The opposite of love

The two incidents are just a small fraction of what goes on every day

Ellie Wiesel, the famous humanist and philosopher, had observed that the opposite of love is not hate. It is indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference. Because of indifference, one dies before one actually dies.

His words could not be more relevant to us today. The IG police Sindh went to offer his condolences to the families of the policemen who died in the recent terrorist attack on the Chinese consulate. The state of their houses paints a picture of our collective apathy and indifference. These are those who were employed by the state and yet their quarters are in a state that should embarrass us all. We should be ashamed of the miserable condition afforded by our bravest and the most dignified. We certainly do not love them — but our indifference to their condition is worse than hate. Most of us wouldn’t remember their names — Amir Khan and Ashraf Dawood — in about a week’s time. Just as we do not remember the names of the thousands of policemen who have made the ultimate sacrifice in the last decade or so. As Wiesel had put wisely — they are dead before they die. It wouldn’t make a difference if they were alive or not.

We certainly do not love our heroes — and we do not hate them. We do something much worse, we just do not care.

The problem about police quarters is not an isolated incident or just about police or their housing — though that itself should be shameful enough. There is a bigger and a broader trend of just not caring about our people whatsoever. A couple of weeks ago, there was yet another episode of quality lapses in the country. This time, two brothers — Ahmad and Muhammad — had died after food poisoning. Subsequently, meat that had expired years ago was recovered allegedly from a warehouse of the restaurant where the kids had dined. As is often the case, there was a buzz, a flash in the pan and then complete silence. A little game of deflecting the blame was played and now we have moved on. No news, no reports and no serious investigation. No recognition of a deeper problem of corruption in our food, beverage and health sector and no clear strategy of tackling intentional lapses in quality.

These two incidents are just a small fraction of what goes on every day. It is a sliver of incidents just in November 2018. The chest thumping, ill-informed minister who showed hollow valour gets more discussion (though he was out of place, and compromising a sensitive operation) than those who actually laid down their lives. Something isn’t quite right with us.

The steps by the government, whether in the form of a basic homeless shelter by the present government or an income support programme by a previous one, must be lauded and supported. But we all should also recognise that these programmes are just a drop in the ocean. The weak and the homeless, the hungry and the marginalised, regardless of their ethnicity, creed or sect must be supported and cared for. We have to go beyond a single signature programme and do more for our people, not because it is politically smart or because it makes a good story — but because we care. And because these are our people.

In this era of hyper-patriotism and where everything is looked from the lens of security, perhaps we should ask ourselves when we say we love our country — what exactly do we love? The customs and the culture? But what about the people who occupy these lands and create these foods? How much do we love the Pakistanis who make Pakistan? Perhaps we are incapable of loving them, but have we become so morally bankrupt that instead of caring for them, we give them the exact opposite: our collective indifference.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 27^th, 2018.

Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.