DARWIN AND PAKISTAN
A few years ago, I had the chance to read Darwin’s book , “The Origin of Species through Natural Selection”. Darwin was a great scientist, a very consistent worker and a thorough researcher. However, his book was not an easy reading. Darwin wrote things in a roundabout way, perhaps his research demanded that. In comparison Barak Obama in his “Audacity of Hope” is very readable. Now what I gathered from Darwin’s rather intractable writing is that there can be two ways in which species develop. The first method is Natural Selection which has been going on for millions of years and takes place all the time in nature and which makes a loin what it is. The other is the Artificial Selection which we human beings have imposed on ourselves and our domestic animals for the sake of economics, aesthetics and lastly politics. It is this mode that has made a buffalo a stupid, defenseless animal entirely dependent on human beings but with a huge disproportionate udder entirely dedicated to the production of milk for the economic benefit of human beings. The same goes for the beautiful flowers and fruits that are produced for enjoyment. Unwittingly, this process has been used in politics with very far reaching implications. Politics has caused wars and wars. In battles almost invariably one side prevails over the other. The defeated side loses brave men and only coward and slave minded survive. Therefore, according to Darwin’s hypothesis, in every battle, the vanquished side becomes richer in weak and slave genes. The more a tribe or a specie of human beings gets defeated the more slavish genes predominate in it.
Now the area of Indus basin which now forms the most of Pakistan, has been regularly invaded since time immemorial by Arians, Greeks, Mongols, and others. Every time brave men of this region were lost, but the coward and the weak survived. In this way the gene pool of this region became richer in the weak and slavish genes. The extent of weakness of the genes can be judged from the fact that at the time of independence, all of United Subcontinent’s 170 million people were slaves of only about 17000 white men! Now, compare this to South Africa. The black Africans were so ferocious that in order to control two Africans one white man was needed. For this reason there are 30% whites as against 70% blacks in South Africa.
Now this is what I would call the Political Artificial Selection. Systematic decimation of strong ferocious genes in wars and occupations in this region which is now Pakistan, has produced “slaves” among human beings. People of our region are weak both physically as well mentally. I would not be very much off the mark if I claim that people of Pakistan have an Intelligence Quotient less than the world average. This amply reflects through our National Literacy Rate.
Having said this, what are the symptoms of this trauma? The greatest symptom of this centuries old trauma is the obedience. People of our country pay unquestioned obedience to religious and semi religious entities like Mullahs and Peers. They are serfs to big landlords. Even our political Parties exhibit this slavery while all the time pandering about Democracy. All five major Political Parties are headed by unelected dynastic strong men, while the lower cadres act as their serfs, sycophants or unpaid employees. Last but not the least, our Constitution, which is perhaps the most defective document in the history of Political Science, condones this slavery via 18th Amendment. It gives the dynastic unelected strongman precedence over the elected representatives. The strongman can even de-seat an elected Prime Minister if he so desires. And this was supposed to be a consensus amendment. Consensus on sycophancy!
With this genetic trauma, what future holds for us in Pakistan. Here in Pakistan, a female cat has the liberty to mate with the strongest tom cat. But the women of our country do not have the privilege to marry the best person they like on merits. They are doomed to marry their mostly unsuited and quite often physically and mentally unfit cousins. This “captive sex” and the resulting inbreeding, is reinforcing the weakening of our genes. Pakistan is fast becoming country of mentally retarded and diabetic people. Surely, a sick Nation with slavish leaders is not going to fare well in the comity of Nations. Even now the competitiveness of our people in diverse fields ranging from business to sports is quite low among the nations of the world. With a poor genetic pool, Pakistan has a precarious future.
The recent uprisings in middle eastern counties have given rise to the speculations about a similar uprising and a possible popular revolution in Pakistan. In view of foregoing, the possibility of popular revolution in Pakistan is almost zero. Poor genetic constitution of our people has made them fatalists. Almost all of our people are resigned to their fate and have not much energy to create a change. A very wrong interpretation of our religion by the religious elite in collusion with the ruling clique has given a boost to this fatalism. “Religion is the opiate of masses”, this saying of the communist era is most appropriate for Pakistan.
Both old and recent history of the world suggests that revolutions have always been created by people who have been ferocious warriors. The French have a long history of wars and conquests. Iranians, at the height of their power, had conquered and destroyed Athens. What is now Tunis was Carthage in the dark ages. They too, had conquered Roman Empire once under the leadership of Hannibal. But no Pathan, Punjabi, Sindhi or Balochi has ever set foot on any foreign land as a conqueror. We have always gone to other lands as slaves and workers and this continues till now. Our people do not have ferocious conqueror genes. If they ever had, they have long been attenuated by political artificial gene selection.
This is a very disturbing picture of our region. Can this genetic trauma be healed? Obviously, an injury that has been inflicted over the millenia is not going to heal in days. So there is no short term solution to this genetic malady. The only solution is the long term solution. That too, is again offered by none other than the often ridiculed scientist, that is Darwin. This injury can again be healed by what was termed by Darwin as the Natural Selection. Survival of the fittest, in common words. For a country this means implementation of true and strict merit in all walks of life. True justice is natural justice. For our survival as a self sufficient, honorable and decent people, we shall have to swallow this bitter pill offered by Charles Darwin.
