the news: The writer has taught international relations and diplomacy at Boston University and at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and was the vice chancellor of LUMS.
The challenges that Pakistan faces are all too real. These pages are, in fact, an unending litany of all that is not going right in Pakistan. Indeed, our greatest challenge is to reverse the immense negative trends that glare us in the face. But it is also important to recognise, celebrate and encourage the trends that are progressing in the right direction. Arguably, the key to achieving the former lies – at least, partially – in whether we can progressively invest in the latter.
In this spirit of identifying positive trends that have the potential for large-scale and long-term societal improvement, let me offer five examples of things going right in Pakistan. This is neither a comprehensive offering, nor presented in any particular order. My list emanates from the belief that a failure today to recognise that which is good – even when less than perfect – will condemn us tomorrow to lamenting the unfulfilled potential of the same. And that would be a terrible waste.
A giving people. In the year 2000, a landmark study by the Pakistan Centre for Philanthropy (PCP) discovered that twice as much money was contributed annually by private philanthropy in Pakistan as the then total foreign assistance. In 2006, my book ‘Pakistanis in America: Portrait of a Giving Community’ estimated that the giving and volunteerism by the Pakistani diaspora in the US is worth more than a billion US dollars. My own recent experience at the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) has reaffirmed and reinforced my faith in Pakistanis as a giving people.
Despite a deep cynicism that pervades our societal persona, acts of generosity and giving are abundant all around us, at all times, in all forms, and at all scales. Our giving may not be particularly well-organised, it may be more directed at individuals than institutions, and you may often hear complaints of how it is used, but the undeniable fact is that we are a giving people. Not just the most affluent amongst us, but all. Importantly, in the absence of a formal social security apparatus, private giving acts as a social safety net for many. Across the country, the sufaid-poshi (middle class façade) of so many is maintained by acts of personal giving without which our social landscape would be even more fractured than it is.
Categories: Asia