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SOMETIMES, even for the eternal optimist, defying the stark, naked, ugly truth becomes a big ask because the reality is such that it fills even the most stout-hearted with depression-inducing despair. Denial is pointless.
Just last week in these columns, one made an attempt to find a ray of hope, a hint of a healing touch in the words of the new army chief spoken in Khuzdar as he’d talked of the need to reach out to the people of the ‘neglected’ province and ‘local ownership in Balochistan’ of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.
A report in Friday’s edition of this paper said the bullet-riddled bodies of two men, who had been kidnapped last week from Kech and Panjgur districts in Balochistan, were found dumped. They were identified as Azad, son of Chakar, and Behram, son of Khuda Bakhsh. That is all we know about them.
The motive for the killing could not be ascertained immediately. The report also said nobody claimed responsibility for either their kidnapping or the killing and that the Levies were investigating. Any bets the investigation will lead to the murderers, their prosecution? You know the answer, as well as I do.
Of course the ‘disappeared’ bloggers, social media activists are also on my mind, but after Khurram Husain’s brilliant and inspired piece on the issue in these pages just a couple of days ago what more is there to add?
If one or some of the bloggers have broken the law then they must face charges in a court of law. There is no ambiguity about that in my mind. Of course, you will have noticed that depending on whether you are a darling of any shade of the religious right or whether they see you as hostile will dictate your fate.
Doesn’t Tayyaba represent our collective shame, failure; our inability to live by any principles, rules or just humanity? She is a slap in each of our faces.
It is not what you say but who you are that matters. If you have progressive airs and are very vocal against the threat of religious extremism, intolerance and bigotry, and also the excesses of the state then by definition you are walking on thin ice.
However, if you happen to be the leader of a religious-political party you can sow seeds of dissension among the ranks of the military combating religious fanatics by questioning the faith of the army chief and there is no problem. If you are proselytising and make outrageously unacceptable statements, a cacophony of voices calls for all to be forgiven, forgotten and it more or less is.
Depressing isn’t it? But definitely no more than when the country’s top law-enforcement politician, the interior minister, supports sectarian parties, which openly advocate takfir and violence, by saying this is something that has existed in Islam for 1,300 years.
If politicians ask us to tell apart sectarian parties (many of whose stalwarts have been placed on the Fourth Schedule — the terror watch list — by his own ministry) from ‘terrorist’ groups such as the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan, then they are perhaps only taking their lead from the former head of the ISI, who supported ‘mainstreaming of militant’ groups and jobs for their members in the police and paramilitary forces.
When a few weeks ago, the former intelligence chief was posted out and replaced by an officer with reputedly impeccable counterterrorism credentials, rather foolishly one started to hope that the focus would now solely be on those who pose an existential threat to the country. We have seen where the focus has actually been so far.
But why just blame the government and the military for the mess we are in. How is anyone else with even a little power, whether bestowed via position or money, different? As I ask this question, the battered face of the child worker, Tayyaba, is before my eyes.
Doesn’t Tayyaba represent our collective shame, failure; our inability to live by any principles, rules or just humanity? She is a slap in each of our faces. Even if we claim our own household is different, can each one of us say we don’t know a single person who knowingly and happily uses child labour? And if the answer is yes, what have we done about it?
Just raise the issue of child labour and there will be many who will counter by saying that the alternative for such children will be starvation as the poverty-stricken parents cannot even afford to feed them. Therefore, they are sent in to work.
Poverty may be the motive of such parents — what is ours? Lack of humanity, what else? Even if a justification can be found for giving a home to such a deprived child, shouldn’t it be incumbent on the host family to make sure they feed the child, make arrangements for their education. Instead the child is beaten black and blue and subjected to abuse.
How can so many of us — and, yes, the number must run into thousands upon thousands — prescribe for the children of others what we would shudder to even consider for our own. I don’t even know what kind of legislation exists to check this practice.
And does it matter? When have the powerful bothered with respecting and following any laws in this elitist society that we have created? Almost never. I am sure now that the country’s apex court has taken up the matter, Tayyaba will get justice.
But how much deprivation, pain and suffering will the other Tayyabas across the length and breadth of the country still have to put up with before we as a society collectively decide that all children are equal, not least those born in want and poverty.
The writer is a former editor of Dawn.
Published in Dawn January 14th, 2017
