http://it.corporatemanagementsolution.com
http://it.corporatemanagementsolution.com
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Pakistan Social Justice Group |
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RESPECT OTHERS' RIGHTS AND DO JUSTICE |
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In human psychology, Learned Helplessness denotes to a condition in which a person doubts his/her abilities to change the environment in order to get the desired results. It is a state when human beings suffer from anxiety and fear taking actions. According to psychologists, human learning capacity and desire for effort remain alive until people feel control over the environment.
Based on the theory of human learned helplessness, this writer has given the theory of organizational learned helplessness (OLH) in his advanced degree thesis in which reasons of organizational deterioration and growth were discussed. The OLH is not an individual phenomenon; rather it is collective perception of bereft and hopelessness of people in an entity whether it is a state, organization or an institution. According to the theory, if an organization could not achieve the desired level of development it will lead to organizational learned helplessness. One of the reasons of OLH is that the leadership is unable to design adequate structure; therefore, the organization oscillates between various types of structures without any direction. Consequently, the organizational structure starts losing its importance and the spoiled system emerges. The key participants assign blame to anyone but themselves for deterioration of the organization which leads to develop antagonistic organizational culture. The major attributes of such a culture is that “might is right” becomes a dominating norm, threats to opponents are frequently used to subdue them, decisions are made out of the formal process, and consultation is considered waste of time. The aftermath of a spoiled system is that stakeholders lose interest in the key matters of organization and feel alienated. Hence, a collective feeling develops in the stakeholders that the system can only be changed by a miracle and not by efforts.
Pakistan as a nation appears to be a befitting case of OLH. Pakistan as a state organization has yet to prove that it has fulfilled its goal for which it was emerged as an independent state on the map of the world. In the last 57 years, people of Pakistan struggled for better life and waited for progress but things did not improve as expected. Most of the times, they are betrayed by their own rulers. During the infancy phase of independence, people, who have always been the major stakeholders, hoped that once the constitution had promulgated their problems would be resolved but nothing happened even after getting three constitutions in 1956, 1962 and 1973. All rulers, especially army, fiddled with all the constitutions so much that their sanctity stained. The hope with the movement against Ayub Khan for democracy ended in the division of the country. Zia-ul-Haq reaped the benefits of the 1977 civil movement for democracy and Islamizaiton and deteriorated the state institutions further. After his death, phase of controlled and crippled democracy once again started. People had great hopes from the young civilian leadership of Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif but their hopes withered away with the passage of time. Both civilian leaders are indeed to blame for their unpromising ruling style but role of ‘implicit hands’ cannot be ignored in spoiling the democratic process. The implicit hands not only allowed them to plunder public wealth but also joined them. The controlled and crippled democracy phased out in 1998 when Musharraf made a coup and usurped the power without any public movement. He led public to believe that time of bad governance is over which only proved to be ‘old wine in a new bottle.’ As happened in the past, political threats and bribes played pivotal role in establishing hybrid of army-civil rule before and after elections 2002. Therefore, most of the same old faces along with a few new occupied the highest political positions. In short, the rulers and influential people have distorted all concepts and theories of good governance and politics in the last five decades, which resulted in OLH of the nation.
Common people have though taken significant citizen initiatives in the history to change the destiny of the country; however political vulgarity at the apex level did not stop. Hence, people have lost hope and become insensitive to national affairs which are now taking place around them. It is the state of OLH that they do not react even though they are well aware of sly attitudes of elite, misdeeds of rulers, corruption of public administration, misconduct of judiciary, wily actions of Mullahs and politicians, elusive behavior of media, and dishonesty of influential people. They have swallowed U-turns of the governments, ex-army generals Mullahs and politicians with silence. It is OLH that they tolerate injustice and endure pain without uttering a word. It is a gift of OLH that moral values are declining which are puncturing the social fiber of the society. People are helplessly in quandary about the future of the country and waiting for miracle. Iraq political situation is a witness to it that miracles do not happen without efforts. Iraqi people also suffered from OLH during Saddam regime and faced devastating consequences of that. A nation invites for external aggression when she is in the condition of OLH and unable to control rulers.
Whether anybody likes it or not, if this state of OLH persists for a longer period it will further frustrate the nation and in consequence affect integrity and solidarity of the nation. If the current condition of OLH is not extinct through a legitimate process, forebodings are that the forecast of an American Report come true that Pakistan would be further disintegrated by 2015. The would-be solution to extinct organizational learned helplessness is that that those who are sitting at the strategic apex of the country must refrain from political vulgarity. They must work to strengthen the institutions instead of enhancing interest of the ‘indispensable.’ The harsh reality is that the ‘indispensables’ go but states and masses remain. It is also important for the civil society that they must change their attitude and behavior and strive for collective benefits than individual. Only accusing rulers will lead us nowhere.
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