Divided Youth

    Image Courtesy of David Wells

    Image courtesy of Agence France Press

Divided Youth

by 

Habib Hassan

The youth plays an essential role in the development of nations. Whether it was the Pakistan movement or the recent Arab spring, history has witnessed the undeniable role of youth. Today’s youths are the future assets of a country. Every revolution in the world was initiated by youths and succeeded due to their crucial role and undertaking. Young adult populations are thought to be a very valuable natural resource, countries which are  richer in this resourse changed the very fate of nations like China and Japan. 


The country from which we belong to is Pakistan. Our youth population ranging between 15-24 years of age is 36 million (UNDP) but the literacy rate of our youth is 53% and female youth is 42%, though but we don’t have any latest figures as the census, for certain obvious reasons, has not been conducted since 1998.


Our dear homeland Pakistan has a youth of 50 million aged 15-24. We have God gifted Human resources and  if we are able to utilize them with proper polices then we will bear more bargaining clout in front of Arab Sheiks and US policy makers alike. Drone attacks are being conducted against us despite clear rules sert out and sanctioned by the UN. 


The question remains from 1947 till 2012 which concrete steps has the government undertaken to utilize this most valuable resource? The dismal answer is: NONE. The sad fact is that politicians divided, ruled and conquered our youth. They ruled, are ruling and will be ruling over us. They divided us along sectarian lines into Punjabis, Sindhis, Paskhtoon, Balouchis and Kashmiris. They divided us between mediums of education. Within and between Madrasas. Between Madrasa students and  government school students, between public and private sector students, Matriculation students and A-level students. 


Consequently, with the passage of time, a different mind-set emerges amongst our youth. Youth belonging to different systems are not ready to accept the so-called "others". We are never taught and treated anywhere as "Pakistanis" but are labelled, from the onset, according to the above stated artificially erected systems just for the sake of divide, rule and conquer. 

Now is the time for our youth to come forward, get united and say goodbye to all the corrupt politicians, bureaucrats and Mafias, who don’t even hesitate to wave their corrupt wands in Hajj operations. It is high time to eradicate all those systems which divided, ruled and conquered over us. Systems that did not give us an opportunity to play a crucial role in the development of this country. Even after gaining independence from the British Raj and Hindus in 1947 we are still intellectual slaves. 


We can’t afford such intellectual slavery and dirty politics by pitiful politicians anymore, otherwise we will be another Afghanistan, Somalia and Ethiopia of the face of this planet. We have to now forget from which ethnic, religious group, education system and province we belong to and everyone must raise the slogan of ‘Pakistan first’ before any other. For this purpose we must support everybody who listens to us and is ready to give equal rights to all. We need "statesmen" and not "puppet politicians". I remain quite confident by now that the savvy youth of Pakistan know very well the distinction between "pitiful politicians" and "real statesmen".

Habib Hassan passionately raises a clarion call for youth mobilisation and requests us all to crush the superficial self-imposed, suffocating, sectarian, separatist and segregating  limitations based on class and cleavages. His call to unison and youth-led initiatives are inspiring and insightful. Renaissance as a movement believes that the world has no more place for racial differences and religious bigotry. Habib`s interests include politics, poetry, culture, social welfare and the now burgeoning sector of Islamic finance, a topic which he has chosen to do his Thesis on.