Baa Baa Black Sheep…

Yes they do have wool. Yes they do pull this wool over our eyes. Yes they do then knit their evil designs on this landscape. And yes they get applauded by the master, the dame and the little boy who lives down the lane.

The flock that plays together stays together.

But what if you’re grey? What if you don’t have wool to wear or pull over others’ eyes? What if your design makes no sense? And what if the little boy living down the lane throws stones at you?

The nuances of life are just so darn infuriating.

Just like the nuanced killing of two men, one woman and one child in Sahiwal. If only the bright whiteness of CTD hitmen were enough to dilute the jet blackness of the murdered folk. If only one of the four were not a suspect and the other not innocent.

If only the woman were not a mother shielding her daughter from the hail of piously-intended bullets; and if only the 13-year-old girl were not 13 year old and not a girl.

If only life were less nuanced for those who valiantly pumped bullets into those four nuanced bodies. If only life were less nuanced for those in the CTD who are suddenly not sure who the gunmen were.

If only life were less nuanced for those in the Punjab government who are more concerned with the living breathing Chief Minister’s scintillating performance than the futile deadness of the very dead four people in Sahiwal.

If only life were less nuanced for the power-brokers in Islamabad who have a government to run, a committee to chair, a statement to give, a photo-op to shoot. If only…

Yes if only the black sheep were more black and less grey. The more grey they get, the more nuance they acquire; the more nuance they acquire, the less villainous they become; the less villainous they become, the more they resemble us; the more they resemble us, the less we hate them; the less we hate them the more we accept them.

Like we have accepted the inevitability of the Sahiwal murders; like we have accepted the active inaction of the authorities to punish the murderers; like we have accepted the unavoidable need of the family of the slain to beg for justice and not demand it as a right.

Black sheep are easy to find in rhetoric, slogans and vows but real hard to find in real life.

Even when people lie on oath to implicate others; even when people concoct stories and manufacture evidence to trap others; even when they lie in statements, lie in FIRs, lie in testimony and lie as eyewitnesses; even when innocent people like Aasia Bibi languish on death row for a decade and are found innocent by the highest court in the land — even then black sheep are hard to find.

Perhaps because painting them grey is so easy, so convenient and so acceptable.

But wait. The law is not supposed to delve in shades of grey. Either you break the law, or you don’t. You do not kind of, sort of, maybe violate the law. It’s either black or white.

You either killed the four people in the white Alto or you did not. How hard is that to establish? A team was dispatched to intercept that car by somebody.

That somebody has a name and a rank. His orders must have been recorded, documented and authorised by someone higher up in the food chain.

The CTD must have procedures and organograms like every official organisation. It is the Counter Terrorism Department after all, and not a mom&pop pizza shop.

The team deputed to finish off the ‘jet black terrorists’ in the white Alto would have been listed in official rosters. Each member would have received official weapons with official ammunition all documented and recorded.

No ambiguity here. None whatsoever. And yet the families of the slain have to be dragged to wherever the murderers are being detained so these family members can identify them through the so-called ‘shanakht’ parade.

There are no black sheep in real life, you see.

Because in real life the people who lied blatantly to rob Aasia of a decade have nothing black on them. Not from public opinion and not from the law.

If these peddlers of untruths were black enough, our society would have ostracised them; if they were black enough, the law would have grabbed them with its famed long arms and thrown them where the sun doesn’t shine. But today they walk among us like peacocks.

There are no black sheep in real life, you see.

And yet, if we start to see the grey sheep for the black sheep that they are, real change may unfold in front of our eyes. The chief jurist among us can define law such that the shades of black do not blend into grey, and those who lie on oath suffer a pain whose certainty surpasses its severity.

The chief executive among us can ensure that the law is implemented with a ruthlessness that smashes the bonds of organisational and institutional camaraderie regardless of the cost.

Those who killed in Sahiwal are testing this system and its capacity to change under the will of the chief jurist and the chief executive.

Those who lied in court and deprived an innocent woman of her liberty for ten years are also testing this system and its capacity to change. In a life full of nuance, none is visible in either case. And yet, grey has overwhelmed the black and the white.

When we demand change we can believe in, perhaps we are actually looking for change we can afford.

This change has to manifest itself in new laws that have to be legislated; in new judgments that have to be delivered; and in new application of law that has to be executed.

The proof of change is in its doing. Otherwise we can all return to the duplicitous folds of the nuanced system and sing in unison:

Baa Baa black sheep…

Published in The Express Tribune, February 3^rd, 2019.

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