The changing face of APPNA

The changing face of APPNA

By Dr. Mohammad Taqi

July 1,2010

The Pakistan Post, New York

Change is not merely necessary to life - it is life. By the same token, life is adaptation.

                                                                                   (Alvin Toffler - Future Shock)

Alvin Toffler was right on the dot in highlighting the inevitability and importance of change in human life and the world we live in. However, even he recognized that there are limitations to the adaptability that individuals and societies can go through. And organizations are no exception.

For organizations to remain viable and relevant in a world rapidly changing around them, it is simply not possible to take a decision today without first imaging how the world will look like tomorrow. Successful adaptation is the art of anticipation.

Association of Physicians of Pakistani Descent of North America (APPNA) was launched some thirty-three years ago with attention to the ideals and needs of the founding members. The group focused on providing a platform to the Pakistani doctors, who had arrived in this country, to further their professional, educational, charitable and social interests. The rather unique ethnic makeup of the outfit also narrowed down , de facto , the geographical focus of its activities i.e. within the USA and Pakistan.

The medical profession, the USA and Pakistan have thus, over the years, come to define what APPNA stands and strives for. This triumvirate of organizational inertia survives after more than thirty years that the group has been in existence and is the perimeter within which APPNA operates.

Compared to groups like the American Medical Association, which was founded in 1847, APPNA is literally in its youth. The growth and the inevitable change that comes with it, trigger two different kinds of anxieties in two different categories of the association’s membership.

Several individuals from the first generation of the membership, often referred to rather unkindly as the “old guard”, have come to see the organization as their baby and rightly so. However, with this emotional attachment there also exists an element of a patriarchal decision-making that is out of sync with the realities within the organization and the world within which it functions. The comfort of the known and apprehensions about the unknown - bordering on fear - has often put them at odds with a wave of younger “activists” who had cut their political teeth in Zia’s Pakistan.

The latter group apparently wants to live a political life vicariously through APPNA.While there is nothing wrong with such activism per se, the organization’s mandate and culture are frequently perceived as hurdles by this generation of members. It is not uncommon to hear demands ranging from somehow getting involved in the Palestine-Israel peace process to lobby to repeal the anti-blasphemy laws in Pakistan.

While the first generation membership wishes to preserve, what it perceived as a pristine and golden era, the younger generation wants to turn the organization into some form of a Delta Force, ready to intervene in the world conflicts at the drop of a hat.

What is probably true of APPNA was summarized by President Lincoln who had said that “the dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion.  As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew.”

Just like a high school grad at the cusp of choosing a career path, APPNA is at a juncture in its organizational life where it has to anticipate the future and define its role in that future world.

As much as it is important to preserve the past and the great values that embodied it, it is equally important to grow successfully and remain viable by defining anew our role. It is not possible to grow without changing and adapting to the new realities.

In a world serviced by the contemporary electronic media networks, it would be impossible for any individual or corporate citizen to remain aloof from the happenings around them. No organization - not even for-profit business-houses - can ignore their social responsibilities as global citizens.

Secular ethos, respect for civil and human rights and duty to the environment are now the norms, adherence to which adds to a groups stature Shirking these duties is not really an option for any twenty-first century enterprise.

However, such change must not flow from making decisions in a knee-jerk manner. There certainly are limits to the organizational inertia and resilience. The line between a meaningful change and disorder is a thin one. If approached casually, an attempt to break the status quo could easily result in a descent into chaos.

Fortunately for APPNA, it has been able to maintain, since its inception a level of democratic character against all odds. A considered decision by the members and leaders, reached through democratic means, can steer the organization into a robust modern body representative of forward-looking individuals and reflective of progressive, secular ethos. The occasion, no doubt, is piled high with difficulty, but we must rise with the occasion. The time to think anew and act anew is now.