A university hall filled with bored students jostle restlessly as a speaker rambles on about a certain something. Maybe one of them decides to pay a little attention only to zone out again. The speaker delivers those same ten lines on that same clichéd issue Pakistan is facing. With much fervor he conjures up big difficult words, a little emotion to back it up, a joke here and a comic touch there. With another cliché he concludes his speech, receives his applause and feeling proud goes about his way.
Maybe it was one of those interactive sessions or another youth speaking conference, nobody could really tell the difference A group of students who probably thought that this was too much intellectualism for the day decide to leave as well. The learning capital they obtained today was, apparently, that the biggest problem Pakistan was facing was that of a lack of education and the solution was that the government should take better measures.
The speaker himself (God bless his ingenuity) had highlighted the issue and had provided such a conclusive solution by blaming the government, now who would’ve ever thought of that? The speaker coming next took the mantle and started some gibberish on individuality, Pakistan, education, “government bohat kharab hay…” etc. etc. For all we know, he told the audience “how profound the satire is in the photosynthesis of gender equality, something something…” So we all, probably, are well aware of the problems befalling us.
We’ve heard them a million times. A shallow browse of television and you see a myriad of talk shows, all talking about those same issues but no one really talking about the solutions. It’s a full circle of madness, divulging deep in problems, creating new ones, highlight fresh ones just for the sake of argument, thinking we’re moving forwards only to realize that the trajectory is that of a circle. The result? After decades, we’re still at square one thinking that the first step to solving a problem is to identify it.
All I see around me are people complaining and only few actually taking progressive steps. I think high time we changed the gear and move on from identifying the problems and start working on the solutions. So who has the solutions? Why does no one talk about the solutions? Why are all the solutions vague generic statements? How do we work on obtaining the solutions? When do we stop ranting on about how there are so many problems and start solving them? Why does none of the journalists or talk shows give productive and realizable solutions and only slave for ratings? As food for thought let’s start thinking over these questions and be intelligent thinkers rather than self pitying complainers.
