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This Independence Day I am going to talk about the need to create awareness for soliciting a more humane public behaviour, and sensitising the treatment we give to fellow human beings. At times it is downright insulting, insensitive, or both. Take, for instance, a banner placed at a roundabout in Clifton, Karachi, which reads: ‘Deaf, dumb, stammering and lisping’ in bold letters. It goes on to direct you to the address of the ‘clinic’ it is advertising to treat these conditions.
First I thought the banner was put up by one or the other cynic to reflect the intellectual state of our nation. I also thought that perhaps it was put up by some God-fearing Muslims, whose presence in public life rises dramatically during Ramazan, with the intention of ridiculing our condition as a nation, or to instill fear of God in the hearts of the people of Pakistan by calling them deaf, dumb, and the like.
Remember, when Naimatullah Khan was the mayor of Karachi, the Jamaat-i-Islami had painted the town read with slogans calling people to pious deeds, warning them of the horrors of life after death if the impious did not mend their ways? Signs showing a coffin were also printed on walls and stickers affixed on windscreens with the message: ‘pray before you are prayed for’.
The Teen Talwar (Three Swords) monument in Clifton was also rechristened as ‘Alhamdulllillah’, ‘Subhanallah’ and ‘Allahu Akbar’, overwriting Jinnah’s motto to the nation which read: Unity, Faith, Discipline. Somebody also bought a giant hoarding on Shoen Circle where the Kalima appeared embossed on a black background; nobody has dared to remove that even after Naimaullah Khan relinquished his post. However, some usual fare returned to the city walls as the new city government took charge. My all-time favourite is the wall chalking in Clifton that says: Mirgi ka ilaaj bazariya jinn aur kali billi (Treatment of epilepsy through jinn and black cat!), and then goes on to give the contact details.
But back to the mentioned banner for now, where reading further in the small print I understood that it was only an advertisement. So glaring is the insensitivity of the supposed ‘healers’ running that clinic that it leaves you wondering. Maybe the doctors and counselors at the infirmary are good at the services they offer but they are so engrossed in the good work they do that they haven’t had the time catch up with political correctness, the idiom for which despite having progressed globally still leaves a lot to be desired.
From the insulting and hurtful medical terms like ‘handicapped’, ‘invalid’ and ‘disabled’ to the supposedly less offending, more recent terms like ‘hearing/ vision/ speech impaired’ to the likes of ‘visually’ or ‘physically challenged’ and the more patronising ‘special person’, the global terms referring to those with needs that are different from the majority, still continue to be offensive in that they focus on a ‘disability’. It is not the person who is ‘disabled’ but his environment that has not been made to cater to everyone’s needs. Fix that excluding and disabling environment by making it more responsive to cater to the needs of everyone living in it, and the ‘disability’ of an individual will not be in the way of meeting one’s needs anymore .
An NGO working in Karachi by the name of ‘Enable Pakistan’ is doing some great work by building ramps along Tariq Road, the city’s shopping street, to facilitate the mobility of those using wheelchairs. Airports too have such arrangements in place, but the commercial centers do not. Our city administrations everywhere need to take their cue from this effort and change the building codes by requiring that every builder must provide easy access to all users. And why can’t we call and tag the parking spaces and public washrooms reserved for senior citizens and those with ‘special needs’ as ‘priority’ spaces, if we must tag and mark it clearly for the benefit of such users?
Unlike ‘invalid’ or ‘special’, ‘priority’ is a neutral word; it neither labels the users, nor patronises them. One can have priority seats marked in vehicles, parking spaces, washrooms and similar other services for those users who require them. Come to think of the banks, many of them multinational entities, and all certainly falling in the category of such businesses which have enough running capital. I have yet to see a bank in our cities with a ramp or a common service area providing for ‘priority’ users.
This Independence Day, let’s take a few minutes out to think about these and similar issues, and on your part make a difference by dropping a note at your bank branch, at the super market or the shopping centre you visit most, the eatery you frequent, the park you go to, etc. requesting them to make their access and services easier to use for those who are kept out by their negligence.
Also, follow the moral police in that when they see an offensive posture or dressing of a female model on a hoarding, for instance, they register their protest by demanding that the image be removed; one doesn’t have to physically do what they do, i.e., write graffiti or distort the image by spraying it with black ink; but find a more humane manner of registering your hurt.
One should also protest at the use of offensive language (that includes inappropriate and irrelevant responses that insult your intelligence) and words that are thrown your way in public spaces. For instance, I do not know what to make of it when these days if I greet someone with ‘How do you do?’ and they respond by saying ‘God be praised’ in Arabic. Obscenity is not exactly a synonym for offensive.
I am determined to write to the Cantonment Board Clifton (CBC) to request them to remove that offensive banner on Do Talwar. You can do the same.
—The writer is a member of the staff at Dawn Newspaper
