On failure: reply to Bilal Lakhani
On Failure!
Bilal Lakhani wrote a poignant and painful piece on how we failed
our forefathers.
His questioning has been visited by abuse and derision. He has
been accused of being unpatriotic, pessimistic and even worse un-Pakistani. I
share the pain of youth crying out for answers.
Pakistani youth like youth everywhere wants to achieve,
compete, and prove themselves worthy of being global citizens. Unfortunately,
they find that channels, forums and institutions to foster their ambitions missing.
Bilal is correct, raising questions asking for a debate is
not condemning Pakistan. The strength of advanced societies is their ability to
foster debate even on uncomfortable issues. The long and emotional debate on
civil rights did much to mend the race problem in the US. Critics from within
like Noam Chomsky, Bertrand Russell, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Emile Zola have evolved
society in a better direction. Such thinking should be fostered and intelligently
debated.
Pakistan reacts emotionally to the word “failure”. So let us
stay away from it. But no one can say we have no problems with terrorism, poor
governance, corruption, crony capitalism, violence, sectarianism, poverty and
many, many other social and economic problems. Any one growing up in this
environment is likely to feel sad and lose hope.
What do we offer youth? Ill though out inventive packages where
they have to show guarantors and invest money in highly risky environment with
a high cost of doing business. Surely that is window dressing.
What does youth need? The Greeks had it figured out. Why
can’t we? Youth is full of vitality. They need to compete. They need
challenges: the Golden Fleece, 7 labors etc. They do not want handouts. They
want to show themselves worthy.
Following the Greeks today in the world, youth is offered
many more challenges not just in sports but in academics, entrepreneurship,
trading etc. Examples of Bill Gates, Steve
Jobs etc. are well known. These young
adventurers gave us so much. How did that happen? It was a combination of first
rate universities, generously endowed by both state and business, an open
society which cherished eccentricity, a vibrant, agile market and dense,
diverse cities.
Gone are the days of rigid hierarchical societies where age
and rank was respected. In all countries the average age of leaders in all
fields from academics to presidents is dropping. Obama had become president
when he was 47.
The key word here is “merit”. Modern day society has
mimicked ancient Greece and Rome again and rediscovered merit. Whether you
compete in a tournament or in the market place or even in a corporation, age
and family do not matter. Ability and merit is all that counts.
Modern society is also much flatter than traditional
society. Protocol and hierarchies have been discovered to be shields against
merit and ideas. There talented young people do not have to waste their youth
waiting to grow old, lose their vitality to be heard or given responsibility.
What frustrates youth here is the lack of opening which a
merit and competition allows. Government dominates market and society stifling
merit and all good things. Government is organized for power and privilege and
not merit and service delivery. It is hierarchical and totally no merit. All it
can do is offer youth these ill-thought out non-workable incentive schemes.
The poor quality of governance has also created a rent
seeking private sector that is opposed to merit and competition. Here monopolies
hide behind SROs and government enforced cartels. Here entrepreneurship is made
well-nigh impossible.
We need a large and long reform effort to restructure and
reform government, private sector and society.
The Framework for Economic Growth at the Planning Commission developed
the beginnings of such a reform effort in 2011. It envisaged reform of for
quality governance, vibrant markets, creative cities and youthful communities. Sooner
rather than later we should start taking such reform seriously so that the
reform to bring merit and competition into the system is put in place.
Reform efforts in most countries follow ideas that thought
leaders have developed and debated. Most societies have forums such as think
tanks, research universities, and professional associations that facilitate discussion
and debate on the future. These are generously funded by the government and the
private sector. Why both these would rent
seeking agencies fund change here? We have seen their unimaginative, hierarchical
attempts at development and progress which have only laid the foundation for
fundamentalism.
Unfortunately, our leadership both government and private
sector would rather spend all their time getting GSP+ rather than engage in domestic
reform. Their priority is to preserve the current stifling system.
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