It’s time we united and tackle such issues
ISLAMABAD: Making light of harassment is wrong because it not only acts as a trigger for a survivor but also reinforces the very rape culture that leads to harassment. It’s wrong. Black or white with no grey areas up for convenience. But as we see it quite often, someone does find to live in the grey and propagate it for their own lack of understanding and so did comedian Yasir Hussain, when he tried to brush off his joke on child abuse by referring it to be just a “slip of the tongue”.
Four days ago at a prestigious award ceremony, Yasir told actor Ahsan Khan “Itna khoobsurat child molester, kaash mein bhi bacha hota” (what a beautiful child molester, if only I was also a child). As worse as it is that someone as well versed and educated like Yasir said such a thing, what is even more deplorable is that he doesn’t quite understand the problem behind poking fun at child abuse. In an interview with a national daily, Yasir said that his comment was in praise of Ahsan and had nothing to do with molestation. This in itself is enough to show how little Yasir knows about the menace, child abuse or rather harassment. Moreover, this “slip” also reflects the toxic culture we live in, as not even a single person in the audience or rather Ahsan himself, schooled Yasir on his petty sense of humour. It’s time we united and tackled such issues rather than letting them die off, eventually, as has been the case of many revolutions that tries to come through social media but doesn’t see the light of another day.
Uroosa Bhatti
Published in The Express Tribune, May 4th, 2017.
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