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ROOTS OF CHAOS: TINY ACTS OR GIANT MIS-STEPS?

<< “PAKISTAN: THE FIRST 11 YEARS 1947-1958”PART-2

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Lesson 4

ROOTS OF CHAOS: TINY ACTS OR GIANT MIS-STEPS?

(This text is reproduced from the book: "From chaos to catharsis: perspectives on democracy and

development" by Javed Jabbar, published by Royal Book Company, Karachi, 1996). There is a temptation to

formulate a theory of political chaos on lines similar to the scientific theory of chaos.

First: what is the theory of chaos?

The roots of this theory go to 1961.

Edward Lorenz was a meteorologist working at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Fascinated by the

elusive ideal of accurate weather prediction, he had designed, one year earlier, a system to create "toy

weather".

By this process he fed hypothetical data into a Royal Mcbee computer that simulated different types of

weather. He then studied the consequence of variations introduced into the data e.g. how would the altered

speed of a cyclone affect the level of humidity in its aftermath? One day, after obtaining a print-out from the

computer of a particular "toy weather", he wanted to study a section in greater detail. He therefore re-fed into

the computer the same set of numbers he had fed in earlier. He stepped out briefly and returned -- to

discover a whole new subject!

Instead of duplicating the earlier "toy weather" pattern, this second pattern had begun to diverge from the

first one initially in a small way, but significantly thereafter. Soon, the two types of "toy weather" appeared to

be dramatically different from each other, even though the numbers for the data were the same. When

Lorenz checked each single decimal place of the numbers fed into the computer, he discovered that instead

of typing out the complete set of six decimal places which, in this case, were 0.506127...He had actually

stopped at506, assuming that the last three decimal places i.e. 127 did not really matter because the difference

of those last three decimal places i.e. 127 was, he assumed, inconsequential, being only one part in a thousand.

By re-feeding all the six decimal places, Lorenz obtained the original "toy weather" pattern, whereas when he

repeated the omission of the last three decimal places, the divergence accelerated rapidly.

This was conclusive proof that a miniscule variation at one stage of a phenomenon could rapidly become a

magnificent distraction at a later stage.

Lorenz and other scientists working in different fields went forward from here to discover the fact that in

nature, chaos has its own specific structure that order can masquerade as randomness, that there is

mathematics of systems that never repeat themselves that a seemingly irrelevant minor action in one part may

precipitate a major cataclysm in another part. There are some who now give the study of chaos the same

importance in science as relativity and quantum mechanics. Discoveries in this science continue to expand

human knowledge of the postulates that emerge from the science of chaos, three may be relevant to note in

the context of Pakistan.

a) That tiny differences in in-put quickly lead to overwhelming differences in output.

b) That small errors can prove to be catastrophic.

c) That there is a sensitive dependence in phenomena on initial conditions.

The first two of these principles when applied to the genesis and early growth of our country are the most

difficult to detect because our history is replete with so many large and monumental blunders that the small

ones may not really matter.

The whole process of Independence was speeded up so dramatically in the months proceeding August 14,

1947 that no one, not even the Quaid-i-Azam, was able to write a detailed script... For all the participants to

follow Leaders began to depart from an unwritten script from the very start. Yet even though there was no

written script, there was a shared vision.

Pakistan was inspired by a 1300-year-old legacy of what it means to be Muslim, but when it came to its

physical creation, the invention of Pakistan was almost impromptu. As has been well said by the Czech

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novelist Milan Kundera: individuals make up the story of their lives as they go along, improvising each

movement and each year...because there is no dress rehearsal before we are delivered into this planet to

proceed with our path through life. Yet a nation-State being a giant extension of a single individual on the

scale of millions requires a fairly precise framework when it is formed. Due to a variety of reasons we In the

shadow of our large omissions, lapses and losses, there must also have been those one or two or three

decimal places of our destiny that were overlooked or by-passed or suppressed and thus never got fed into

the computation of the factors that shaped our history began with neither a Constitution nor early or

immediate elections, neither a grassroots political party structure of the Muslim League nor longevity for our

founding father who left us tragically early.

In the shadow of our large omissions, lapses and losses, there must also have been those one or two or three

decimal places of our destiny that were overlooked or by-passed or suppressed and thus never got fed into

the computation of the factors that shaped our history. What could these terrible trivia have been? A slight

hesitation about an issue on which there can only be a certainty. A silent acquiescence at a high level in what

appeared to be a relatively......minor transgression of an ethical boundary that may then have seemed like a

little hole in a huge dam ― but which soon became a yawning gap through which has rushed a mountainous

flood or moral slush and grime into which we sank? Such marginal departures from an unwritten script may

well have become those innocuous looking "tiny differences in input" that led to the output ― or outcome ―

of a Pakistan so vastly different from the original dream about it. The trouble with really small errors is that it

is very difficult to spot them from a distance of 58 years. Because they are, to begin with, small, they

invariably get trampled upon and the big ones come to the front of the queue.

Perhaps the crucial small errors made in those times are lost forever to history. There were so many factors

and perspectives related to the circumstances in which Pakistan was born that each factor in

turn......spawned a cluster of potentially correct as well as potentially disastrous decisions: only a few seen

and recorded for history, many remaining confined to the privacy of one-to-one conversations......or to the

perceptions of a single individual or deliberately suppressed from public knowledge by the conspiracy of a

coterie.

This brings us sequentially and most aptly to the third principle: the sensitive dependence on initial

conditions. And with this element there appears a supreme synthesis between the science......of chaos and

the birth of Pakistan. Possibly no other State saw the light of day in the manner we did because the light

actually turned out to be darkness at noon.

In a sense we are children born by Caesarian section in the blazing heat of the midday sun, not in the cool

darkness wishfully associated with midnight's children. The one factor that shaped the whole pattern of the

initial conditions of the State of Pakistan was the arbitrary, unwise decision by the British to advance the

deadline for Independence to August 1947. That singularly inept decision set in motion a whole process of

increasing tension eventually snow-balling into widespread turbulence and upheaval. The passion for Pakistan

incongruously came hand in hand with a lust for blood at the time of Partition. We did not fight an

ennobling War of Independence in 1947: thousands indulged in......degrading mass homicide in the name of

freedom. Instead of beginning our new lives with stars of honour, many of us began with the indelible stains

of suffering.

The trauma was not a transient, momentary experience: it seems to have quickly become an enduring state of

mind. Each of the initial factors, taken separately, represents enormous problems in themselves. Their

coming together all at the same time had a cumulative and debilitating impact on......the spiritual, intellectual

and physical resources of a political leadership that, except for the Quaid-i-Azam, was largely feudal and

therefore in a sense too fragile to bear the brunt of......such a big challenge. Indeed, it is a miracle that we

did survive the trauma of our birth and the tragedy of our first few years. As we pay tribute to the Quaid and

his immediate lieutenants for their heroic contribution to our Independence, we must at the same time

question the conduct of certain senior leaders who, in real terms......almost immediately after August 14,

1947 began to betray the trust reposed in them by the Quaid-i-Azam and by the people. By their preference

for personal power, by their disregard for democratic norms......by their refusal to immediately institute an

electoral and accountable system, by their provincial, parochial and factional attitudes they injected into those

initial days of Pakistan a virus of discord that came......to infect our bloodstream with an illness from which

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we have yet to recover. As we proceed to explore the prospects for a political theory of chaos it is quite

apparent that......we have yet to conduct a really incisive and truthful investigation of our own history.

We tend to gloss over some uncomfortable, undeniable truths and we have created some sacred cows that

stand in the middle of the road to rationality and block our path to improve self-perception.

At this stage three postulates for a political theory of chaos emerge:

i)

Even a seemingly small act by a political leader, particularly in power, done beyond the ethical

boundary that demarcates pure propriety, becomes the seed of widespread moral disequilibrium

across the country.

ii)

Chaos is a vicious circle that can only be broken by political action whose integrity is so solid that it

cuts through to the core of the chaos like a diamond.

iii)

Injustice inflicted upon a single poor and powerless individual early in a nation's history by one who

is permitted to remain unpunished soon swells to become an obese State-wide system of oppression

that can enslave a whole nation.

While it is tempting to speculate that a nation's destiny may well be determined by the timing and the

conditions of its birth and the situation shortly thereafter, thus making our prognosis bleak, we also

take......comfort from examples where independent nations gone adrift and asunder have been transformed

by the will of individuals who suddenly appear on the horizon. We know that we cannot re-do the manner of

our birth and the reality of our early upbringing. But perhaps we can transcend them. To do so, some

fundamental re-assessments are essential -- of concepts as well as constitutions.

Conclusion:

We must put our predilection for chaos to good use and experience it as catharsis, we must re-discover our

distorted past to build a coherent new persona for Pakistan.

Excerpts from books for this hand-out:

Excerpt provided from: "Chaos making a new science" by James Gleick, published by Penguin Books,

1987.

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