Role of Education in the Rise of Civilizations – Shafiq Ahmad
Education is very vital for the rise and fall of any civilizations. During the pre-Islamic society, people were resistance to education and mostly illiterate which they did not able to cope with changing needs of that time. As a result the menace of vendetta, social evils like polygamy, polyandry besides, intolerance at peak.
On the other hand, with the dawn of Islam, it has created harmonious and humanistic society based on moral values and education. The importance of good manner and character are salient aspects of the Islamic civilizations. Undoubtedly, Prophet (saw) is placed at exalted place of morality in human history. Through education it is possible to ingrain tolerance and high moral characters in society. He was prophet (saw) wisdom and sagacity which he thoroughly transformed the whole Arabs Bedouins into a civilized community.
The dearth of knowledge society alongside meritocracy threaten any civilizations. Indeed, Islam has greatly encouraged meritocracy and literate society. Acquisition of knowledge is compulsion upon Muslim men and women as well. An enlightened society is superstructure and Islamic political system flourished with meritocracy and literate public opinions. As the state of Risat-E-Medina reflects modern statecraft, it had adopted political pluralism and civic engagement to frame balanced community.
However, Pakistan is lagging behind meritocracy alongside liberal public worldviews to relive long-lasting issues. Such backwardness is sabotaging democratic transformation in the country. Lack of civil society like trade unions, student unions besides, voluntary social works ethics are missing out to contain malpractices of the stakeholders. As a result, the role of dynastic politic is undermining human development in the country. Since 1947s, we have been seeing the nexus of military- bureaucratic -oligarchy running the state affairs without any solid structural reforms. But having vibrant civil society and public opinion influence policy and decision making in the country.
Pakistan is facing abject of poverty and minimal progress in human development. The heightened rate of mortality rate and less life expectancy indexes are revealing the low quality of our health system. Sound mind rest in sound body but such low health standard is challenging human security of our country. Also, women are the mainstay of any civilized society and in our case women comprise majority of our population’s .But the missing gap in gender role and responsibilities are not seriously addressed. Various reports like Global gender parity index of the World Economic Forum (WEF), Pakistan has not been able to hold high ranking since last many years.
The role of state institutions is also sine qua non to effect the rise and fall of culture and society. As the authors conceived the importance of inclusive and pluralistic institutions, these help to create prosperous and public friendly relations between state and the subject.Acemoglu and Robinsons, The rise and fall of Great Powers, elucidated consociational attitude in state institutions is vital to foster unity in diversity. Otherwise, chronic issues like extremism and upsurge of ethnic fault lines are happening owing to exclusive and extractive nature of state institutions.
However, state is just like a mother who care her offspring’s during odds time. But our state should need to show some shred responsibilities as a mother to protect and help the citizen of Pakistan. We have not framed bases for nations building .All mishap’s with us and our country is because of our non-seriousness of our leaderships as well as thrust for power politics. Indeed, realpolitik driven by greed and powers has caused political conflict in pakistan.Accoring to Muhammad Waseen, in his book, Political Conflicts in Pakistan, has depicted that political instability is the serious hurdles in our all other sector developments. Since long, Pakistan has not in position to effect political consciousness on important issues for the sake of harmonious nation building.
Yet, we have passed the last 75 years of Pakistan, now its raison detre to look after so basic but solid reform’s to contain political stability and consciousness in the country. However, there are some crucial recommendations to galvanize unanimous efforts in the country. First and foremost, all stakeholders should pursue electoral reforms and the result in post-elections should be fair and acceptable for all. Secondly, it’s also essential to confine nonpolitical forces, to its constitutional obligations. Last but not least, State should enforce the essence of the 18th amendment; implement empowered and an independent local government system in all federating units. Otherwise, the earth is tough and the sky is far and we will not able rescue the paralysis state.
Shafiq Ahmad
