Sense of entitlement is treatable, dear PTI!

In Pakistan, psychiatric treatment is considered a taboo or a territory where only mentally deranged people should trespass. Those leading an everyday life in the sense that they are married, have children, working, and socialising, for them, any change in their mental state could be anything but a psychiatric issue. Frustration, loneliness, anger, cognitive disruptions and guilt complex are usually associated at times with disassociation with religion, and in many cases, we think it is sorcery playing tricks. All these things could happen. Sorcery is real. God does test people by putting them through different trials. However, this is not how things work all the time. The mind is just like any other organ, which can also fall sick and become dysfunctional.

On the flip side, a mental disorder is not always revealed in a depressed state of the affair but also in having a pseudo sense of entitlement. Unfortunately, as a nation, we are inflicted with this mental ailment. Look at the prevailing national character. We think everyone is out to destroy Pakistan. We think Israel and the US are obsessively against us because of our Islamic identity. We see our nuclear programme inherently in danger. We think India has nothing else to do than plan an attack on Pakistan.

We think some ultra powers have trapped us in a debt crisis to weaken our so-called ideology of Pakistan. We think it is the divine right of Pakistanis to defend Islam. Last but not least, the geostrategic placement of Pakistan has been taken as some spiritual intervention to enable us to spread Islam globally through Afghanistan. In short, we think Pakistan is encircled by enemies.

In personal lives, this cognitive bias reflects in a paranoid and suspicious personality. Ordinary Pakistanis usually think they are under the spell of black magic, somebody out of jealousy has cast an evil eye on them, or someone is conniving to destroy their business or job. Hence, people spend more time defending their turf from harm’s way than doing their work professionally.

Look at the political landscape. In a parliamentary democracy, the opposition is considered the other self of the party in power. So even if the opposition is corrupt and the leader at the helm is brimming with honesty, there is no room to treat the opposition as enemies.

Either you prove them swindlers in the court and have them punished, or you sit with them and run the country’s affairs. The kind of sense of entitlement we have seen in the PTI was never there before in Pakistan’s politics. Our politicians did stab one another. They did sell their conscience. Moreover, like every party, they boasted about their achievements. However, no one pitched itself as an honest, pious and stainless political party. If that was not enough, the PTI took the privilege to announce Imran Khan as the leader of the Muslim Ummah, while Imran has claimed that no one can love Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) as he does. The question is whether taking up Islamophobia at the UN, setting up a Rehmatul-lil-Alameen Authority, or walking barefoot in Madina are signs of peerless love for the Prophet (PBUH). What about the language he uses? What about the electoral engineering through which he came to power in 2018? What about his habit of ridiculing his opponents in jalsas? What about his smearing remark on Mariam Nawaz Sharif’s character? What about his promise to his voters of recovering every penny of the laundered money from Sharifs? What about the slanderous campaign unleashed on social media to undermine opponents and women journalists. He forgot his promises, the merit mantra, and spent all his effort consolidating his REGIME.

This sense of entitlement is a treatable psychiatric disease! Try it.

Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) said: “A believer is never a person who scoffs at others, calls them names, or utters vulgar and obscene phrases.” (Tirmidhi).

Published in The Express Tribune, July 2^nd, 2022.

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