The Conflict Between What It Is and What It Should Be..

The Conflict Between What It Is and What It Should Be..

The day Pakistan came into being as an Islamic Republic on the 14th of August 1947, the country has been undergoing a state of transition. The society of Pakistan is dynamic and therefore it is ever changing. Its patterns are transforming from time to time. No department of life – be it economic, cultural, religious or recreational – has been free from the effect of this great transformation in progress.

If I talk about my society, consider the sorry state of our morals where even the day designated to express love for the Prophet turns into an occasion for  looting, burning and killing. The natural disasters that have occurred in our country have not brought in any sort of changes in our humanity but in fact we've become more professional buglers. There is a common thread in all these behaviors that we have. Our notions of right and wrong have been scrambled long time ago. Our moral clock is set at a different time and we've lost social order. We are in a state of confusion about values and ethics. Therefore its true that we lack the ability to control our society's reactions towards the change, we've forgotten the difference between what is right and what is wrong.

 We describe ourselves through different tags ('shia' 'sunni' 'villager' country man' 'modern' 'paindu'), its a shame to say, but we're not united. The sectarian differences are very much prevalent in our society, every individual in the society considers himself to be on the top. Shia sunni conflicts, conflicts to earn better, conflicts arising on something that's superior. To say it in a nutshell we've become more of the materialistic nature, we believe material things will lead us to the top. Material aspects of culture are its technology, instruments of economic production, consumption and household goods. Non-material are beliefs, values, norms, laws, symbols, religion, literature, arts and folklore, and morals. For example, a car is an item of material culture but it carries with it non-material norms of driving skills, traffic rules and ethics of road behaviour. Pakistan’s traffic chaos is a symptom of its lagging non-material culture.

Socially and morally, we're not the nation that we were in the past, For example Pakistan is no-more an agricultural country. We have become an urban country with most of our population living in the urban areas.  Pakistan has taken to material modernization readily. The cellphone culture has boasted in the past few years. The households in villages are now laden up with the high tech technological items such as TV's, DVDs etc. 

However after all the changes, we're still the same. The human nature hasn't changed to a positive side but a negative one.  In times of rapid cultural and social change, the balance between material and non-material aspects of culture is breaking down. Here lies the dilemma:  Pakistan’s material culture is modernising but becoming more extremists which is against islamic values. The result is that the values and norms that we adopt, offer little guidance leading us to  a state of moral conflict. This situation yields in a cultural shock drowning the values of Pakistani society. 

This situation is indeed very disturbing and solid steps need to be implemented on a regular basis by our government to preserve Pakistan’s cultural and moral values. And chalk out the reasons that are creating confusions and disparity among the people.  

 Author: Nabeeha Gazelle Amer