The lost dreams

Our heads should hang in shame. It can no longer be blamed on deranged individuals that our society continues to create unspeakable horrors in crimes against women. When a young girl, whose only crime is to help a friend marry someone she loves, is burned with her body tied to the seat of a car, it is not just an individual monster who finds comfort in such heinous acts. The presence of a whole council that debates and agrees to this heinous act, and those who carry it out, suggests a problem much deeper than what we have been willing to acknowledge. The absence of national and provincial political leadership in this matter is deeply troubling, but perhaps should not surprise any of us. It is not just the moral failure of those who participate in such tragedies, it is also a reflection on the greater society at large, including those who stay quiet.

The presence of a parallel justice system run by supposed elders of a tribe, who do not deserve the dignity of being called human is a failure of our national system, of governance that knows of these jirgas, of police and intelligence systems, and all those who see such signs on a daily basis and continue to ignore them. When the members of a group of political parties block a bill to protect women and when a group of people take to the streets to defend the status quo and bully us all, there is little reason to assume that tomorrow will be any better than today. Those who refuse to acknowledge the depth of the problem, either because of political expediency or because they only want to portray a good image of the country will be judged harshly by the moral verdict of history and rightfully so.

What happened with Ambreen may be a new low in our long history of unimaginable horrors against girls and women, but it is part of a much bigger trend. When women, who want to be part of the political process, feel unsafe in a political rally in Islamabad, in the presence of tens of thousands, either because of morally bankrupt men or hired goons, we should no longer claim to be a healthy society, or worse, one that is trying to become one. Any effort to deny the existence of our collective failure, whether it is cloaked in denial of isolated incidents or in the forms of ludicrous promises of providing justice in the future, or worse, analogies that such incidents happen everywhere, is one more sign that our soul and humanity left the body long ago.

The health of society cannot be measured by the motorways, economic corridors or the tall claims of development, neither can it be quantified by the size of the military. It can only be described by how we treat one another, especially those whose aspirations we have suppressed for generations.

Last night, at a fundraiser for The Citizens Foundation to build schools for the poor, I had the pleasure, honour and joy of listening to Dr Nergis Mavalvala. A deeply humble scholar, she told her story and that of her path. It was a moving story filled with dreams, great mentors and a caring family. While listening to her, I thought of Ambreen and her surroundings ­— and what were her dreams? What did she like to do? What were her aspirations and above all, why did we, as a society, trade her dreams with unthinkable torture?

Ambreen’s murder is one more sign that we are working hard to turn the clock of civilisation and human dignity backwards. But it does not have to be this way — we can and must demand more of our system, of our leaders and above all, of ourselves. We can no longer assume that the currents of time and civilisation will take us forward — it hasn’t and it won’t. Only a determination that everyone, be it Nergis or Ambreen, will be safe and able to dream safely, with a fair shot at realising those dreams, will create a society worth living in.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 10^th, 2016.

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