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| Pakistan - A Sick Society Zafarullah Poshni A Pakistani clinical psychologist, who had
lived abroad for many decades, returned to his motherland for a visit.
After a few weeks' stay in Pakistan he was asked about his reflections on
the home country and he replied: "I see only two emotions here –
aggression and depression". I read an item about an intellectual who
left Pakistan for good to settle in the United Kingdom and while departing
remarked: "I'm sorry but I find it totally impossible to live in a
country which features a law like the Blasphemy Law on its statute
book". Then there is the foreign professor who
while meeting the alumni and students at LUMS said: "I just don't
understand your priorities. Those
issues seem to take up most of your valuable time which have no bearing on
the well-being, prosperity and progress of your people while problems
which are crucial to the building of a harmonious and happy society
receive short shrift"? These three examples of the terrible impact
of the social milieu of Pakistan on sensitive intellectual minds adumbrate
clearly what a perverse, disgusting, obnoxious, hate-filled, cruel
environment has been created, step by step, in the land of the pure by the
purveyors of purity. Our ulema tell us that the West is
decadent, promiscuous and morally corrupt, while we Pakistanis sport
spiritually superior souls! But
our country produces umpteen cases of monsters who rape two year old
girls, who insert electrical probes and burn their wives' genitals and
gouge out their eyes, who sodomize one hundred boys, kill them and
dissolve them in acid. There are countless fathers who routinely beat
their children in a most cruel and savage manner and unlike the decadent
West there is no law or convention in our pure country to protect these
innocents from being pulverized and brutalised and scarred for life. Our rural hero wants to acquire his
sister's property, so he alleges she is a 'Kari' and sexually involved
with the neighbour and he kills both of them with a hatchet and gets away
with murder on the basis of 'honour'! Forget the rural barbarian - we have
plenty of educated savages in cities who murder their daughters because
the girls want to marry men of their choice, or even because they want to
divorce their cruel husbands. It blows your mind - if you are a rational
person - when you hear of these loathsome practices, but none of our
political leaders or religious leaders has ever paid any attention to the
eradication of these sadistic and barbaric customs. You see, they have
more important issues to tackle, such as proving that all the afflictions
falling on Pakistan are due to the Qadianis/or Shias, or the
shrine-worshipping Barelvis or the "gustakh-e-rasool", Wahabis.
And going a step further many believe that all our multifarious problems
are being caused by the damned Jews and the Americans and the Hindus. We as a nation give an amazing display of
persecution complex - the whole world is against us, we cry and moan and
lament! Well, it is time to wake up, brothers - in the realm of
international politics, every nation looks after its own interest. There
are no permanent friends and nobody owes us a living. And we don't need
enemies - we are our own worst enemies. Have you ever heard of any of our great
political leaders or erudite ulema ever talk to ponder about the real,
devastating problems which must be tackled if Pakistan has to survive as a
viable and liveable country in the decades to come, such as: Burgeoning population:
The Pakistan Government does allow a certain lukewarm sort of family planning campaign but the need here is for a totally all pervasive, all embracing, all out birth control campaign that will drill the message of planned parenthood among the teeming millions. However, it so happens that the success of
family planning is tied up with the empowerment and education of women,
which in turn is anathema to the mediaeval mind-set of the country's
opinion leaders, both feudal and religious. It is a vicious circle, but
unless the people wielding political power decide to tackle the matter
head on, the population growth will continue and play havoc with the
prospects of peace, progress and prosperity of the country in the years to
come. Education:
And as we enter the age of I.T. the leap
forward that India is taking in the field of software will begin to show
such dramatic results in three or four years that the Indians will start
looking down with disdain on us. If we don't do something really
extraordinary very soon to measure up in the realm of I.T. we will no
longer be in the race at all. Health facilities:
The pity is that successive governments
either through apathy and nonchalance or weakness in the face of the
fundamentalist offensive have allowed a situation to develop in Pakistan
where liberal and modernist people are generally too scared to present
their case forcefully to the public. Thus a minority (fundos, fanatics and
feudals) by sheer dint of muscle power and fire power have made hostages
of all of us, even though the vast majority of Pakistanis does not agree
with their extremist pontifications. The fundos have never won an election so
far . . . thank God ... and hopefully never will. But they will continue
to use the pulpit and the mosque and their street power to oppose all
steps which can keep the population in check. The fundos will do nothing
to help reduce maternal and infant deaths either. They are just not
interested in such 'mundane matters'. Their mission is to bring the
kingdom of God on earth by killing all those who dissent from their lofty
ideals. Rape:
I think minors are the most pitiable
creatures in our society, and the blessings of Allah can never be showered
on a nation that treats its innocents like the way they are treated in our
streets and tenements. The tragedy is that sundry governments in Islamabad
are concerned about injustices to Muslims in every nook and corner of the
world, but they have a totally blind eye for the monstrous goings-on in
their own land; they do not have an iota of sympathy for the women and the
children who are subjected to barbaric treatment by fathers, teachers,
ustads, bosses, landlords, street gangs, by every macho tough guy who
thinks it is his divine right to be cruel and unjust to those who are
weak, helpless or resourceless. Ours certainly is a savage society where
the rule of might is right is sacrosanct and where the man of means can
literally get away with first degree murder. There is a dire need for all those who are
in power, one way or the other, to come down to earth and look at the real
world around them. If they are honest they will see a society which is
eminently unjust; where the difference in wealth between the rich and poor
is stunning; where the lower classes still live a life that is nasty,
brutish and short; where education and health have low priority in the
scheme of things; where murders and suicides are common place; where women
are treated like chattel and are killed like animals; where minors are
harassed molested and brutalized, where the vast majority of people
invariably looks grim and ferocious. Where else in the world (except, of course,
Afghanistan) would you have a group of fundos taking out TV sets and VCRs
and breaking them and setting fire to them in the street in order to
deprive the people of even the meagre entertainment that they can squeeze
out of a bleak existence. (This happened in Karachi a few days back and
was reported in the press). The fundos are also angry because the
people of Pakistan observe the spring festival of Basant with such great
joy, zest and zeal. I have heard indignant beardos complain that Lahoris
enjoy Basant more than our own Eids. Who can explain to them that the Eids
are religious festivals with a touch of solemnity about them, while Basant
is sheer unadulterated spring madness, pure exuberance and fun. If the
classes and masses can get some joy for a few days, why not let them
obtain their quota of it? It is encouraging that the vast majority of
Lahoris (and denizens of other cities) have paid no heed to the
fulminations of the fundos and made Basant into a great escape from their
daily grind. If the Taliban lobby had their way they would, of course,
burn all the kites and tear all the yellow dresses and silence all the
musical instruments and turn the sounds of joy into the dirge of judgement
day!! Leaving aside the affluent one per cent, this is a miserable society that we have created, if it is measured on the basis of what is called 'quality of life'. It is not just poverty that is so demoralizing and degrading. Many other countries are as poor or poorer than ours, and yet the people are not so joyless and devoid of even an iota of cheerfulness, like the vast majority of our citizens. Here is something for psychologists and psychiatrists and social scientists to ponder about and come up with their analysis and remedies. This is a really sick society and needs extensive treatment.
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