From a Country to a Nation

From a Country to a Nation By Mr. Naeem Mohammad The idea that a country and a nation can be born in a day might be strange but it is not new; after all it is mentioned in the Old Testament. The twentieth century provides us with many examples of cartographic births of nations; a line is drawn on a map by those who have special powers to draw such lines and lo and behold we have a new “nation” and country. To me it seems that where ever such lines were drawn, a new country may have come into existence but not a new nation perhaps. The birth of a nation takes more than a day. There are many definitions of nationhood and one interesting one comes from Joseph E Renan, a 19th century French philosopher. In his discourse titled ‘What is a nation?’ (I would recommend it to everyone) published in 1882, he came up with some rather refreshing ideas. He wrote; “A nation is a soul, a spiritual principle. Two things, which in truth are but one, constitute this soul or spiritual principle. One is in the past, the other in the present. One is the possession in common of a rich legacy of memories and the other is the actual consent, the desire to live together, the will to continue the heritage that one has received in a continuum (alt. in an unbroken manner).” And further; “(To) Have common glories in the past, a common will in the present, have done great things together, wanting to do it again, these are the essential conditions for being a people.” (Trans. from ‘What is a nation?’ Renan 1882) It may be highly debatable as to how much of a ‘rich legacy of memories’ we have in common or how strong is our desire to live together in a country called Pakistan but one thing is certain to me; at this point in time, the alternative to living together is like the proverbial grass on the other side. The last 65 years have not generated the kind of 'rich legacy' of memories and desires for the ruled classes of Pakistan that we might consider worth cherishing and passing on to posterity. Our rulers have tried to get round the problem by concocting history but as is natural, the shiny enamel of lies soon wears off and our children grow up and realise one day that they have been brought up on a toxic diet of false memories and desires. In this day and age it is becoming harder and harder to lie. Our shared history of the last 65 years has been a relentless continuum of dictatorships interspersed with experiments in democracy during which, we have had corrupt rule by a small number of mostly non-tax paying families who live above and beyond the dictates of the constitution and the law. All this makes our school history books more useful as sleeves for the sellers of roasted chick peas rather than a true source of shared memories and desires. Renan is perhaps most famous for his assertion that a nation is ‘un plebiscite de tous les jours’ (trans. a daily plebiscite). This to me is the yardstick that every nation must be measured against. A daily plebiscite of the last five years will bring us in close contact with a rather stinging but obvious reality; we may have suffered relentless hardship and daily indignity but our suffering has not brought us closer as a people as Renan proposes. We have simply suffered un-fruitfully. In my life time, Pakistan has never been home to more violence, greed, lawlessness, corruption, VIPism and educational and social poverty, incompetence and a callous disregard for fair play, than it has in the last five years of democracy. Our daily plebiscite is a screaming indictment of the abject failure of our rulers (in almost all areas of governance) and of the failed custodians of morality who make us pray harder to get rid of problems. Unpalatable as it may be, we Pakistanis have to ask if we have right to be called a nation because at the point in time we do not behave or look like a nation. We cannot seem to agree on what to ‘forget’ and what to ‘remember’ as a people, a vital concept in Renan's view to make a nation. Jinnah said in the address to the Constituent Assembly in 1947; “If you will work in co-operation, forgetting the past, burying the hatchet, you are bound to succeed. If you change your past and work together in a spirit that every one of you, no matter to what community he belongs, no matter what relations he had with you in the past, no matter what is his colour, caste or creed, is first, second and last a citizen of this State with equal rights, privileges, and obligations, there will be no end to the progress you will make. I cannot emphasize it too much.” In short forgetting is as important as remembering, we just have to be very savvy in our choices. ‘Our desire to live together’ is perhaps overwhelmed by our desire for short term gain as an ethnic, social, familial, regional or religious group. Our choices and voting patterns are enslaved by the irrationality of our unexamined political and social allegiances and yet we talk about Pakistan as if we are talking of a nation. Jinnah’s job was to give us a road map which he did brilliantly but did we as a people continue on this journey towards nationhood? I do not know. This is a question we must ask in every school, college and university in Pakistan and let our young people come to their own conclusions. This is a time for our youth to speak their mind in order to protect their future. No nation is born with a natural and inalienable right to exist; this is the stark lesson that history teaches us. Nations have come and gone; today we read about them in history books – there is nothing unusual about the death of a nation. No matter how much we would like to delude ourselves, the grim reaper of nations is out there, delivering death to all those ‘nations’ that cannot behave like one. To state the obvious, a country does not make a nation; it is the shared values of the people that turn a country into a nation. The best test of a nation’s durability to me is its response to adversity and injustice. We as a country and as a ‘nation’ have had more than our fair share of adversity and injustice – the most recent one being the Badami Bagh incident. So how did it come to pass that the possessions and houses of a highly marginalised minority were set alight by a crazed mob of fanatics merely on the basis of a rumour or allegation? Why were the poor people of our society turning on the even poorer? If you look at the footage, you will notice a much larger crowd watching this orgy of inexplicable madness but did nothing to intervene or raise their voice in protest or disapproval. The Police, impotent and helpless, did nothing to stop this collective act of hatred and lawlessness. The price of the social, economic and emotion destruction of a Pakistani’s life was fixed at Rs. 200K and a couple of new walls by the CM of Punjab! As usual the more important question about what kind of shared values do we really possess, got buried under a huge pile of politics, accusations, condemnations, prayers, lies and the usual screeches of disavowal. Pakistan today is heading towards that very modern test of nationhood; elections – our luxurious once-in-five year plebiscite to decide where we want to go as a ‘nation’ and as a people. Whilst the media in Pakistan has yet to be elevated to sainthood (except PTV perhaps!), we can generally assume that people have a fairly good idea about what their Parliament and rulers have and have not delivered. Looking at our own lives we are able to judge the magnitude and degree of deterioration or amelioration for ourselves. There is however a much more important matter we must consider; how much closer have we moved in the last five years towards our shared ideals of justice, equality, merit and respect for the life and property of every Pakistani. To be called a nation we must behave like a nation; this always easier said than done. These elections will test our collective intelligence and our will to send those to the Parliament, who pay their taxes, obey the laws and who consider themselves accountable for all their actions and inactions. On the 23 of March, 2013, a historic gathering will take place at the iconic Minar-e-Pakistan, Lahore. For the first time in the history of Pakistan, 80,000 elected office holders of PTI will make a promise to the people of Pakistan, witnessed by possibly the largest crowd ever gathered at the site, that they will to do everything in their power to set Pakistan on the long and difficult course towards nationhood. Pakistan will get a chance to meet all those who are a part of our shared dream of political representation with taxation and on merit; we are on the verge of making our first credible attempt at stopping our inexorable slide towards national self-annihilation. I am looking forward to the 23rd of March, I hope it will be the day when we will realise as a country; this is the time to speak if we are ever to command the kind of self-respect and dignity we desire and deserve as nation, a people and a country.