http://thenews.com.pk/26-08-2010/opinion/1300.htm
Thursday, August 26, 2010
by Mosharraf Zaidi
If the global reaction to the most devastating floods in modern world history has not been a wake up call for Pakistanis, then perhaps the brutality of the Sialkot lynchings should. Inside and out, there’s something broken about us. And we didn’t really need these floods or the Sialkot incident to tell us that.
So how do we fix it? How do we build something that is so broken? One way to proceed is to dive into an honest and forthright assessment of the ailments that plague us collectively. It seems we have every moral disease on the planet available here. Religious discrimination, apparently, doesn’t even take a break during a flood. Nor does petty corruption and rent-seeking by cops and administrators. Nor does political opportunism by the military. Nor does terrorism by Takfiri religious extremists. Nor does theft and dacoity and banditry. These are real problems, and they are not incidental.
Take Sialkot, mix it up with Balochistan, sprinkle in some Model Town, wrap it up in Data Darbar and FATA, roast what remains in the fires of Gojra, and then smoke it. Inhale deeply. How does it feel?
Does it feel good to intoxicate ourselves with the failures and misery that we are defined routinely, as a people, by ourselves, and quite understandably, by others?
It can’t possibly feel good. But how it feels is secondary. The question is, does it make a difference? Does it create a more functional society, a more effective state, a more capable government, more responsive institutions, or more accountable leaders? It doesn’t at all. In fact, more often than not, the perpetual obsession to zone in and focus on individual stories like the horror in Sialkot is not a sign of our desire to effect change. It is infinitely more reflective of our gluttonous appetite for the most outrageous and scandalous images. So in the truest tradition of a national discourse that is almost entirely irrational, and almost entirely dependent on emotions, it isn’t surprising that while Pakistan continues to drown in floodwaters that have still not stopped threatening Sindh, there is now a full-blown national introspection about the barbarity of Pakistani society. All 180 million of us, according to many, have collective guilt.
Maybe that is true. And maybe it is the exaggerated sentiment of people whose eyes watched what their minds and hearts could not bear. That is why I have yet to watch the video, and why I will never watch it.
What is certain is that the family of the two kids that were lynched by that crazed mob needs justice. That family deserves justice. The memory of those two boys on the other hand, deserves an outcome that protects this country’s citizens from these kinds of attacks–everywhere.
That is a very tall order. The moral outrage we feel today is not new. In Gojra last summer, a mob went on a rampage and murdered eight innocent Pakistani citizens. It was too easy for the mainstream to make it a minority issue. It was a minority issue–those folks were targeted because they were Christian. But it was a larger public policy issue. In fact, if you are interested in solving these kinds of problems, it was, like Sialkot is, a purely public policy issue.
And in this, there is, I am afraid, no room for emotion. No room for sentimentality, or for self-righteousness, or for moral codes. There is only room for facts and the actions that those facts dictate. This is important.
If the country is feeling emotional about these atrocities, it is on the right track. Sooner or later, when the accumulated emotions of sixty-three years really begin to matter, we will need to convert those emotions into actionable intelligence. This is not the kind of intelligence that foreign correspondents find interesting. At some point, our own obsession with how we are viewed outside Pakistan, will have to be replaced with an obsession about how we are–period.
We’re not well. Not good. Our self-inflicted wounds, the wounds inflicted by nature, and the wounds inflicted by the mortal enemies of the country–the TTP today, a country yesterday, another acronym tomorrow — these wounds are bleeding. Everywhere you turn there is reason to despair–but the despair, in the absence of data, of knowledge and of commitment for change–is about as sinful as the crimes and misdemeanours that generate the despair in the first place.
The Sialkot lynching, and the mob violence and pyromania on display in Gojra on August 1 last year are the products of a legal system that tolerates the most rabid violations of human dignity for the sake of keeping the peace and political expediency. Even with all the blasphemy laws, and the problems that Zia’s era infected the Constitution with in place, there is no possible legal space for vigilantism, or for violence in the name of morality, faith or any other kind of value or ethic. Yet every so often these incidents flare up our collective gluttony for scandal, and our genuine remorse, sorrow and anger.
Violence against minorities is not conducted by the Pakistani state. It is conducted by individuals who are jacked up on religious fervour, thanks to the cancerous oratory of the mullahs. In Sialkot, the kids may not have been from a minority sect, and the instigators, may not have been mullahs–but the formula remains the same. Once you ignite a fire in a mob there are two certainties. First, no one, including the state, will take on the mob. Second, that when all is said and done, the mob will have created a precedent for the next mob–a positive incentive to let its anger loose on whatever grates their sensibility at that time. The reason that precedent exists is simple. Nobody ever gets hanged for being part of a murderous mob.
Of course, murder is just the most extreme kind of a crime. Pakistani politicians frequently use the mullah paradigm to whip up a frenzy of ethnic fear and anger– —like Pakhtun and Mohajir politicians are doing right now in Karachi in Karachi and like they’ve done in Balochistan for decades. When Shaheed Mohtarma was murdered mobs went berserk, burning stores, banks and private property at will. When Shaheed Raza Haider was murdered, the same mobs, with different accents, did the same things.
The anger of mourning political workers, the anger of self-righteous Muslims, and the anger of ordinary Sialkotis is not morally equivalent. Of course it is not. But it is the same disease, the same cancer. They are all malignant because they expose the disability of the Pakistani people to construct state institutions that ensure punitive outcomes for criminals. To build Pakistan, criminals must face the consequences of their crimes.
Great article
Just one thing:
You say “Violence against minorities is not conducted by the Pakistani state.”
Well it certainly is endorsed, and we as citizens, collude with it through our own apathy
Look no further then the 2nd Amendment against the Ahmedis in the Pk constitution
Posted by Shehrbano Taseer | 26. Aug, 2010, 12:10 pmMosharraf, excellent stuff but I agree with Shehrbano’s comment too; the Pakistani state is not guiltless.
Posted by Mujib Sadozai | 26. Aug, 2010, 2:22 pmYesterday I was talking to a friend, and she said, by next week everyone will have forgotten Sialkot and be back to doing their thing. And I said how is that possible, we still haven’t forgotten the beheading of women in Baluchistan, or Gojra or the thieves who were burnt alive in Punjab. But you know what? After reading your article I think she was right. Because when you said:
“And in this, there is, I am afraid, no room for emotion. No room for sentimentality, or for self-righteousness, or for moral codes. There is only room for facts and the actions that those facts dictate. This is important.”
It hit me hard. There are no actions. Never have been. Never will be. There is a lack of seriousness in our entire nation. Just like Samarkand (the book). They kept laughing and we can keep playing the ignorant-blame game. In the end, it is our loss. Our inefficiency and our failure as a state, as a nation and as people, to stand up against all things wrong and ugly.
Posted by Afreina | 26. Aug, 2010, 3:07 pmhttp://meer-mehernewspappar.blogspot.com/2010/05/28th-may-ahmaddiya-massacre-in-lahore.html We conveniently forget the injustices and that is why the diseased boils will keep on appearing and bursting on our dirty , diseased bodies.
Posted by Meher Zaidi | 26. Aug, 2010, 4:35 pmGood piece. But let me assure you, the state of Pakistan is not only guilty for giving tacit approval for all these attricites against minorities, but also a proactive partner in meting out this violence at many instances. The state never responds to open gate speech against Ahmadis, Hibdus etc, but also doesn’t have any qualms about having thoroughly discriminatory penal code / statute against minorities. Article 294 is there in Indian and Bangladeshi constitutions as well, with Bangladeshis successful in almost muting it to death, and Pakistanis adding sub articles (c) and (d) to it with our usual religious fervour.
Lamentable that even the most powerful of the rulers like Musharraf could not touch these laws. That is what we call “popular statute”!!! Long live Pakistan.
Posted by Marvi Sirmed | 26. Aug, 2010, 7:52 pmYou have not watched the images but you’re quick to doubt other people’s anger (“may be” is a nice word that comes to rescue all the time).
There’s something new in the narrative of these video images. The images of young people recording the event with their iPhones!. Does it say something new, or perhaps something old?
It is too easy and convenient to bring in the moral argument, it is even easy to bring in the mother nature! But there is something obviously rotten in Pakistan for long. Each new and ugly incident provides clue to what we have been overlooking.
The stories of God destroying nation upon nations for their wrong-doings, were easy enough and quick, But were thy really that easy and quick, like nothing existed before and after?
Your assessment is substantive and thought-provoking, unlike many I have read already, filled with absolute anger and sarcasm of envious kind. People are watching these images from Sialkot and they cannot sustain themselves amid such ugliness. Overlooking the killing of one person is overlooking the killing of humanity. We are literalists no wonder.
Posted by AA | 26. Aug, 2010, 10:13 pmI feel that this article is helping perpetuate the trend that it is criticizing. The good people have to remain centered – take responsibility for everything around you, everything, and when you do so, you realize that this is the opportunity for you to shift this reality into peace and joy. Peace and joy comes from within, and to turn this situation around, we need people to find that source, and once we have a critical mass of self realization, everything will start getting transformed. In our lives we will see a Pakistan that is peaceful, progressive and prosperous – a smile of joy and fulfillment on every face. Let us lead the way by our personal example. Love to all
Posted by Naeem Zamindar | 27. Aug, 2010, 1:20 am“Maybe that is true. And maybe it is the exaggerated sentiment of people whose eyes watched what their minds and hearts could not bear. That is why I have yet to watch the video, and why I will never watch it.”
This is exactly why I have decided not to watch that video. At least not anytime soon.
The collective conscious of a people that you’ve referred to numerously, the collective guilt and collective self-realization, isn’t so collective I’m afraid. In my experience, the abhorrence towards violence is an acquired attribute in the Pakistani society. Meaning, many many layers of our pluralistic society holds different ideals, perspective and societal norms and values which are strictly defined by their relative place in the said society. Which is why you would never see the highly educated families and children of the feudal owners of Pakistan, engaged in a similar mob-like violence anywhere. Not because their wealth and education cured them of the evils within, but because they have political and bureaucratic means of channeling that violence to achieve the exact same end result.
The roots of the problem and its solution, lies deeper than a riveting change in public policy. Its the people Mr. Zaidi. A change in policy cannot tear out the ability to engage in and witness barbaric acts of violence from the hearts and minds of a people. Its the innate human ability to exhibit violence when vulnerable and Pakistanis have never felt more vulnerable and more on their own than presently. Survival instincts are kicking in, and survival is all about violence.
Posted by Tamur Haq | 28. Aug, 2010, 12:07 amI think the biggest moral issue we have is mass negativity and anti-nationalism (sorry if that’s not a word).
The post itself mentions lynching happening world over – I don’t see any such self loathing in any other country.
When 5 Pakistani’s get together, they do nothing but complain about the problems of the country. Speak to 5 people from any other nationality, and perhaps such a negative view would not come out.
Lets look internally and try to fix this – starting with ourselves. Lets see if we can make positivity a national issue and a self fulfilling prophesy.
Posted by Mrs. Ahmed | 30. Aug, 2010, 2:00 pm