KARACHI  -   Speakers at a two-day conference on Monday underscored that academic institutions should promote the culture of asking questions so as to generate ideas and said that a problem of the education system is its less focus on raising critical inquiry and causing incorrect perceptions and narratives.

The Pakistan Institute of Peace Studies, an Islamabad-based security think-tank, organised the conference on ‘Social Harmony, Tolerance and Education’ at a hotel here. A number of teachers from various universities and colleges, lawyers and social activists attended the sessions.

Dr Khalid Masud, former chairman Islamic Ideology Council, started the conference by discussing “What Extremism Is?” He said that for the past seventy years, the country had been avoiding the problem of extremism rather addressing it and because of which the Muslims were being considered as symbols of extremism.

“Right after the Independence, we were stuck into provincial, linguistic problems, East and West Pakistan and couldn’t focus on nationalism. Our problem is that the history of nationalism has remained unfocused,” he said. He also said that an interpretation of Islam was also among the factors that hindered the progress.

The PIPS director Muhammad Amir Rana moderated the session “Education Policy and Role of Teachers”. Dr Huma Baqai, an academic at the Institute of Business Administration, Karachi, said that secularism meant religious harmony and many in the society were defining it incorrectly. She said that the other thinking itself embodied a gesture of intolerance towards marginalized and vulnerable groups.

“We are intolerant, weak and disabled,” she said. “Lack of tolerance is based on incorrect perceptions and narratives.”

She said that twenty-two year of education disaster in the country is unbearable. “Education has become a privilege that only elite can have. Good education creates upward social mobility and the bad vice versa. International researches show that absorption capacity is 70 percent greater if education is in the national language. A language is a tool of nation-building.”

Dr. Syed Jaffer Ahmad, former director of Pakistan Studies Center at the University of Karachi, said that a lack of social cohesion in Pakistan’s civil-military bureaucracy was actually playing the cards. “They have been using coercive measures, often ideology, to control people. These coercions included military operation in Sindh and Balochistan and killing of Baloch leader Nawab Akbar Bugti.

He said that in the name of religion, the country has produced Jihadi generations. “These Jihadi are not even in control of who made them and as result sectarianism has been institutionalized. Three elements impact on social cohesion: Self-praise, self-righteousness, and lack of unity,” he said.

In the session “problems of minorities in Pakistan and dialogue on interfaith harmony”,  Romana Bashir, Executive Director of the Peace and Development Foundation Rawalpindi, talked about the problems religious minorities face in Pakistan. She enlisted such problems as pertaining to freely professing their faith; fairly participating in political activities; gaining equal economic opportunities, and dealing with curriculum and pedagogy in educational institutes.

“It is very distressing that all lower grade jobs like cleaning choked gutters, sweeping, toilets cleaning and such other jobs are associated with minorities in Pakistan,” she said. The construction of Churches, temples, and Gurdwaras is not freedom of religion unless minorities feel safe, being treated equally, and have the same respect, she emphasized.

Prominent religious scholar Syed Ahmed Binori said that all human were from the same race regardless of their beliefs.

There were no differences between prophets despite whatever they preached.  They all had the same qualities and deserve respect equal,” he said. “Every religion in its nature promotes peace and reveals the truth. Thus people have a right to follow what they deem fit.”

In the session titled “Making of Public Opinion and Research Culture”, senior analyst Khusheed Ahmed Nadeem, veteran journalists Wusatullah Khan and Shehzada Zulfiqar were key speakers.

Nadeem talked about the inter-relation between state and society in creating or denting social harmony in the country. Journalists Khan and Zulfiqar opine that religious scholars, teachers, lawyers, lawmakers and experts from all walks of life are taking part in making public opinion. But, journalists have no responsibility to resolve the matters apart from reporting.