Interacting with hundreds of mostly graduate youth across Pakistan in more than two dozen trainings -- ranging from leadership to human rights -- each year has always been a creative experience. The interaction has not only been exhilarating but is also a trigger for deep thinking and concern.

I usually start my sessions with the question how would the youth sitting in front of me like to contribute to personal and societal well-being. They come up with entirely enthusiastic ambitious plans, revolving mostly around short cuts to power and resourcefulness. Civil and military service, corporate sector, telecom sector, engineering, medicine and information technology are favourite fields. Few think of politics, social service, teaching and scientific research as the areas they could contribute in.

My second question is usually related to their level of satisfaction from social sector delivery, progress and growth of the country and society. The level of dissatisfaction expressed by the youth usually remains immense and substantial. The problem arises when discussions starts on the causes and mitigation of the complexity of lack of progress and development.

The problem usually pertains to comprehension, categorisation, articulation and objective analysis. For example, a young retorted to the question, "Sir, it’s very simple! Don’t you know what the Americans, the Jews, the Russians and the Hindus have been doing to us?" When I asked, "Were those you mentioned doing all this to only Pakistan or any other country like China, Malaysia and Korea as well?" "They do it to all" was the answer. "Then why do they succeed only in Pakistan?"

There is then an emotional outburst describing a golden era of the Muslims and how the Muslims stopped practising faith and then the downfall started.

I put a few simple questions on the history of Muslims and there was this intriguing silence and subsequent distrust which broke communication. Many must have come across such a situation scores of time and I am sure with all those who regularly interact with the youth.

A careful analysis of the social psychology of this trend might disentangle the bizarre attitude of the middle class educated urbanite youth in Pakistan.

Despite charged super patriotism, enthusiasm and ambitions for individual and collective progress and development, noble intent and energy, the youth have a proclivity to adopt intellectual, emotional, financial, social and political shortcuts. This attitude perhaps emanates from two sources.

First, socio-cultural and educational institutions have so far failed to equip the youth with basic skills right from the formative years of their life. One finds rarely a young person who might know how to listen. Parents, teachers and immediate environment do not provide an opportunity to the youth to learn to read and have a taste to enjoy reading. This certainly results in lack of basic writing skill. Objective thinking is directly related to speaking a coherent language. We find majority of youth deficient in speaking the first, second and third language.

The next set of basic skills to observe and categorise, is rarely taught at home or at school. Instead of using five senses to observe and reach a conclusion, a young person is tempted to adopt conclusion either intuitively or has to believe in some one for the statement of a fact or reality without applying analytical mind.

The lack of these basic skills precludes the youth to attain rudimentary information pertaining to their immediate ecology, geography, history, culture and society. This also hampers understanding to observe valid cause and effect of a particular phenomenon. With the passage of time, the young person adopts a lax habit of oversimplifying facts and realities. This then leads to deny evidence if it is in any way at variance with the intuitive understanding or sweeping generalisation.

Building a valid argument later becomes a Herculean task. The basic skills, lack of basic information and lack of curiosity to observe and categorise seem to hamper the growth of critical and analytical faculty in due course of time. This kind of cognitive development seems to be usually deprived of the capacity to question, create, innovate and express.

The second deficiency that mars cognitive development of the youth seems to be substantial lack of emotional intelligence. This is observed in the lack of an aesthetic sense and the consequent lack of self respect. Inconsistent development of aesthetic faculty leads to shortcomings in literary and artistic creativity.

This in turn divests the youth to value their self in terms of something productive. Hence, the youth usually yearn for external stimulus to give them justification for respecting themselves. In the absence of this external factor, the youth pass through emotional imbalance. This is the reason for rationalisation, externalisation and justification for everything that goes wrong with them.

This emotional dependence certainly leads to inability to adopt team work. Conflict resolution, dialogue and mediation in this context become a far cry.

This naturally leads towards individual and collective dependence on the ideas created by ‘the other’.

In the absence of will of the state, the civil society that comprises political parties, professional organisations, academia, media and trade unions have to take responsibility if this pathetic situation is to be transformed.

One can suggest a few fundamental strategies that might bring some positive results in due course of time. There is a dire need that the civil society initiates an educational movement on various levels and a culture of dialogue. This might provide platforms to the youth for developing independent thinking, building a valid argument and adopting innovative paradigms.

NGOs can establish libraries and community centres. Study circles can engage the youth in meaningful comprehension, reading activities and writing competitions. Pamphleteering and poster competitions might be another medium that the network of academia and NGOs can adopt.

Networks of arts and sports organisations might regularly organise sports galas, painting exhibitions and concerts to provide the youth with the opportunity of creative expression. Arts and culture organisations can easily find talent and resources to initiate a movement of street theatres on significant issues.

Social and political activists can adopt the paradigm of those who went to the communities, engaged with them and facilitated them to resolve their own issues with the help of youth.