Pakistan is the youngest nation of the world. But they should scream less

Many of the one-liner headlines on current scenario of Pakistan are extremely politically militant and does not need any further in-depth to it. On May the 2nd of 2018, the United Nations Development Program published a long research on the Youth of Pakistan titled as Unleashing the potential of young Pakistan. The 222-page research report tackles complex issues like youth empowerment: quality education, gainful employment and meaningful engagement. The report says that 64 percent of the youth is aged below 30, and 29 percent of the youth is between the 15 and 29 years of age. Statistically, it’s the Youngest Pakistan have ever been in its history of 70 years after the independence.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GHv3M76t0E

I remember very vividly that everyone was discussing it and in these hyperbolic sessions of agreeing with each other, they tended to forget the most prominent part of the discourse and that is: Does the youth have the capacity, guts and honesty to carry the weight of a country like Pakistan, which has been victimized from extreme levels of terrorism and violent crimes that are statistically un-quantifiable. Some of the reactions I saw were overwhelmingly ecstatic, overlooking the concrete discourse on the report.

As long as you are nodding to their opinions, they are the best people on the planet to you but when you start telling them about your set of beliefs, it’s just vice versa.

How many of you have been felt pushed back, side placed or disparaged when you were speaking against the viewpoint of a young Pakistani? Well, I have been and not once but every time I get to converse with the young Pakistanis who are in an obsession of a person, political party or to their core religious beliefs. As long as you are nodding to their opinions, they are the best people on the planet to you but when you start telling them about your set of beliefs, it’s just vice versa. The point here is that many researches including Cass R. Sunstein in his book, “#Republic: Divided Democracy in the Age of Social Media,” argued that “if we surround ourselves with the people like us (with the same opinions or prejudices) we get more extreme”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hM6bhOXO3E

As we all have an idea about the paradigm of terrorism as it follows, “extremism leads to terrorism”. Firstly, we have to make our kids (youth) to comprehend the importance of diverse opinions and how it helps us to build broader and indeed far more fruitfully humanistic worldview. As I asked earlier in the article, does Pakistani youth have the guts and honesty to drive us forward? The answer in a nutshell is YES they are our future, but future has to be non-violent and less screaming.