a full part in their community. It strengthens
the family, die neighbourhood, and consequently the nation. It helps
us fulfil our potential and opens doors to a love of music, art and literature,,
That is why we value learning for its own sake as well as for the equality
of opportunity it brings."
I cannot remember an official government
publication that was serious enough to capture the idea of spirituality
as well as creativity in the breadth of its compass. We need to remember
what Mr Blunkett said.
"Nearly eight million adults have
serious difficulties with the basic skills of literacy and numerically.
We have seven million adults with no qualification whatsoever and 35 per
cent of the work force has never been offered a single day's training.
There has been a welcome increase in learning. at work in the past
decade; the downside is that it goes mostly to professionals who are already
highly qualified. We have a widening gap in qualifications, achievement,
aspiration, an access to information in communications technology.
We have too many people who are indifferent or hostile to the opportunities
of learning."
A country with an almost 100 per
cent literacy rate has its problems. Naturally of a .different and
less menacing sort from those of a country such as this one with a true
literacy rate of some 20 per cent, with too many people aspiring to learn
and too few facilities for diem to learn,
Fryer maintains that there is a
huge gap between the educationally qualified and unqualified. His
question: What can schools do about this? His answer: "They are remarkable
resources and I would like to see them made community, centres of learning.
Schools are the most valued, accessible and ,safe places in most communities.
We nee d their buildings'. their equipment and their teachers to
be used and celebrated by everyone."
We in Pakistan need schools.
Period.
Musharraf took over this country
from a corrupt undisciplined man, a dangerous despot, who sought to become
the Shadow of God on Earth the Ameerul Momineen, by threatening to promulgate
his 15th constitutional amendment. Musharraf initially set out, so
he obliquely once informed us. to be another Ataturk. We saw
him relaxed and smiling, standing with his family and dogs. Soon
Ataturk was ditched and the dogs were removed from the public limelight.
For a few months I had quite a job convincing people that he is no relative
of Big Chief Wumilong Umboppa and that the dogs have not been eaten up.
Luckily and to my great relief, in his August interview on the BBC, when
asked a foolish question, about dogs being "anti-Islamic", he answered,
"Well I don't think dogs are anti-Islamic, certainly. I don't know
who called them anti-Islamic. Well, let me admit to you very frankly,
I love my dogs and my dogs love me also. It's a mutual love."
In April this year, he made noises
about introducing procedural safeguards against the application of the
highly controversial blasphemy laws. These were and are being, used
to incriminate innocent people. He was navigating soundly.
Then suddenly, under fundo-pressure, he retracted. Not even a weak
man likes a vacillating general.
The - most important problem that
Musharraf must address is that of an illiterate population explosion which
means an explosion of bigots. Each minute eight babies are born in
Pakistan, or 480 each hour, or 11,520 each day, or 4,204,000 each year.
Let us assume that infant mortality takes its toll. Even, then, at
the end of five years, the survivors, some three million-plus, would need
to find schools with places available. How does this government hope
to educate, in the true sense of the word, the coming generations and endow
them with free minds unless, as of now, it makes some move to contain the
obscurantists, the bigots?
Any suggestions? Will the educated
educate us?
(By arrangement with Dawn)
