When Nations Trade Character for Spectacle

Dusk was lowering itself over Lahore like a reluctant confession. The city breathed uneasily, as if aware that something deeper than traffic and noise was shifting beneath its skin. Under the old banyan tree stood “BaBa Tal”—unchanged, unhurried, almost outside of time. The small and large brass bells resting on his shoulders stood as witnesses to forgotten centuries. I stopped. “BaBa Tal,” I asked, “tell me—if a state begins to invest in spectacle before securing its soul, what follows?” A faint tremor passed through the bells.
There is talk—persistent and unsettling—that a state-backed “Cinema City” may rise over fifty acres of Lahore’s land. Rumor? Perhaps. Policy? Possibly. But truth in such matters does not lie in official confirmation; it lies in direction. The real question is not whether this project exists. The real question is: If it does, what does it reveal about our priorities? A state’s destiny is not written in its dreams—it is written in its budget lines. A budget is more than a ledger of numbers; it is a moral document. It tells us what a nation loves and what it fears. When we look at the global landscape, the disparity in priorities is staggering. In Finland and Norway, education is not merely a service; it is a protected sanctuary. Nearly 15–20% of their national budgets are dedicated to shaping the minds of the future. They understand that a child who cannot think is a citizen who cannot contribute. Healthcare commands another 18–25% in these developed social contracts, predicated on the simple truth that a nation that cannot heal itself cannot progress. Even in the United States, healthcare consumes over 20% of public expenditure because they recognize that a sick populace is a stagnant one.
Now, turn to the harrowing reality of Pakistan. For decades, our education spending has hovered between a meager 1.7% and 2.5% of GDP. Healthcare remains even more neglected, often confined near the 1% to 1.5% mark. These are not just statistics; they are the scars on our collective body. When a state neglects the hospital and the school to fund the theater and the screen, it is effectively telling its people that their survival is secondary to their distraction. The investment in “Spectacle” over “Substance” is a high-interest loan taken against the future of our children. If the walls of our schools are crumbling and our clinics lack basic life-saving medicines, on what ethical ground can we justify the leveling of fifty acres for a dream factory? The “Cinema City” becomes a monument to our neglect—a gleaming facade built on the hollowed-out foundations of our social sector.
In the framework of an Islamic society, the youth are not consumers to be entertained; they are a Amanah—a sacred trust—to be refined. The Qur’an warns in Surah Luqman:
“And among the people is he who purchases idle talk to mislead others from the path of Allah without knowledge…”
Scholarship, including the profound works of Syed Abul A‘la Maududi, teaches us that “idle talk” refers to any systematic distraction that leads a nation away from its responsibilities and higher purpose. We are currently at risk of raising a generation of “characters” rather than a nation of “character.” A character is a mask; it is a performance. Character, however, is the steel in the soul. Our youth are being fed a diet of fascinating dreams and cinematic illusions that bear no resemblance to the grit and struggle of real life. This “spectacle-culture” encourages them to seek fame without effort and brilliance without basics. Islam demands that we be “Reality Lovers.”
The Prophet Muhammad(Peace and Blessings be Upon Him) sought refuge from “knowledge that does not benefit.”
State-sponsored entertainment often provides exactly that—a knowledge of the trivial that obscures the essential. We must teach our youth to find beauty in the truth of the artisan, the logic of the scientist, and the devotion of the scholar. If we teach them only how to perform for a camera, we leave them defenceless against the harsh realities of a competitive world.
The scent of the Indus is unlike any other—it is the smell of ancient silt and the damp breath of history.
Imagination carried me back to the days of my youth. I was sitting on a bench in the park “Lab-e-Mehran,” built along the banks of the Indus River near the barrage in Sukkur. In my hand was the same letter I had already read several times since morning.
There was a flicker of decision in my eyes—glowing, fading—yet the River Mehran was not silent. It was speaking. Its waves seemed restless to me, as if sensing my hesitation, as if they wished to say something, to do something.
Suddenly, I heard a faint tinkling of bells in my ears—very soft, from far, far away—yet slowly, steadily, the sound drew nearer. Then, all at once, a tall figure stood before me. He wore a deep blue robe that fell to his ankles, adorned here and there with small and large brass bells, which began to chime with his slightest movement.
I do not know why, but a name rose in my mind: “BaBa Taal.”
He stepped closer, leaning slightly toward me—[as though the style of Waheed Murad himself had appeared upon the screen of my mind, the way he would incline gently while addressing someone.] Then, in a soft whisper, he spoke into my ears:
“bacha!… it is far more difficult to become and refine a character than merely to perform one. When nations abandon this difficult yet essential task and choose the easier path, it is this very ease that weakens them.”
He fell silent. I looked at him. In his eyes, it seemed as though ages had come to rest, deep lines of history etched within them.
“Who are you? What is your name?” I asked.
“I have no name, bacha. Call me whatever you wish.”
The word escaped my lips: “Baba Taal.”
He smiled gently… then turned swiftly and walked away, disappearing into some unknown direction. The sound of his bells faded slowly into the distance. It was my first meeting with him.
In my hand as I said before, was the letter from “Syed Baba” (Syed Maududi). His words were a cold splash of water to a man dreaming of the stage:
“If you lose yourself completely in every role, you will lose your own identity… you risk becoming neither a complete human nor a complete artist.”
I stayed there for hours, watching the Indus. I realized then that the river does not pretend to be anything other than water. It has no “spectacle”; it only has its nature, its power, and its direction. It does not perform for the traveler; it simply is. Why was I seeking to be a hundred different people on a screen when I had not yet mastered being the one person I was born to be? The poetic silence of Lab-e-Mehran was my true classroom. And mystic wisdom of “BaBa Tal” was clear to guide me in the beacon of Syed Baba [ Syed Moudoodi] to my future.
There, the “Cinema City” of my imagination died a quiet death. I realized that the glitter of the studio lights could never match the honest, piercing glow of the stars over the Mehran. I chose then to fold the script and unfold my soul. I chose personhood over performance.
There is a specific kind of tragedy in using land—the very earth that should grow wheat or house the homeless—to build a city of illusions. Fifty acres is not just a measurement of space; it is a measurement of opportunity cost. Fifty acres could house dozens of vocational training centers where youth learn the mechanics of the 21st century. It could be a regional hub for medical research, tackling the diseases that plague our rural heartlands. It could be a sanctuary for the arts—not the art of “spectacle,” but the art of the calligrapher, the weaver, and the poet whose work reflects the struggles of the people. Instead, we hear of a “Cinema City.” The French thinker Blaise Pascal warned that humanity’s problems stem from our inability to sit quietly in a room. We fear the silence because in the silence, we hear the cries of our conscience. The state-sponsored spectacle is the ultimate “noise” designed to drown out those cries. If you give a man enough “fascinating dreams,” he will forget that his roof is leaking and his children are hungry.
When entertainment moves from private commerce to public policy, it becomes an instrument of “direction.” A film industry funded by private investors is merely business. But a spectacle funded by the state is a declaration of intent. It says: “Look here, not there. Dream this, not that.” Allama Muhammad Iqbal warned that nations perish in comfort and “delicate living.” He championed the Khudi (Selfhood)—a concept that is the polar opposite of the “performing self.” Khudi requires us to be grounded in reality, to face the storm, and to build our own world with our own hands. A “Cinema City” is a world built for us by others, a pre-packaged reality that saps the creative energy of the youth. “Baba Tal” turned his gaze toward the fading Lahore sky. The brass bells on his shoulders seemed to grow heavier as the darkness deepened. “They will not stop people from thinking,” he said softly, “they will simply make thinking unnecessary. Give them bread to chase and noise to drown in… and they will never ask who owns the bakery.”
As I turned away that evening, the bells rang one last time. It was a sound that echoed from the banyan tree of Lahore all the way to the banks of the Indus at Lab-e-Mehran. It was a sound of warning. We are at a crossroads. We can continue to invest in the “fascinating dreams” of a Cinema City, creating a generation of characters who know how to smile for a lens but do not know how to stand for a principle. Or, we can return to the “Reality” that our faith and our history demand of us. We can invest in the health of our bodies and the education of our minds. The choice is immediate. The budget is being written. The land is being cleared. Will we be a nation of character, rooted in the soil of truth? Or will we be a nation of characters, wandering lost in a city of illusions? The bells are ringing. Are we listening(?)!