Pakistan — the Peter Pan country

The dire consequences of jubilation firing usually go unannounced, the results, however, are horrifying

The Peter Pan country? Yes, the country that has never grown up. To be sure there is no shortage of grown-ups everywhere but in many instances what is on the outside is different from what is on the inside, and on the inside the dominant life-form is the inner child.

It was a couple of images posted by a friend who is a doctor. A young boy looked out of one. The left eye was bandaged and his face distorted, there was what appeared to be an entry wound on the top left of his scalp. The second picture was an x-ray profile. The bullet that blew out his eye and damaged his brain was clearly visible, angled towards his spine. And yes, it was firing into the air in celebration of the win by the Pakistan cricket team earlier on the evening that led to him being turned into a cripple for the rest of his life.

This is the bit usually unseen. Jubilation firing almost never makes headlines and is reported in a few lines if reported at all. But the casualty figures in the aftermath of the win by the Greenies was something else, and reports rolled in over the following 24 hours from all provinces but with K-P and Karachi having the greatest in terms of numbers on casualty lists. Men, women and children all hit by falling shot and injuries that ranged from the superficial to the lucky to be alive.

Men — and I think we have to assume this is an exclusively male activity — pointed their guns at the sky and pulled the trigger, usually in the middle of an urban and densely populated area, and popped off a clip or a few individual rounds. Then went back inside to be comfily seated before what went up became what comes down. And kills and maims people. And the level of awareness in these man-children who have just had a bit of fun? Zero. Zip. Zilch. And if asked whether they had given a thought to the consequences of their actions they would smile, shrug and walk away doubtless commenting on the impertinence of whoever it was that asked them if they gave a damn for the outcome of their actions. Guilt would figure nowhere. Responsibility a value far down their emotional developmental road, over the horizon.

Scroll back 25 years to Gilgit in the ’90s and it was all a bit like the Wild West. Firing into the air at that time could include the discharge of rocket-propelled grenades (that explode on impact with the ground) heavy machine guns and a battery of hand-held weapons. Rumour had it that PIA would inquire as to whether there was to be a wedding coincident with a flight. Probably apocryphal but not impossible. Then there was my own village in Punjab where guns appeared out of the woodwork and got discharged in celebration of rain would you believe. But all this was long ago…

The outbreak of collective common sense that is a pointer to eventual maturity really set in around the turn of the century. Communities began to de-weaponise, some of them, and nowadays and certainly in my own area aerial firing is virtually unheard of. In the single instance in recent times the police arrested an entire wedding party within sight of my house when they cut loose with the Kalashnikovs. At risk of dire retribution it was noted afterwards by chatty neighbours that the family concerned had migrated from…errr…K-P. They left soon afterwards.

Whilst a significant proportion of the population have reached a level of emotional maturity that allows them to understand that shooting guns upwards has a downside that may include the deaths of their nearest and dearest, there is a still-strong section of the populace that keep their guns in the playpen just in case they want to celebrate getting potty-trained. There are millions of these Peter Pans and collectively they are a drag-anchor on the growth of the state because their immaturity and irresponsibility extends far beyond their gun ownership and deep into the way they interact with the wider world. Well it has stopped raining in Bahawalpur. Let’s put up a few shall we?

Published in The Express Tribune, June 22^nd, 2017.

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