"Accept!"

I shall refer to the “forecasts” about the next twenty years posted earlier in this newsletter. Needless to say, they are not “visions” (I consider myself to be a very unlikely candidate to any such power) but are based on my reading of history – and reading of history is all that I’ve been doing for several years now:

• 2008-10: Disenchantment with the West
• 2010-16: Isolation (and possibly a conflict)
• 2017-26: Crisis of federation
• 2026-27: Emergence of inherent unity

By “crisis of federation” I imply possibility of two things. Firstly, it seems likely that the issue of Taliban may suddenly be over for Pakistan around that time. Secondly, what we need to watch out is that this change doesn’t come in a package with break-up of Pakistan, especially the loss of Balochistan and NWFP. Such a thing, if it happens, can cause unnecessary loss of life and property – I say “unnecessary” because it is SELF-EVIDENT that even if (God forbid) Pakistan breaks up around that time, the four provinces will be reunited c.2027.

That final emergence of inherent unity 18 years from now is an INEVITABLE. I hope to be able to explain my reasoning in more detail soon, but what is more urgent and important is that whatever happens until then is in our own hands. We need to understand those factors of our society which are shaping history and which are unknown to the so-called academia and the so-called social scientist.

We need to ACCEPT; accept our mistakes as well as achievements, and that is not the same thing as accepting mistakes we didn’t commit and boasting about stuff that is the opposite of achievement. That is what we have been doing most of the time since 1953.

As suggested in the previous post, the idea of Pakistan was consensus-seeking, and consensus was needed because the collective ego – “the spirit of all human beings” – was not just a philosophical notion to our founding fathers but was something to be achieved in real. What is this collective ego and how do we achieve it? To understand that, we need to revisit four Sufi stories in the light of Iqbal’s thought:

1. Conference of the Birds
2. Arabian Nights
3. Layla Majnun
4. The Tale of Four Dervishes