Student Solidarity March

When political zeal is drilled into the minds of the youth there’s no stopping the lunacy

There is more noise than substance, if any, in this new entertainment for our ever-bored minds. The leather jacket and hijab-wearing ladies shout their lungs out demanding an end to the violation of their rights as students. To this end, they demand the government restore student unions. Truth be told, they don’t need any governmental guarantee for the restoration of student unions. I was a student in multiple campuses in Peshawar. The unions were always there and so was their aggressive and meaningless sloganeering. If the government lifts the ban on unions as they demand, rest assured the overarching campus administration would find ways to suppress them anyway. So, what’s this hard rock music all about then?

I have seen it all. It’s not a good practice for students to get involved in politics. To tell our young they’re free to do politics on campuses is to drive them into the arms of manipulators. It is to encourage the young men and women to develop hatred for their otherwise favourite teachers and best friends. It encourages holding grudges against someone they may not even know other than that that someone belongs to the opposing camp. It is guaranteed to create hatred towards complete strangers. Usually, hatred and love require knowing someone. Hating strangers can only be achieved by dividing young naive minds along political ideologies.

The powder keg aspects of politics and religion are quite enormous. The more naive a group of people are, the more divisions and hatred thrive. Young students on campuses are passionate, idealistic and, I may add with apologies, completely stupid. Again, I have been there. I used to idolise Che Guevara and wanted to bring a revolution. But then came the post-graduation life — a phase of joblessness followed by the introduction to paying my own bills. That is when I became a real man.

Student unions, as I have always seen, become tools of political parties for furthering their agenda. While unions are emboldened thinking they have a strong backing for their cause, nothing can be further from the truth. In reality, they are doomed — pawns in the hands of a system much bigger than them and sinister in its intentions.

It’s like what the American cult leader, Charles Manson, did in the 1960s. The counterculture or the Hippie crowd then, thought indulging in drugs and murder was a sign of freedom and defiance. Manson manipulated the minds of many youngsters and sent them off to kill innocent people. The Manson Family is well-known, yet notorious in American history. For those interested, I recommend the book, Helter Skelter, by Curt Gentry and Vincent Bugliosi. Sharon Tate, a young likable actress of the time, was brutally killed. She was more than eight months pregnant. The Hippies committed that grisly crime under Charles Manson’s direction believing they were serving a great cause by stabbing a pregnant woman 16 times.

When political zeal is drilled into the minds of the youth, who are ready for action and only need a justification for their act, there’s no stopping the lunacy. Many argue student marchers are a sequel to PTM’s failed experiment, merely shock troops manipulated by those with vested interests. Even if that’s not the case, the loud singing and yelling is not an encouraging picture. Which parents would want their children to behave this way?

I have gone to American campuses as a student and as a teacher and I know how many rapes happen on campuses here. The chanting, hijab-wearing girl can rest assured that the rape cases in Pakistan are only a tiny fraction of that. My advice is this: spend your time with books, instead of on the streets, for a change.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 5^th, 2019.

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