Whom to Blame

Written on Feb 22nd, 2010

by

Sadaf Fayyaz

I found it very depressing and rather tragic on face book, some young new generation kids making fun of the great poet and philosopher Dr. Iqbal. It’s really is something very disgraceful and sorrowful for us to see what our new generation is learning. I grew up reading “Lab Pe Aati…” Most of his writings are devoted to revival of Islam and deliver this message very movingly in his poetical works too. The vision of having a segregated State for Indo Pak Muslims was first put by him in his Allahabad address. 

 

The ninth of November marks birth day of the great visionary leader Dr. Iqbal. I grew up reading his poems in my syllabus courses. I am staggered to see how kids of today know little of him, though they know a lot about action films and rumors. I would certainly not call it lack of knowledge, but fatal ignorance. I still can’t understand whose fault is this. Either the parents are to be blamed or is it an educational system that is not providing much knowledge to kids about their national heroes and leaders? 

 

I started a discussion on a discussion board and tried to find out opinions of different people on this issue. A friend of mine stated yesterday that two of his little seven-year old cousins didn’t know why it was a holiday yesterday? I replied that kids of seven could be forgiven, but not the ones in their teens or above. I checked the dates of birth of kids making fun of Iqbal’s poetry, and their age was in the range of 18-21. What do you think? This is a much grown up age and one must know well about his/her cultural norms and values. I am unable to explore who is at a bigger fault. It’s not that easy, parents put their kids in very good schools and think that some “Name Brand Tagging” would make their kids a better human being. 

 

The more disappointing part starts when I told them that these “SHER” are of Dr. Iqbal, even then they kept posting stupid and meaningless comments. They can be forgiven if they haven’t heard Iqbal’s poetry, but when they were told, couldn’t be forgiven. The purpose of this article is not to be against the new generation, parents’ training or educational systems, but to see where our new generation is moving. Those nations which keep their norms alive stay for centuries. “Education today has made the population how to read or write, but unable to teach what to read and write”. There was a girl who posted a “lol” comment on some inspirational verses from poems of Iqbal. She also said that she found Iqbal Day very funny. No one can spare even some foreign or Non-Pakistani kids on showing this kind of attitude. At least I wouldn’t. But such an attitude from Pakistani kids is highly unacceptable and traumatic. I wonder to see how educational systems are unable to teach a kid about country’s national history. How can this be possible? The same kid loves watching a film but ignores to watch a documentary on Allama Iqbal. An aunt of mine was complaining about her young kids to my mom, in fact, she happens to be a friend of my mom too. Her eldest kid is 19, the younger 17 and the youngest is daughter is 13. When her kids went out of the room, she complained a lot about their rude attitude with parents and little knowledge. She even told mom that her kids knew nothing about Pakistani history, since it is not a part of their course. They study American history instead. I put another discussion topic and got some very good feedback from a member. According to him, “coming over to the ages 17-20, the psychology gets more complex. Here if a sense of responsibility is placed on the child, a better result can be seen, it will not be one day measure and you see a child more responsive to values next day but this requires a continues effort. We have to keep busy this generation - an idle brain is DEVILS workshop. Sheesha, drinks, and other evils are too strong to fight. Media, movies they inspire a lot and leave a deep impression on minds of kids of these ages. Tell me how many people you know who do not keep TV sets in their rooms and their Kids have separate TV arrangement in their room. In our times VCR was an induction in our society, come what may by 10 pm no one could dare to remain wake up and sit in front of TV.” I really appreciated his feedback and discussion points. 

 

I can’t make a closing end to this article since this is an on-going issue now.