While images of the new Pope, so richly draped, oozing dignity and with a half smile on his lips, continue to appear on our TV screens, I happily recall the time when Pope John Paul II paid a visit to Karachi.
Having been a convent student in an earlier era, I had a close association with the scriptures and particularly the gospels according to Mathew, Mark, Luke and John. I naturally shared in the excitement of my Catholic friends.
Since I worked at the Karachi Airport in those, now, distant days, I watched with pleasure the small church on the road leading up to the main terminal suddenly being spruced up. Built by the British without a doubt, this attractive church was to have the honour to receive the Pope.
He was going to address the Catholics of Pakistan at the national stadium and I longed to participate in the event. Obviously, they weren’t going to allow a non-Catholic into the stadium so I tried another approach. Miss Green, the senior most secretary who worked for my organization’s chairman was a wonderful woman and a dear friend. Surely she could take me to hear the Pope. With my short hair and slim frame I looked like a Christian anyway.
When I mentioned the idea to her she was startled. Despite knowing my interest in and sympathy for the followers of Christ, there was no moving her. They could not accommodate all the Catholics, who have a right to be in the presence of the Holy Father, she explained. My persistence only made her impatient and I was brushed off.
Well, I didn’t get to hear the Pope then, but of late I’ve seen enough of him and his successor on TV to last me a lifetime. In any case, my earlier curiosity to enter the stadium on that momentous occasion sprang from my interest in hearing and seeing the head of the Catholic Church in Karachi, among Pakistani Catholics. Not in Rome.
When I look at what this small minority community has done and continues to do for education in this country, I must admit to feelings of admiration and gratitude. If I can handle spoken and written English comfortably, along with millions of others, the credit goes to the Christian schools that, in addition to our urban centres, are scattered across the country.
Of course, many ambitious Muslim business people have set up chains of fancy schools for the rich, many with air-conditioning and swimming pools. While their fees are so high that one wonders if they are paid primarily with black money, the quality of the education they provide doesn’t come near that of the far more modest schools named after the saints.
Look at the smoke and dust that was raised over the return of Karachi’s nationalized St. Joseph’s and St. Patrick’s to their original owners; the people who had actually founded the colleges and governed them effectively until they were needlessly grabbed by the government. So intense has been the heat generated by the vested interests opposing the denationalization of these two institutions that the matter has still not been sorted out.
Our irrational and unthinking students are exploited by these vested interests as their tools. Not having been taught at school to think straight, to examine data, to analyze issues and to arrive at logical conclusions, our poor students are manipulated at will by political and religious parties, professors and teachers, and a host of other powers. Our young tend to rely on their emotions and give their critical intelligence a backseat.
How do the convents and other missionary-run schools and colleges provide a better quality of education than the many comparable schools run by other groups? Good education can only be imparted by institutions where there is good governance. Where the needs of education come first. Not only do the missionaries have more than a century’s experience in this field, they also appear to possess a good measure of dedication and commitment.
And what are we and our leaders doing? The students at my lower middle class school complained to me recently that their prayers at the mosque are daily interrupted by Indian film music played on the mobile phones of a religious party’s workers. Why don’t they switch off their mobile phones? My student said he asked a person to do exactly that and was told that since he was an adult he did not listen to children.
Even more appalling are the naats sung by students of some religious schools. They are set to Indian film music and if you do not decipher the words, you wonder why these sacrilegious sounds are emanating from these devout schools.
Surely our leaders would be better engaged to remove all traces of film music from our holy places rather than chasing female marathon runners.
Whatever reservations one may have about the views and beliefs of the new Pope, so amply projected by the electronic media day in and day out, let us replicate the excellent schools that Pakistan’s small Catholic community has been running with such good results.
While images of the new Pope, so richly draped, oozing dignity and with a half smile on his lips, continue to appear on our TV screens, I happily recall the time when Pope John Paul II paid a visit to Karachi.
