Societal collapse

Fish starts to rot from the head, so do societies and nations. History tells us roughly about the rise and fall of nations and societal collapse of great empires, but that does not mean it is going to repeat itself exactly in the case of societies undergoing similar disintegration and eventual collapse, though it tends to rhyme. There are instructions in these situations for those who would care to heed their lessons.

History is witness to the fact that societal collapse occurs when leaders undermine social contracts. Whether societies are ruled by ruthless dictators or more well-meaning representatives, they fall apart in time, with different degrees of severity. However, societal collapse occurs over centuries as can be seen in the collapse of the empires like the Roman, Athenian, Mughal, Ottoman, Ming and many others. Therefore, it is mind boggling to see the evidence of societal collapse in a young and ideological state like Pakistan within a short span of 75 years only.

It is now an established consensus among thinkers and scholars around the world that societal collapse occurs when leaders of the society undermine and break from upholding core societal principles, morals and ideals. The potential for failure is generally caused by an internal factor that is manageable if properly anticipated. The inexplicable failure of the principal leadership to uphold values and norms that guide the actions of good governance followed by a subsequent loss of citizen’s confidence in the leadership and government that leads to the breakdown of the social contract and inevitable societal collapse.

A common factor in the collapse of societies with good governance is that leaders abandon the society’s founding principles and ignore their roles as moral guides for their people. In a good governance society a moral leader is one who upholds the core principles and ethos and creeds and values of the overall society. Most societies have some kind of social contract, whether written or not, and if you have a leader who breaks those principles, then people lose trust, diminish their willingness to pay taxes, move away, or take other steps that undercut the fiscal health of the polity.

This pattern of amoral leaders destabilising their societies goes way back. The Roman emperor Commodus inherited a state with economic and military instability, and he didn’t rise to the occasion; instead, he was more interested in performing as a gladiator and identifying himself with Hercules. These patterns can be seen today in many countries including Pakistan, as corrupt or inept leaders threaten the core principles, stability of the places they govern. All democratic nations today are experiencing mounting inequality, concentration of political power, tax evasion, hollow bureaucratic institutions, diminishing infrastructure, and declining public services. A majority of thinkers and scholars agree on reflecting on the process by which society as a whole is reconciling with the inevitability of a discontinuous future, as our institutions and life support systems are undermined by a combination of resource depletion, catastrophic climate change and political impotence.

It is generally agreed that there are roughly five stages of societal collapse. The first, financial collapse, is when faith in “business as usual” is lost. The future is no longer assumed to resemble the past in any way. Financial institutions become insolvent, savings are wiped out, and access to capital is lost. Then there is commercial collapse, when faith in “the market shall provide” mantra is lost. Money is devalued or becomes scarce, commodities are hoarded, import and retail chains break down and widespread shortages of survival necessities become the norm. Political collapse happens when Faith in “the government will take care of you” is lost. As official attempts to mitigate widespread loss of access to basic necessities fail to make a difference, the political establishment loses legitimacy and relevance. Social collapse, on the other hand, happens when faith in “your people will take care of you” is lost. As local social institutions, be they charities, community organizations, or others run out of resources, or fail because of internal conflict. And lastly, cultural collapse is when Faith in the goodness of humanity is lost. People lose their capacity for kindness, generosity, consideration, affection, honesty, hospitality, compassion, charity. Families disband and compete as individuals for scarce resources.

Pakistan is on the precipice of enormous financial and economic change and it does not seem to be a change for the good. Misallocated resources are about to be exposed as we sink deeper into the economic hole. The purging of these mistakes will be painful, and can create new wars, as politicians attempt to deflect blame. They may end up changing the political form of government. The corrosive nature of politics and government has destroyed economy, as well as citizens’ moral fibre. These issues are not insurmountable, but are very close to being so. Their ramifications are potentially existential in nature.

In order to save ourselves from a societal collapse, we need to arrest the direction of decline in Pakistan. The national ethos needs to be nurtured in every individual in Pakistan. However, before nurturing it and inculcating it, it is important to identify and define what our national ethos is. An ethos is a set of beliefs, values, feelings, spirit and principles common to a people. Therefore, an ethos is not innate, but is taught, made widely known, practiced, praised, repeated and continually improved. Ethos are models and ways of life in which children are socialised and to which the collective belongs.

National ethos is exemplary and promotes excellence and the pursuit of excellence by one and all for the good of the collective. Children should grow up witnessing hard work being rewarded; knowing playing by the rules signifies civilised behaviour; that crime does not pay; justice rides the long road, but eventually arrives; and a hard won reputation, if abused, will fly away. National ethos is essentially aspirational and if we do not work hard for it together as one, it will elude us, like it has for the past 75 years. Today, we see Pakistan grappling with ethnic antagonism, lack of national ethos, inclusivity and devolution; divisive elections, absence of security and safety, corruption, non-existent shared prosperity and responsibility. Pakistan’s motto and national anthem should form our ethos.

What does it mean for Pakistan when even after 75 years of independence we have failed to clearly define our collective national ethos? Why is it that we keep changing the order of the words in our motto, keep assigning our own interpretations to what the flag represents, and above all changing the very name of the country? We have yet to determine what form of political governance is best for us, despite the Quaid’s clear guidance and the 1973 Constitution.

The Quaid taught us that the country’s resources belonged to all. But where are we today? Practicing the philosophy that public resources exist to be plundered by those in authority. I firmly believe that Pakistan’s elections are neither divisive nor violent. It is the politicians’ strategies that are divisive. It is the politicians, not the electorate, who see elections as a zero-sum game

Our curse is our selfish and powerful politicians, pressure groups and other stakeholders who have corrupted and polluted what could have been our national ethos and policy priorities. The constitution is no more sacrosanct and is used as a crucial tool for political engineering. What needs fixing in Pakistan is its politics, and it can only be fixed by collective participation of all. The country needs inclusion, not exclusion. Political exclusivists need to be marginalised if we are ever to develop an identifiable national ethos leading us to Unity, Faith and Discipline – the golden principles and foundation of a strong nation.

The writer is a former Ambassador to China, the EU and Ireland