The Way Forward

The way out for Pakistan and the Muslim world is through education and understanding the reality.  God is especially bountiful to those who seek knowledge, and improve themselves through reading, education and discipline. 

There are more top-notch colleges and universities in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area than all of Pakistan and much of the Muslim world.  Without knowledge, awareness and research, Muslims become enslaved by equally uneducated and immoral preachers (i.e. maulvis -- as opposed to rightly guided scholars-- opportunist dictators and self-serving politicians), and the masses are easily manipulated by people with more opportunist elites, serving the powers from outside to maintain the status quo. 

Of course, knowledge does not necessarily guarantee moral rectitude.  For that we have our Islamic tradition. But Islam is not taught to the masses in an uplifting way, it is more like indoctrination by competing sects, groups and preachers.  Islamic tajdeed (reform, renewal, renaissance) requires a critical examination of Muslim history, culture and the traditional Islamic sciences, and a deep study of our intellectual and spiritual heritage. 

The way out begins with an intellectual and spiritual tajdeed, and not through politics or struggle within the same corrupt systems that are left by the colonialists only to sustain de facto colonisation.  Only when Muslims are well educated, disciplined and at a higher level of spiritual consciousness, can there be meaningful work towards achieving the right to self-determination, real democracy and freedom in the Muslim world, which would most likely be Islam-inspired, that is, inspired by the moral and ethical teachings of Islam.

Note: Relevant pages on this subject will be linked shortly.