THERE is an old-fashioned charm to being nice.
As the year drags itself towards closure, the short days remind us of all that we could have had and should have had if most of us had our way. But deafened by the noise of partisan politics, Pakistanis have learnt that the best way to deal with this unbearable cacophony is to contribute to it.
The megaphone of the social media has enabled us to do just this. And do so with a vengeful gusto few thought they could muster. The last few years have been consumed by the pursuit of this poisonous passion; the kind that infects you as you infect the others while they are busy infecting even more. It is a poison that dilutes the sweetness of kinship, friendship and relationship; that weakens the bonds of affection, goodwill and harmony; and instils in us emotions that are triggered by loathing, revulsion and hate. The outcome is unsurprising. We are fast transforming into a society that is corroding from the inside.
What is this if not a sign of a system growing fat by eating its own children?
Are we there yet? Perhaps not. But we are certainly on our way. Listen carefully to the sound of partisan contempt that burns like acid; hear the cry of fanatical detestation that cuts like a sharp dagger; and feel the painful laceration of blinding bigotry as its ruptures the insides like an exploding ulcer. This is the story of nation stabbing itself again and again to cure a malignancy that grows like a tumour not in the body but in the mind — and in the heart.
There was a time not too long ago that we could be civil to each other. It was a time when the scorching heat of political rivalries did not have to burn through cultural norms and societal reverences; when flames of political belligerency did not need to scorch through familial bonds and personal attachments. It was indeed a time — now so drenched in nostalgia — when opponents across the aisle shook their fists and then shook their hands; when they shouted abuse on the floor of the House and shouted pleasantries over a home-cooked meal; and when they exchanged vitriol in jalsas only to exchange greetings on Eids. There was something very normal in these human interactions even in times of political abnormality and turmoil. Hate may have fuelled rivalries but it did not nourish social discourse.
And now?
Now we are suffering through a new normal spawned from the womb of corrosive abnormality. It is a normal that says it is acceptable, admissible and even respectable to treat your rivals like your enemies and loathe them from the core of your being. The force of this hate should be such that it must override professional requirements and societal values; the potency of this abhorrence should be such that it melts through organisational and cultural hierarchies and seeps down all the way to the deepest core of the community. The schism within us — we seem to tell ourselves now — should be deep, and it should be dark.
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Do you see this fissure around you? Do you feel it in you? Harken the spirit that defines your identity and ask who among us has the right to bestow partisan hate on the other; who carries the moral weight to pour scorn on the other, and who has earned the badge of undeserved superiority to diminish the worth of the other. Ask. In the heat of political battles, have we lost the sight of what has held us together in one form or another? This politics we see raging around us like a sandstorm, does this reflect who we are? Or were? Or want to be? Or is it ravaging us into something else? Something new? And vile?
Our society is baring its teeth. The lynching of men, stripping of women and abuse of children with almost — how should one say it — almost a sense of bestial entitlement, what is this if not a sign of a community retching its worst instincts onto its own lap? The state making people disappear while their wives and children grovel in front of authority to give them what is their right, the police murdering and torturing its way through law enforcement as victims knock on doors shut tight, and a system shut tighter, what is this if not a sign of a system growing fat by eating its own children?
The law? It was supposed to have been made more equal for all this year. Has it? Justice? It was supposed to have been made more accessible and affordable for all this year. Has it? Accountability? It was supposed to have been made more equitable for all this year. Has it?
How then should we measure progress — any progress — that may have registered itself on this land we call home? Cut through this partisan rhetoric, slice away this political bluster, shear down vague claims, and peer into the hollowness that is left behind in the shape of yearnings that are now manifesting themselves in disappointment, disillusionment and — yes, anger.
But it is an anger we can ill-afford. Like the hate and loathing and revulsion we can ill-afford. This country now needs to heal. It needs to repair the damage it has done to itself; to stitch the self-inflicted wounds and bridge the self-dredged crevices that divide us into parts and sub-parts. Macroeconomics cannot medicate micro-cleavages, and high politics cannot mend low tolerance. Something deeper is required from the leadership in order to convalesce our society back to health.
But what is the leadership doing? And thinking? And planning? Read today’s headlines and scroll through your social media feeds. Go ahead, sense the mood that prevails among the decision-makers and how it reeks of their priorities. Go ahead and inhale the toxins of misplaced intentions as they float around like a cloud of bad odour. Then sit back, remove your partisan lens, untie your ideological strings, and consider this:
Something somewhere is terribly wrong when the only thing moving forward at the end of the year is the calendar on your wall.
The writer is Dawn’s resident editor in Islamabad.
Twitter: @fahdhusain
Published in Dawn, December 11th, 2021