Weapons will only create greater vulnerability and add to the level of violence and madness in our society.
KARACHI: Consider a house infested with bugs, insects and rodents. The occupants, instead of cleaning and fumigating the house, resort to obtaining special licences for the purchase of high quality anti-mosquito creams and anti-rodent lotions. The insects soon develop immunity to these and the occupants are forced to use even stronger chemicals. While the sale of creams and lotions goes up, the occupants continue to be bitten, fall sick and stay miserable. No one bothers to point out that the root cause needs to be addressed without promoting the cream and lotion industry.
The news that all the doctors in Sindh will be issued arms licences and given weapon-handling training is profoundly sad and immensely unwise. It only demonstrates our refusal to clean and fumigate our house, and instead opt for cheap appeasement, firefighting and quick fixes. Does it mean that in the new scheme of things, all businessmen, industrialists and religious and sectarian minorities would also be given licences and military training to pre-empt their potential assailants? Weapons will only create greater vulnerability and add to the level of violence and madness in our society. Are we not helping to proliferate the very instruments that have turned our country into the most dangerous place on earth? It is the responsibility of the state to protect all its citizens. It can do so by withdrawing 40 per cent of its police currently engaged in VIP duties. It can do so by forcing all militants to surrender their weapons. It can do so by understanding that the solution to our sickness lies not in “more weapons” but in “no weapons”.
Little may be expected from the Sindh government, famous for its penchant for indiscriminate licencing, distribution and promotion of weapons. But one does hope that there will be ethical and honourable physicians and surgeons, who will stand up to say no to guns and turn down this disgusting and insane arrangement. One hopes that many of them will instead lead the movement for a gun-free and peaceful Pakistan.
Naeem Sadiq
Published in The Express Tribune, March 25th, 2014.
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