‘Isms’ have done more harm than good.
The world is divided into two major blocks professing capitalism and communism, the supporters of free and state enterprise respectively. Politically nationalism holds the sway. Economic and political antagonism (isms) have split the world into two hostile blocks madly engaged in Arms Race. The future of mankind appears bleak and uncertain.
‘Isms’ stand for particular economic or political ideas, creeds or philosophy. They have divided the human race instead of bringing it closer and together. History witnesses how mighty kings and dictators ruled with rod and the sword. A time came when the empires were broken and divided into subkingdoms and states. The Greeks and the Romans were split up into city-states.
The mighty Islamic empire built by the great Farooq-i-Azam disintegrated and the Islamic Brotherhood was divided into separate units on a regional basis transcending all ties of religion and common language. The recent developments in Western Europe and the USSR also support the same facts. Ethnic forces have resulted in new type of regionalism based on pull and push theory.
Regasialim can be defined as divisions within a state driving their lifeblood from ethnic and sectarian differences. When pushed too far, it tantamounts to states within the state. Regionalism in any form is a curse for it cuts against the basic national unity.
Pakistan that was conceived and achieved on the basis of religious ideology (Islam), is under the growing grip of regionalism. It was extreme regionalism based on Bengals that broke the country. The worst aspect of the narrow loyalties (regionalism) is that it carries the seeds of disintegration and secession in it. [the_ad id=”17141″]
In Pakistan regionalism has infested all the walks of life. It walks in the offices, in business organizations and public life. It stalks in the examination centers, creeps into the assessment of copies, spills over seats of justice and boosts up politics. In elections generally, votes are cast on regional basis.- It has destroyed the very idea of the Islamic Brotherhood.
Your ears ring with regional dialogues and talks on buses, trains planes and the public places. Colonies, shops and transport services bear regional nomenclatures. It is regionalism that has resulted in so many ethnic clashes and loss of innocent lives and public property.
Regionalism has destroyed peace and discipline in the educational institutions and the centers of learning, the universities. Educational institutions are supposed to be the repositories of national heritage and culture. College unions have become hotbeds of regional grouping instead of imparting training in Partimentry disciplines.
The worst effects of the regionalism are seen in the organization and working of the political parties. It has strangled the mother party, the Muslim League that won Independence and freedom for the Indian Muslims. Outwardly the new parties pose to be national, but inwardly they derive their strength from regional and ethnic affiliations. Even the shrines, the mosques are built and run on regional groupings.
One institution, the army has wiped from the scourge. The soldiers’ ideal is: Do and die. A soldier dies so that his country may live. God may bless our Army! Only restoration of Islamic values, the revival of Islamic? brotherhood; love for the country and sense of duty can build up, preserve and save Pakistan. Let us love Pakistan and live and die for the country. The revival of the national heritage can bury regionalism.
