WRITTEN by SARMAD ASHRAF
Since my childhood, I have heard and believed in the notion that
religion has answers to every question. It has the capability of solving all
the problems in this world. However, I am always curious about the relationship
between religion and economy. It’s a common joke that you can find God in
Pakistan as everything gets an association with Him. As a nation, we have been
termed fundamentalists and extremists over and over again. That we follow the
hard core rules of the religion. And for that matter I was always astonished
that why Pakistan is so poor and why the western nations, the ones that give
lesser priorities to religion, are so advanced and developed. Also while
reading about some of the western countries, I came to know that their
development started after they put shackles on the church. However, with
understanding the things at a deeper level, I have come to realize that a
minimum of three types of societies based on the religion. First is the society
where is the role of religion is limited to the houses and bodies or there is
no religion at all. This means that religion is only taken as an
individualistic concept and not as a collective concept. Then there is a
society which is purely based on religion and follows religion to its true
sense in every aspect of life, may it be an individual’s life or the nation’s.
Yet another kind of society can be where there is a blend of both, you choose
religion when required and leave it where it doesn’t fit in. No country can be
said to be on a on extreme of the spectrum. But each country is almost always
closer to one of these three sides. Now I would say Pakistan is a prime example
of the mixed society that I have discussed. Due to the confusing state of
religion and its implications, the decisions are mostly wrong and there is a
greater chance for corrupt people to come into the power. The religious part
stops economy to grow through religiously incorrect activities and the other
part of society’s mind-set stops the economy to grow on religiously professed
ways. So the end is a economic turmoil. On the other hand, the society which
ignore religion are much better off as they do not care about the means but
care about the result, thus they are better off always. However, two things
need to be noted. Firstly, the recent recession has shown the severe risks
attached with these types of artificial and non-pure economies. Secondly, one
the reasons these economies are doing so great is that these societies has
ignored the religious parts that they considered bad for economies but in
principle they are following the good economic fundamentals laid by the
religion. Third kind of society is a full religious society, which
unfortunately doesn't exist much. May be Israel and Saudi Arabia can
be quoted as modern day examples. But the societies that religious people like
Muslims built proved the economics fruits associated with following the
fundamentals of religion. Although, today, a full religious society may not be
fully possible, but a society which tries to gain true benefit from religion,
will eventually become a very strong and competing economy.
0 comments:
Post a Comment