I AM trying to understand the breed of eternal optimists who I am running into ever more frequently as conditions deteriorate. Not that I haven’t encountered the type before — the one who paints a dark picture of everything that has gone wrong only to conclude with ‘But I am an eternal optimist’, implying thereby that the darkness was bound to lift, sooner rather than later.
I find two things wrong with this. First, I have noted that the chronological narrative is liberally peppered with the word ‘unfortunate’. Every terrible event in the story comes with its own ‘unfortunate’ appellation: unfortunately the military took over (which has been repeated four times); unfortunately the popular mandate was not respected (six times at least); etc, etc. With so many ‘unfortunates’, I am not sure how one can treat them as random accidents. Isn’t it more likely that the repetition reflects some structural pathology? And, if that be the case, why would the pattern change just because one is an eternal optimist?
Second, and more seriously, what exactly is this condition of eternal optimism? Is it a genetic trait like blue eyes or curly hair that one is born with which nothing in the world can alter? The same used to be said of attitude to risk, a person being born with a certain temperament. Thus people were characterised as being either cautious or reckless by nature.
Even a moment’s reflection should convince one that this cannot be used as a guide to action because it implies that one never adapts to a situation. Imagine a temperamentally reckless batsman like Shahid Afridi facing the last ball of a match where all that is required is to keep his wicket.
The optimists are the worst offenders.
Wouldn’t he be an idiot if he tried to hit the ball for a six? Turn it around with a temperamentally cautious batsman like Hanif Mohammed needing to hit a boundary off the last ball to win a match. Would you really expect him to stride resolutely forward and defend the ball back to the bowler?
Calling oneself an eternal optimist is just as problematic. Given a particular situation, one has at least to identify the reasons that give rise to the optimism. If no reasons can be found the optimism cannot be justified as rational — it rests on nothing but blind faith. Imagine a courtier telling the last Mughal emperor in 1857 that things looked bleak but he was an eternal optimist and the tide would surely turn. He would rightly be classified as a moron.
This kind of optimism cannot be separated from the fatalism of those who believe that divine intervention would come to the rescue. In fact, the optimists are the worst offenders — the fatalists are at least aware that the rescue might entail a long wait; it is the optimists who really believe in miracles.
There is another, even stranger, type of eternal optimist. This one wishes to wink that he knows the situation is really hopeless but would ‘never’ say so for fear of destroying the morale of youth. For one, such a person gives himself too much importance in thinking that the conviction of youth is entirely dependent on his word. For another, it is condescending to think that youth cannot figure out reality on its own. A message of hope based on a lie is worse than no message at all.
The first requirement when faced with a difficult situation is honesty of appraisal and the ability to arrive at a realistic diagnosis. It is only then that there can be effective countervailing action that can give rise to hope. It is in the absence of any coherent strategy for action that both fatalism and eternal optimism amount to a disservice to the com-
munity. The former can be defended as personal resignation; the latter cannot because it comes from pundits who claim to be champions of a better future in this world.
In this frame, consider the country’s trajectory since its creation. Every decade has left it in a worse position than before. The only constant has been the dispensation that has presided over this incredible decline. It remains resolutely focused on its colonial extract-and-export policy while hired hands deflect attention from the structural malaise.
There appears nothing in the situation that can alter the trajectory. Those who can, both at the upper and lower ends, are fleeing the sinking ship in droves. Others continue to extract and stash in safe havens for what they themselves consider the inevitable denouement.
Of course, miracles or Black Swans can never be ruled out. If a meteorite (divinely directed?) were to surgically strike a particular location, the ball game could begin anew. What would emerge from that should not be anyone’s guess. The eternal optimists ought to be able to figure that out. All they would need is to dump their optimism.
The writer is the author of Pakistan, Clash of Ideas, Aks Publications 2024.
Published in Dawn, April 23rd, 2025
