Pakistan at its 100th.

After the inception of Pakistan since 1947, it has gone through many ups and downs. What the founding father of Pakistan envisioned it never came true. Though Pakistan was a country of emerging firm economy in the 60s, it didn’t remain so.  

In the comity of nations, Pakistan never get ahead of the political roughness, and its dwindling economy never got on track again. Pakistan survived with 23 bailouts of the IMF, it is a record that goes to Pakistan. 

Besides, Pakistan remained a vulnerable entity since its independence. The abject economic, political, and sometimes religious extremities, added with wars against India and wars on terror, made the country a sink estate. But, here comes the hopes and aspirations of the people of Pakistan. Pakistan is not a land of terror, as it seems apparently to be so. If there exists terror to tear Pakistan apart, there also exist a force patriotic enough to stitch it again. The debri of evil in the shape of Taliban which was created by the US took almost 20 years for the state of Pakistan to be cleaned, but it still demands more sacrifices. We stand here in 21st century showing the world that Pakistan is a hard country. If Pakistan can sacrifice more than 80,000 lives and billion of dollars of its revenue to get its peace back than it can also make its mark in any field of the life.

Again, Pakistan is not barren but it is a country fertile enough to produce people like Dr. Abdul Salam, Edhi, Malala Yousofzai, Arfa Karim, and much more. Pakistan might be a country with a lot of issues but it is also a country with a lot of opportunities. The people of Pakistan are still faithful enough to encounter the challenges which are ahead. Many people are suggesting Pakistan to be a failure state but it is imperative to note that the world can’t afford to make Pakistan a failure state. Pakistan is a country of diverse ethnicities, and a land where civilizations like the Indus valley civilization once flourished. Pakistan is a country with hopes, struggles, heroism, and aspirations. Let see what Pakistan might look like on its 100th birthday anniversary. What is there for Pakistan in the coming 2047. 

All the youth aspirations of the state of Pakistan has been rested on the pillars of its economy. Without economic prosperity there is nothing like social development. Economy of a country mostly depends on the total number of exports. If the economy has a variety of goods in its export list it can sustain itself in the long run. Pakistan being an agricultural country never have a diverse net of exports. Pakistan is a young country with an average age of 27, so Pakistan has been a hub of the labor market. If this youthfulnes of the country is not utilized by the proper economic activities , it shall then turn into a force of proper destruction. The European countries are getting older so what is expected from Pakistan is its labor force. But to remind you where the world is heading. Its the age of Artificial intelligence not of industrial revolution. If there was an industrial revolution taking place on this planet then the youthfulnes of a country has been counted.

Fortunately or unfortunately, the world is entering into the age of robotics and deep learning. Moreover, machines are much efficient than humans to do any kind of work. It is not far from now that the data age is leaving a class of non-useful humans behind in the coming few decades. It is quite imperative to say that we need technologies and innovations to continue to exist. The diversification of an economy means generating wealth from a variety of economic activities, that includes large scale set up of industry to locally produced goods to meet the country’s demand and to cut short the import bills.

Tourism can be another aspect of generating foreign exchange. Local tourism adds not much to the economy, it is foreign tourists who add to foreign reserves. Pakistan has variates of  tourism that includes natural tourism, culture tourism, religious tourism, and historical tourism. Only the Northern areas of Pakistan has the potential to produce double the income from tourism as compared to Switzerland, but it must be considered likewise. From Buddhist stuppas, forts, mosques, temples, and ruins of Mohenjo-Daro to the terrains of Balochistan, the plains of Punjab, the desert of Sindhs, the grasslands of Kashmir, and mountains of Northern areas, everything is here in a single time and space. The most interesting thing about Pakistan is its geography and natural resources. The geography of Pakistan almost and always sucks the world. Being located at the gate of the Middle East and governing the deep waters of the Arabian sea makes Pakistan a driver of modern politics and economy. The country to enjoy the Belt and Road initiative of China is Pakistan that is usually known as CPEC.

Further, Pakistan is the sole route for the landlocked country Afghanistan and it is abridging the distance between modern china and the Middle East. Pakistan has a pivotal role in Asia in regards to the connection of different countries and their trade routes. Pakistan has the shortest land distance to the central Asian countries and thus to Russia. The two tech giants( US and China) are best connected through Pakistan. Pakistan has humangous natural resources which includes coal, limestone, copper, and other non-metals. A proper economic planning towards a sustainable economic future powered by a will and faith is needed now. 

Secondly, the pressing point is education. Before the pandemic, it was all going classically. The huge impact of the pandemic on the education system is obvious, and for a country like Pakistan is disastrous. 

Schooling in Pakistan is the most impoverished segment of society. Pakistan spend less than 2 percent of its GDP on education. Very few, fortunately, perceive higher education. There are more than 32,000 madrassas operational now in Pakistan, but the dilemma is the outdated syllabus which mainly contains religious education. The education in Pakistan is no way near to the international standardized education. In the last 70 years of Pakistan, it could not able to produce a single institution in the field of modern Sceinces. Apart from the sole name of Dr. Adul Salam, there was not a single fave Pakistani scientist. Almost all educational institutes in Pakistan encourage rote memorization, and a rat race of scoring high marks in exams is on demand. Moreover, what the masses are consuming at a large level is the literature of disgusting and irrelevant things. Books on things like “genital organs”, “Bollywood-based love stories” and the like are consumed by the public at large.

To add on, the Pakistani population is still energized by stories of myths and miracles. Pakistan has a huge burden of feeding its immense population. As, Winston Churchill once said,” I hate Indians. They are beastly people with a beastly religion. The famine was their own fault for breeding like rabbits”. He was a beastly man with beastly notions towards the Indians. But he was right in claiming that ” Indians breed like rabbits”. Without proper renovation of these sunken education system, a nation like Pakistan has no future whatsoever. Civilized nationals are the ones with a good life philosophy. We’re a morally degraded society, to uplift ourselves we need not only sound education of modern technologies, but we direly need a good philosophy of life. To add on, there are few institutions in Pakistan which offer a good quality educational and technical facilities. In addition to that, the future of Pakistan in terms of modern education is not gleaming. But, proper renovation of existing policies can get us something fruitful.

The international community has always or will always support Pakistan because they can’t afford Pakistan being a nuclear country to fail. When asked about the future of Pakistan Stephen Copenhagen puts these words forward ” Pakistan is Nigeria without oil. Pakistan, in the long run, needs a trade from its allies, not aid for sure. Thereafter, comes the world of technology and to attain any kind of glory in this world a non-conventional mindset is thus needed. As Richard Feynman puts” I think it is more interesting to live with”not knowing” than to have answers which might be wrong. Pakistan is a state without a vision and this sucks. As a nation, Pakistan has the wrong answers to many issues. The disease of cult worshipping and religious bigotry is drowning Pakistan from all sides.

Here in Pakistan, everyone seems to be in authority and they’re keen to make a two inches mosque every now and then. The unequal distribution of resources results in unequal distribution of power, which ultimately ends with chaos and destruction. Pakistan is a hub of international terrorism, it has remained the largest terrorists producing country from a decade now. Having a population of 1.3 billion Muslims around the globe and not contributing to the modern sciences and technologies is a sheer shame. There are only two Muslim scientists(one is Ahmedi who can’t be considered a Muslim as per the law of Pakistan) who were awarded the nobel prizes. And this is the sole contribution of Muslims to unveil the mysteries of the universe. Almost 1/6th of the world population is thinking to become the Artugruls in the age of the metaverse and on the other hand, modern humans are discussing new ways to colonise this universe. With proper vision and organized efforts towards a common goal of the common good is the only tool to curb a future with promise. As far as Pakistan is concerned, it won’t be going anywhere on its 100th birthday anniversary. There is nothing promising from the lense of this particular writer for these coming few decades because he thinks living with uncertainty is better than to have answers which might be wrong.