Manufacturing Zombies

By Waseem Altaf

Writ­ing text­books for stu­dents who are in a for­ma­tive stage of their lives is seri­ous busi­ness. Errors and omis­sions on the part of the writ­ers, due to igno­rance or self-com­pla­cen­cy, are par­don­able and can be cor­rect­ed. How­ev­er, when text­books are writ­ten with the express aim of mis­guid­ing pupils and indoc­tri­nat­ing adher­ence to the sta­tus quo — sup­port for the regime in pow­er, glo­ri­fi­ca­tion of war, self-right­eous­ness, hatred for oth­er reli­gious and eth­nic groups — it becomes a crim­i­nal act where an entire gen­er­a­tion is spoiled at the altar of vest­ed inter­ests of the pow­er­ful few. Fur­ther­more, the abil­i­ty to ask ques­tions, which lies at the core of the learn­ing process, is throt­tled by dis­cour­ag­ing stu­dents from chal­leng­ing dog­mas and con­ven­tion­al views. This strain of mali­cious intent is par­tic­u­lar­ly vis­i­ble in social sci­ences in Pak­istan where dis­in­for­ma­tion is delib­er­ate­ly dis­sem­i­nat­ed.

The entire process of writ­ing text­books is close­ly mon­i­tored by the state, where­by gov­ern­ment employ­ees write books that are approved by the Min­istry of Edu­ca­tion and then pub­lished by the Text­book Boards. Hence there is no room for any devi­a­tion from the ‘offi­cial ver­sion’. Dur­ing Zia’s 11 years of infamy, the name of Zul­fiqar Ali Bhut­to was omit­ted from the text­books, while the same texts were all praise for Zia, extolling him as a pious man cho­sen by God to make Pak­istan a fortress of Islam. Pak­istani text­books are also notably silent when it comes to the detri­men­tal aspects of mil­i­tary rule, although there is ample crit­i­cism of the demo­c­ra­t­ic sys­tem. There is vir­tu­al­ly no con­tent per­tain­ing to civic virtue and edu­ca­tion in democ­ra­cy.

There is also far more mate­r­i­al on the rea­sons and out­comes of wars with India than on the con­sti­tu­tion, issues of gov­er­nance, polit­i­cal econ­o­my, soci­ety and cul­ture. There seems to be an implic­it appre­ci­a­tion of vio­lence and wars as a means to resolve inter­na­tion­al issues, and the sig­nif­i­cance of nation­al secu­ri­ty and the piv­otal role of the armed forces is con­stant­ly high­light­ed.

India and the Con­gress are made syn­ony­mous with Hin­duism, where­as there is no men­tion of the fact that there are more Mus­lims in India than in Pak­istan and sev­en Pres­i­dents of the Indi­an Nation­al Con­gress were Mus­lims. Facts are also twist­ed about the Mutiny of 1857, which was an Indi­an war of inde­pen­dence rather than some sort of a ‘jihad’ under­tak­en by the Mus­lims alone.

The edu­ca­tion sys­tem as a whole dis­cour­ages crit­i­cal think­ing, since chal­leng­ing what is writ­ten in the text­books is not allowed. Instead, the main con­cern is for stu­dents to attain max­i­mum marks. Hence the teach­ers and pupils are pri­mar­i­ly focused on adopt­ing strate­gies which ensure high grades. Rote mem­o­riza­tion is one com­mon tool. Our stu­dents get so used to it that even while appear­ing for the CSS exam you find them mug­ging. The sit­u­a­tion is so grim even at uni­ver­si­ty lev­el that teach­ers who try to impart knowl­edge and invoke inde­pen­dent rea­son­ing are dis­liked by most of the stu­dents, while those who tell them which ques­tions to pre­pare for the exams (along with the answers) are the most revered ones. In South Pun­jab, uni­ver­si­ty teach­ers con­sid­ered going on strike when they were asked by the Vice Chan­cel­lor to con­duct research. ‘Notes’ are the most prized item and the com­mon denom­i­na­tor which binds all stake­hold­ers in the sys­tem of edu­ca­tion.

In the absence of cog­ni­tive devel­op­ment at the abstract lev­el, dog­mas and clichés are what we are left with to offer. When we fail to crit­i­cal­ly appre­ci­ate a phe­nom­e­na due to lack of an ade­quate rea­son­ing abil­i­ty we replace it with high sound­ing words, slo­gans, and boast­ful pre­ten­tions, that are total­ly devoid of any sub­stance. All this is couched in high emo­tion­al­i­ty, which fur­ther inca­pac­i­tates us to think crit­i­cal­ly. Hence we trans­form into liv­ing beings with lit­tle think­ing and high emo­tions.

And such indi­vid­u­als are the prod­uct our edu­ca­tion sys­tem is bestow­ing upon this nation. Just look at some mem­bers of our acad­e­mia, our men of let­ters, our politi­cians, our judges, our media per­sons, the gen­er­als and the mul­lahs, all weary of ratio­nal think­ing, not only charged with emo­tions but also dis­play­ing arro­gance and self-right­eous­ness. Intol­er­ance is the nat­ur­al con­se­quence which today is so per­va­sive in our soci­ety.

Schools are the nurs­ery of the nation, and as long as we do not replace the con­tents of our text­books by set­ting aside our vest­ed inter­ests, by being hon­est and truth­ful and por­tray­ing the facts and not con­coct­ed sto­ries, we will not be able to pro­duce use­ful mem­bers of civic soci­ety who are cre­ative, inno­v­a­tive and pro­duc­tive, with a sci­en­tif­ic approach towards their dis­ci­pline and towards life. How­ev­er if we fail, the alter­na­tive is too hor­ri­fy­ing to con­tem­plate in a soci­ety which is already breed­ing intol­er­ance at an alarm­ing rate.

(Waseem Altaf is a human rights activist.)

(Pub­lished in The Laal­tain — Issue 7)