ONLY the weak-minded people let their emotions overpower them to the extent that they abuse and fight with everyone and anyone who disagrees with them. Pakistani politics has become a game of defaming, demeaning and degrading everyone who does not agree with one’s ideas and opinions. Our so-called ‘leaders’ are willfully dragging society into a pit where everyone hates the other to the extent that has never been witnessed before.

Such a society have we become, that there is a lot of frustration between close friends and office colleagues over which political side one happens to be. Any word you speak can be used against you to harass you online or even in the physical world. This is hardly the politics where we were supposed to measure the performance of governments based on the living standards of the common people.

Instead, what we have is accusations and abuses without anybody providing any kind of legal evidence. It is high time the media played its due role and educated the masses to make them aware enough not be become hyped up and emotional at the whim of a speech without any kind of evidence.

The masses imitate, follow and replicate their leaders. They will, and they do, use the same abusive language and even escalate it to the physical level in society that is bound to have dangerous consequences, the responsibility of which will of course not be taken by any leader.

It is the need of the hour that the nation should remain united and not let political differences lead to personal abuses and harassments. We need to move forward.

Haroon M. Yusuf
Faisalabad

Published in Dawn, May 20th, 2022