Food for thought

The pro Taliban apologists are at it flooding the social media as usual with videos and edited photos trying to justify Army Public School massacre and tragedy. Coming up with conspiracy theories.
What a shame!
Deflection and propaganda is in full swing.
"This can't be Musalman, foreigners are behind it, foreigners dresssed as Pakistanis". "This is an attempt to make Taliban look bad!" Really!
Instead of focusing on the victims they are finding excuses for Taliban's murderous actions. 
If this tragedy doesn't shake some sense into our heads then we are truly a dead and doomed nation. Nobody else is responsible for our downfall but us. We are our own worst enemy...looking for short cut to heaven and trying to find nirvana through some twisted ideology. A eutopian Islamic society where all will be well... you are thinking of heaven my friends. ..this is earth.
There are good social welfare and just societies on this planet but none of them is in an Islamic country, they are all Secular states, where we all run for refuge when things go wrong in our countries.
I wonder how those countries achieved that peace and prosperity? Seperation of Church and state and freedom of religion. People can practice their faith without fear of persecution in those countries. Yes, everything is not perfect there, but people can raise their children and live in peace. 

"If only there was Islami Hakoumat all will be well" , is the mantra that I hear from Pakistanis ..that is the dream the nation has been dreaming. As if just by implementing strict Islamic laws somehow all of the problems that Pakistan faces will vanish by magic! Poof! Gone!
Not so. Sorry to break it to you but you are all living in a fools paradise high on the LSD of Wahabism. Strict Islamic laws didn't change the morality of the Arabs, or did it? Unless your moral compass is right, unless you become good human beings, no law will fix anything.
Change comes from within. Morality and values have to change at an individual level to see a change in the society as a whole. There are no short cuts, plain old honest and sincere hard work that makes nations great. Honesty my friends is still the best policy. Be honest to yourselves, be honest in your dealings and live and let live. Speak the truth, call a killer a killer and a victim victim. Don't twist facts to fit your own narrative. Don't lie to yourself and others.
Right is right and wrong is wrong.
Killing unarmed human beings no matter how Holy your cause is wrong and unacceptable.
Violent ideologies usually meet a violent end.
Hopefully Talibanization's end is near....maybe.........?

Tunnel Vision

The world has become a Global village. It is more interconnected then ever, thanks to internet, social media and telecommunications revolution. 

More and more students travel abroad for higher education and specialized training in their fields. We interface with more people from different religious, social and cultural backgrounds. What happens in one part of the world has repercussions in the rest of the world too. 

Keeping that Multicultural and Multiethnic and interconnected World in view, look at what KPK Govt is doing to the school's curriculum . They are reverting it back to the older version (2002) and taking any references to other religions or cultures out of the text books. They are  removing chapters about Raja Dahir, Ranjit Singh and any symbolism or symbols of religions other then Islam. 

People of other religions live in Pakistan even if it is a Muslim majority country and they are also Pakistani citizens. Do they have any rights in Pakistan? People of religions other then Islam inhabit the globe. Shouldn't our children be aware and educated about those religions and cultures as well, considering that we live in a global village?

Instead of looking forward and moving forward we are reverting back to an older curriculum on the behest of Jamat e Islami. Why does JI being a minority in the Provincial Government get to impose it's will and agenda on the majority? Since it's inception the JI has been trying to bring about an "Islamic Revolution' and their version of "Islami hakoumat."  In order to do that they need to cultivate a certain mind set among the supple minded youth of Pakistan and for that they have always been trying to dictate what needs to be taught in the school. Even now they are taking advantage of the precarious position of PTI Govt which needs JI to stay in power and are railroading their agenda through. 

Previous provincial Govt of ANP tried to bring the schools' s curriculum up to date and tried to get rid of the Jihadi propaganda  from the school books that was incorporated in 2002 to create a mindset in the youth...to be more accepting of the Militaristic Jihadi ideology promoted during those days and to have a crop of willing partners and indoctrinated kids as fodder for the Jihadi movement. 

Pakistan is still harvesting the crop of that poisonous ideology of sectarianism, violence in the name of religion, intolernce and bigotry. Recent incident of murder of a young Christian couple by a bigoted closed minded racist mob is an example of what happens when you preach intolerance and don't teach tolerance and co existence. When you teach them only one way and that their way is the right way and everyone and everything else is wrong, you are creating "US" and the "OTHER". You are drawing lines and divisions...You are painting a black and white picture of the world, when that is not so...there are shades of grey.  

When we make omissions in history we are not giving them a complete and honest picture of the facts...then we are cheating our kids and we are lying to them, we are teaching them lies. People learn lessons from history but when the history is distorted then we don't get to learn any real lessons from history and that is why we end up making mistakes. In todays world our children need to have a multifaceted broad based education. They need to be educated about the rest of the world's cultures, history and religion. We need children and youth having the ability of critical thinking. And we need strong human beings that are able to make good choices. If we don't give them options how will they learn to make choices and life is all about making the right choices. When we restrict their education we are limiting their horizon and their ability to think.

Our culture cultivates obedience. We never encourage our children to ask questions. We order them and accept them to obey. We are afraid of them thinking for themselves as they might challenge the authority. ( That might be parents, teachers or a Mullah) 

We are afraid to learn about other faiths and cultures for fear that it might affect our faith. We feel that if we teach the kids all inclusive history they will rebel against their culture and their religion...but strong people are the ones who when offered choices are still able to make the right choice. Strong faith is when there is sin all around you and yet you refuse to sin. Faith is when you are surrounded by people of other faiths yet you still stick to your own. 

If we want to have good educated citizens we need to give them the skills of critical thinking. And critical thinking comes with the ability to critique and that comes with choices. When we just teach them one thing to the exclusion of everything else we are handicapping our kids.  We give them TUNNEL vision not BROAD HORIZONS.

 We want them to see and understand only one thing, our ideology and our way of thinking. That is indoctrination, not an education. These kids will struggle to understand the real world. They are ill equipped and handicapped to deal with a multicultural, multiethnic world with diversity of political and religious thought. It is better to expose our children to multiculturalism while they are studying in schools. That way when they face the real world they know how to navigate that world and be able to better engage with the rest of the world.  We need to equip them to be successful engaged global citizens by educating them about other cultures, religions and world history. 

 We can't build walls around us and live in isolation in this ever inter connected world even if we wanted to.

Selective, narrow education not broad based all inclusive education will produce narrow minded bigoted people. 

A smart nation is an educated nation. We need critical thinkers not followers who are good at rote and nothing else. Our education system is producing pen pushing clerks not visionaries. No wonder there is dearth of good leadership in Pakistan. 

We fear that ability to think might lead to challenging of status quo, undermining authority and change... some people can't have that.  They want followers who obey orders of Imam and Amir, not ones who question. But by doing so they are cutting their own roots and handicapping themselves because in the end there will be no leaders or visionaries or thinkers coming out of this narrow minded limited propaganda that we call an education. That is not good for anyone and not good for the country. We need a progressive all inclusive syllabus. 

We spoon feed our youth, we don't let them think for themselves and when faced with choices in real life they involute or get confused and go astray. They look for help from an elder, a leader, a hero or a master. They wait to be led, they don't know how to problem solve and they don't know how to take their destiny in their own hands. They don't know how to take initiative because we didn't give them that ability...we made them obedient followers not leaders.

Do we want to produce leaders or followers, do we want to produce visionaries or pen pushing clerks? The choice is ours and it all depends on how we educate our kids.  Our children need broad horizons not tunnel vision.