No humanitarian cause is potent enough to bring the people of Pakistan on the roads.
KARACHI: This is in context to the question asked on your website the other day: “Do you feel street protests are an effective means to bring about a change?”
Although I agree they could be effective in the other parts of the world, the setback in Pakistan is that protests are never successful unless backed by political parties. No humanitarian cause is potent enough to bring the people of Pakistan on the roads. I can relate the experience of having seen a protest flop due to lack of political support. A month after the Sialkot lynching incident, those running a Facebook page on the incident (it had 50,000 members at that time, 70,000 now) organised two peaceful protests — one in Peshawar and one in Karachi, on consecutive days. The first one had around a dozen people while the second one had less than that.
To make matters worse, those who run the page have been criticised several times by the members for not doing anything other than posting updates. The irony is that when they tried to do something practical and tangible, no one shows up.
Now, they planned to have another candlelight vigil at a location in Islamabad and much to my disappointment, out of the 13,000 or so members from Islamabad and Rawalpindi, a mere 200 said that they would attend.
I have personally sent emails and text messages to all my contacts asking them to spread the word. And if this protest fails as well, like the last two, I will concede that Pakistan is a land of the living dead where nothing seems to work. The motto of most people is: As long as it’s not me, what do I care? Why should I leave the comfort of my home and march on the roads when there is nothing to gain? With such mindsets, protests cannot be an effective means to bring about change.
Sadia Abbas
Published in The Express Tribune, March 7th, 2011.
