By Sardar Khan Niazi
Pakistan is a developing country. It has faced multiple crises ranging from political and economic turmoil to natural disasters and discontinuity in the governments. These factors have badly hampered the national development objectives.
Although the successive governments implemented initiatives to improve things, several challenges remain unaddressed due to political polarization, discontinuity of policies as well as differences in priorities of the ruling elites.
It is a good omen that Diamond Jubilee Celebrations put a positive impact on politicians from both the treasury and the opposition benches and they vowed to set aside their political differences for the greater interest of the country.
Both sides counseled the national leadership to forge unity to cope with current challenges and move forward for a bright future for Pakistan by reviewing past mistakes. The statements of the political leaders from both the ruling as well as the opposition parties indicate some level of unity. It may guarantee the execution of solutions over time.
Pursuing a separate agenda may be the professional duty of all political leaders, but it must not hurt the national interest. Being representatives of millions of people, they must tell them about the purpose of the creation of Pakistan. Political parties do indeed shape public opinion.
National unity is an important part of modern governance. Lack of unity slows down national integration and undermines national development. Our country appears to be in the trap created by this phenomenon. It is therefore important to discuss the issues with a view to finding solutions to the problem of national unity.
The importance of national unity in a modern nation-state is obvious; it makes the arrival at a national consensus much easier and much faster which in turn accelerates the rate of development of the nation. National unity allows political leaders to harvest citizens’ commitment and contribution to nation-building and national development.
National unity is one of the most effective ways of preventing internal conflicts that can ditch the resources of the nation and disrupt its development. It needs an investment of national resources to secure and promote it.
Almost every modern nation-state struggles with its own national unity. The United States of America, for example, is one of the most diverse nations and has over the 200 years of its existence tried to forge national unity even though it has achieved tremendous gains, it is still a work in progress.
Similarly, the nations of Europe have struggled within themselves and between themselves to build their national unity over time. Europe has achieved a particular feat over time in not only keeping the different nation states united but also forging unity among European nations in forming the European Union; all these in spite of the diversity in Europe.
One major problem we have around our national unity and cohesion in this country is that even the discussion by the educated on the subject shows ignorance and emotions than knowledge. We also have to avoid confusing unity with uniformity; we do not have to be uniform to achieve unity.
We must make the discussion on national unity to be an informed one, based on pure facts; or else, surprisingly we can find ourselves caught in the information flow of the deaf, where no one comprehends the other. We are not sure when this ignorance took over the mind of the nation.
If knowledgeable persons remain silent, they cause a lot of damage to society. Those who know nothing of the subject under discussion but start talking with certainty cause more damage. Therefore, for the betterment of the country, the knowledgeable ones must speak up and those who are completely ignorant must not talk at all.
