Hopefully Pessimistic
Registered Member
Suprisingly, there's not much of a discussion on this topic in particular but I think recently it's a very important thing to discuss in terms of national security and long-term stability in Pakistan.
As we know, Pakistan is a very young country so in the grand scheme of things, it hasn't had much time to engage in nation-building as a collective but current day polarisation does point to a bleak picture of the results in terms of the efforts which were put in, and the polarisation it faces today.
I do want to put some ideas forward on Pakistani national identity and areas where I think it is fundamentally flawed & paradoxical.
The first, is the lingua franca and by extension the popular culture, mannerisms being mass adopted. Pakistan's purpose is to claim distinction, separation and sovereignty away from India, however it adopts the same language used in India which is Hindustani (both mutually intelligeble dialects of one-another) - over time this creates an assimiliation effect where instead of separation, it creates a converging identity/culture with India. This seems extremely counter-intuitive to the purpose of Pakistan claiming separation and claiming distinction.
Moving onto the ideological framework that the Pakistani identity confers onto its own population and the ideological bubble its institutions and strategic thinkers are guided by.
An ideology or national identity is meant to serve three main critical purposes for a nation:
1. Provide a distinct, cohesive, coherent & core identity base which the state is founded upon and can be used as a base to expand upon for the purpose of nation-building. Example: Turkish identity in Turkey.
This is extremely important to give you a sense of independent identity & belonging amongst the nations across the globe, and form the foundation of your worldview.
2. Provide mental/strategic clarity & direction in your worldview (both domestically and internationally). To prevent any harmful or flawed perceptions that create a warped worldview.
This is important because a warped or distorted worldview will lead to self-harming strategic policies at the state-level - both domestically & internationally.
3. Mass mobilisation of the masses towards a (beneficial) collective goal, short and long-term.
In this regard, Pakistan's ideology of ‘Muslim nationalism’ has been inherently flawed and failed to meet this criteria.
It is (1) incoherent and makes little sense, since it completely lacks any nativist or independent identity aspect, relying purely on religious identity, this is flawed as religions are simply not nations - especially not one as super large and diverse as Islam spanning continents. Bangladesh proved this. This tends to lead to confusion & identity crisis' because the population lacks a sense of identity or its own position amongst the world, creating a distorted worldview in reference to itself and others.
(2) Since your national existence is justified purely via religion, it empowers clerics and promotes extreme religious dogmatism and regressiveness because social authority of the state now lies in religious figures as that is what the identity is grounded in. This leads to extremism, regressive habits, and discourages smart and intelligent foreign policy, as it is all centred around "Muslim" (not an actual identity nationally or geopolitically as explained before).
And (3) it fails to address or coherrntly confront domestic ethno-nationalistic issues as the population is now indoctrinated in the masses to view everyone and anyone as their "brothers" and create a strategic confusion between friend and foe. This creates a perpetual limbo of the people & state constantly remaining in confusion about everything as they are not grounded in any sense of identity.
So analytically, it seems more like it systematically indoctrinates you into a deeply flawed and self-destructive worldview that causes an identity crisis & confusion and opens the door to regressive religious dogmatism.
It does seem like these flaws have been major reasons for the failure of nation-building - due to it lacking a nativist foundation to expand upon, and due to religious dogmatism dominating public thought due to state-down indoctrination.
All of this compounded, today it is facing implosion as the religious indoctrination collapses and nothing exists beneath the surface to give it an independent nativist identity that can guide its national interests or strategic policies.
@_NOBODY_ @hussain0216 @Distant_Observer
As we know, Pakistan is a very young country so in the grand scheme of things, it hasn't had much time to engage in nation-building as a collective but current day polarisation does point to a bleak picture of the results in terms of the efforts which were put in, and the polarisation it faces today.
I do want to put some ideas forward on Pakistani national identity and areas where I think it is fundamentally flawed & paradoxical.
The first, is the lingua franca and by extension the popular culture, mannerisms being mass adopted. Pakistan's purpose is to claim distinction, separation and sovereignty away from India, however it adopts the same language used in India which is Hindustani (both mutually intelligeble dialects of one-another) - over time this creates an assimiliation effect where instead of separation, it creates a converging identity/culture with India. This seems extremely counter-intuitive to the purpose of Pakistan claiming separation and claiming distinction.
Moving onto the ideological framework that the Pakistani identity confers onto its own population and the ideological bubble its institutions and strategic thinkers are guided by.
An ideology or national identity is meant to serve three main critical purposes for a nation:
1. Provide a distinct, cohesive, coherent & core identity base which the state is founded upon and can be used as a base to expand upon for the purpose of nation-building. Example: Turkish identity in Turkey.
This is extremely important to give you a sense of independent identity & belonging amongst the nations across the globe, and form the foundation of your worldview.
2. Provide mental/strategic clarity & direction in your worldview (both domestically and internationally). To prevent any harmful or flawed perceptions that create a warped worldview.
This is important because a warped or distorted worldview will lead to self-harming strategic policies at the state-level - both domestically & internationally.
3. Mass mobilisation of the masses towards a (beneficial) collective goal, short and long-term.
In this regard, Pakistan's ideology of ‘Muslim nationalism’ has been inherently flawed and failed to meet this criteria.
It is (1) incoherent and makes little sense, since it completely lacks any nativist or independent identity aspect, relying purely on religious identity, this is flawed as religions are simply not nations - especially not one as super large and diverse as Islam spanning continents. Bangladesh proved this. This tends to lead to confusion & identity crisis' because the population lacks a sense of identity or its own position amongst the world, creating a distorted worldview in reference to itself and others.
(2) Since your national existence is justified purely via religion, it empowers clerics and promotes extreme religious dogmatism and regressiveness because social authority of the state now lies in religious figures as that is what the identity is grounded in. This leads to extremism, regressive habits, and discourages smart and intelligent foreign policy, as it is all centred around "Muslim" (not an actual identity nationally or geopolitically as explained before).
And (3) it fails to address or coherrntly confront domestic ethno-nationalistic issues as the population is now indoctrinated in the masses to view everyone and anyone as their "brothers" and create a strategic confusion between friend and foe. This creates a perpetual limbo of the people & state constantly remaining in confusion about everything as they are not grounded in any sense of identity.
So analytically, it seems more like it systematically indoctrinates you into a deeply flawed and self-destructive worldview that causes an identity crisis & confusion and opens the door to regressive religious dogmatism.
It does seem like these flaws have been major reasons for the failure of nation-building - due to it lacking a nativist foundation to expand upon, and due to religious dogmatism dominating public thought due to state-down indoctrination.
All of this compounded, today it is facing implosion as the religious indoctrination collapses and nothing exists beneath the surface to give it an independent nativist identity that can guide its national interests or strategic policies.
@_NOBODY_ @hussain0216 @Distant_Observer
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