OPINION: Who can break inertia? |
Pakistan doesn’t suffer from a shortage of ideas — it suffers from a shortage of ownership. We diagnose brilliantly and delay endlessly. Policies are written, reports are launched, committees are formed — and yet the landscape remains unchanged. Our real challenge is not ignorance; it is action inertia — the gap between policy formulation and its implementation, between the intent to act and the courage to follow through.
Think of how often we have seen promising initiatives rise and then quietly fade. A reform begins with enthusiasm, gains visibility, and then disappears into procedural dust. An education plan turns into a file of minutes; an industrial policy becomes a presentation rather than a project. The distance between knowing and doing is where our national energy is lost.
For decades, we have waited — for the perfect leader, the perfect reform, or the perfect moment. But progress does not arrive on schedule; it demands alignment. When knowledge, power, and purpose move together, nations rise. When they drift apart, nations stall.
Pakistan’s problem is not a lack of understanding. It is the widening gap between recognition and responsibility — between those who know what to do and those who must act. Our scholars produce insight, our bureaucrats hold authority, our politicians have purpose — but rarely do they converge. The result is motion without movement: activity that creates the illusion of progress but leaves reality........