Question Of The Day: Can We Disagree Without Being Disagreebale?

Adil Najam comes up with some pertinent observations as always:

Are we Pakistanis, as a nation, capable of decent civil discourse? Are we capable of honestly disagreeing with each other without becoming disagreeable? Are we able to partake in a honest discussion without getting our own egos offended and without getting down to marna maraana? Why must our anger trump everything else? If, in fact, we have trained ourselves to repel discussion and discourse and seek solutions rooted in violence – either physical or verbal – then how can we aspire for true democracy?

True, like this, we can’t even harbor hopes of sham democracy let alone true democracy. I’d tend to think this tendency to be uncivil and crude in our manners when disagreeing results from many things. In part, its a product of decades of neglect by the hierarchy. Corruption, unemployment, poverty, illiteracy, these are just some of the problems that successive leaders of this country have ave only claimed to solve or improve. Over a period of years, the holistic effect this has had on us is that of making us quite temperamental, even volatile as times. Another thing which is responsible for our low tolerance levels is sense of unparalleled self-righteousness, a general pre-disposition that our and only our views alone are right. Adil sahab comes to more or less the some conclusions as well:

The point is deeper. Why are we so angry and what does it mean to our collective national future? One could argue that part of the anger comes from the institutional failures around us. Not getting and not expecting justice from the institutions around us, we choose to take things into our own hands. Not used to getting fairness from others, we are eager to assume that everyone will be unfair to us, unless we trump them by being even more unfair. Or, maybe, it is just because we grew up in a place with too much sun. Personally, I doubt if any of these explanations – particularly the last one – is totally valid. I cannot believe that it is “genetic” but I do fear that as a society we have now been trained to be this way and are in danger of seeing this perpetual anger as the norm rather than as an abberation.

If it is so, it is truly truly dangerous. Anger is never a solution. It can lead to horrendous injustices. If we look around us in society. On talk shows. In the daily newspaper headlines. In current events. In the baazar right before aaftari. I suspect you will find a lot of anger. Too much anger. Needless anger. Sometimes violent. Always distasteful. But you will also find a great acceptance of anger as the “normal” way of doing things. That is what is truly truly scary. There is nothing “normal” about the anger that surrounds us everywhere. Until and unless we accept that fact, we are unlikely to be able to do anything about it. And if we do not do something about it, only worse things will happen to us.

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