Agree To Disagree – OpEd
Positive dissent portrays the civility of a nation that led it to the zenith of glory by accepting the reality and learning from mistakes. Developed, happy, and prosperous nations are those who pay heed to sane voices. The more a society accepts dissenters and agress to disagree the more progress they achieve. Dolefuly, we as a nation are mostly, short of agree to disagree.
Stratagem in military plays pivotal role in winning a war. War experts are agreed upon the reality that strategies are formulated upon consensus of war experts and those officers who knew the terrain from the nook and corner. Meanwhile, exact time for attacking is more crucial that plays important role. History testifies that once Napolean rejected dissent of attacking Russia at a time when the route to Russia was covered with snow and waged war against Russia, though he won, but thousends of his soldiers died due to frost after coming back from Russia. That victory proved otherwise.
No one is perfect in deciding. When it comes to Judiciary, there is a dire significance of disagreement with a decision. Traditionally and constitutionally there has been different benches comprised of three judges, larger benches, or full courts throughout the judicial structure in many states of the world. These judges always have positive disagreements. When it is turned into negative or when positive dissent is not given ear, the consequences become disastrous. A judicial structure becomes dysfunctional which further lose the confidence of the people.
A pertinent role of Parliament has been to debate and dialogue on various problems of a state. When a positive dissent from the opposition and sensible voices are not paid heed, and if the decisions are taken into wrong directions_the suferers have been the common people. When parliament pays heed to dissent voices and stands for the true spirit of constitution, it is more cemented.
A most important player that plays cardinal role in creating consciousness among the people and plays role of watchdog on the policies of a government and institution. It is the pillar that binds the nation and stops the wrong policies through positive criticism. When it does not allow dissent and twist the facts through yellow journalism. This consequently causes killing the truth and suffocation of dissent voices.
Suffocating dissent voices in institutions is fatal. Agree to disagree with wrong and misleading policies in a positive manner leads institutional progress. When dissent voice are asphyxiated in institutions, resultely, bad governance, corruption, nepotism, and favoritism take root. We have ample examples of highly qualified officials who were made OSD time and again owing to their positive approach and criticism over wrong policies. This has been a menace and a pertinent reason of institutional imbalance and failure in the country.
Dissenting ideas with positive approach pay ways for settling disputes with sanity, wisdom, negotiation, and circumspection. The more dissenters are appreciated the more it is better. The more it is agreed to disagree the more it is productive. Nations are succeeded because of accepting positive criticism not suffocating sane voices and ideas.
Naseeb Ullah Achakzai is a freelance columnist
