Not Known among the Vast Majority
By Dr Ghulam M Haniff
St. Cloud, Minnesota
While many people ridicule Pakistan, unknown to them is the fact that the Islamic Republic is one of the most populous nations of the world. At the annual estimation this year data showed that it is the sixth largest nation in the human community. It is exceeded in people count only by five others - China, India, USA, Indonesia and Brazil. Even the people in Pakistan are aghast that the land they inhabit is such a vast place. Most of them have a tendency to dismiss their county as poor and small. With some effort, it could a prosperous and wealthy nation with an affluent lifestyle.
Depending on the criteria used there are approximately two hundred countries, sometimes called the nation-states in the global community. Globally, the international community is composed of e several organizations which try to keep the world organized and manageable. Altogether, there are 195 nation-states in a formal sense and these help to maintain the legal order through a multiplicity of multilateral organizations. Most of them actively participate in making rules for the global system which maintains orderliness.
Besides Pakistan, the only other Muslim nation within the top five is Indonesia which has around 200 million people of Islamic faith. Pakistan has about 193 million Muslims and each year it registers around five million more. India too has lots of Muslims, slightly less than 200 million, and one reporter has claimed that India is the second largest Muslim nation in the world.
Power among the global community varies a great deal. Some are strong and are at the top while others are weak and are at the bottom. For example, Pakistan is the least powerful and has a GDP of approximately only $2000. The only reason Pakistan occupies one of the top places is because it is well populated. It takes very little effort to engage in a creative process to populate a country. Therefore, poor nations are always fertile and produce lots of babies.
Among the very top are countries most powerful in the world, the prime example of which is the United States. Most nations shudder when they hear that the US is about to mobilize it military forces for a specific target. On the other hand, some nations are on the way down and are either losing power or are about to. Some time ago Russia or the Soviet Union, since the heyday superpower era, was in that boat and lost quite a bit of power. Since the uprising in 1989, and the many conflicts thereafter, it has lost and continues to lose considerable amount of power and the downward trend has not yet stopped.
Two nations which are gaining power are China and India, although the former is on the fast tract of development while India is on the somewhat slower tract. By the last decade of this century analysts estimate that China will be at the top, at least in gross domestic product (GDP) and population numbers. One of the best measures of power is GDP though there are quite a few - some very subtle, others not so subtle - ways of measuring power and they are easy to handle.
Generally speaking, human beings began to settle down after they had spent an enormous amount of time wandering around. They developed ideas about growth of plants and crops and it took them a long time to reach the present stage of production. Better ideas produced better crops and technology helped them along the way. Racial and linguistic ideas helped them in their settlement and enabled them to be bonded together. Those with good education and better technological means galloped ahead and have reached the present stage of production. Those with poor ideas and inferior technology have lagged behind.
There are many countries at the present time which have a tough time in feeding their populace. Nations such as Mali, Chad and Central African Republic are always operating at a deficit in producing food.
The present race in production is the result of many factors and can be measured in the quality of crops, skills of population and the complexity of technology. Some nations have excelled in these elements and have reached the top, such as the United States and Western Europe. Others have languished behind and cannot feed even their own population collectivities.
When human intellect is advanced most often their land too is productive due to the application of advanced knowledge. At the present time developed human population carries with it high productive capability. Through the application of proper resources such as education, science and technology most often people benefit as well as the country. This catches on like a prairie fire and the country finds itself ahead in the forward-march game.
Closely associated with land is human collectivity which advances with land and other factors to which effort it is applied. Nelson Mandela has commented on the idea that “education is the most powerful weapon through which one can change the world.” Most owners of the land constantly upgrade their property so that values, such as intellectual and technological advancement of the property, may be realized.
Pakistan, regrettably, has vast acreages but has neither developed its possession in either land ownership or population wellbeing. Of the five most populated nations listed above only Pakistan is found to be in want. Had it not been for the number of genetically deficient nations Pakistan would be towards the tail end of this list. The nose count has made a real difference to place Pakistan towards the top.
Another set of variables in this regard is the nature of the economic system which substantially affects the elements mentioned in this paper. Risk taking, entrepreneurship and market initiative are all involved in the determination of the values of land. Population and what binds the people together determine the prices of goods produced as well as the entire cultural infrastructure. It might just as well be said that almost everything affects the value of goods produced on land. The value of goods and services are equally important depending on the skills of the population.
