The day after the noise

Three years ago, in 2022, Pakistan experienced some of the worst floods seen in a while. Well over a thousand precious lives were lost, countless homes and communities were destroyed, and the economy suffered a loss estimated at $40 billion. The tragedies brought a chorus of voices to the fore. For the first few days our favourite media personalities visited small villages - trying to do better than their competition - standing next to damaged homes and grieving families. Some rolled up their trousers and stood in knee-deep water. In press conferences at fancy hotels, there was new and renewed discussion on climate change and its impact on the country. There was also a case made at global forums - with painful images of all that was lost - about Pakistan's right to necessary funds for climate mitigation.

After just a few months, a different picture emerged. The small towns and villages that were promised funds for repair and rebuilding were still waiting for the bare minimum. For example, news from Sindh, four months after the devastating floods, reported that homes and schools were still inundated, fields had become lakes. People were hungry, malnutrition was high and disease was widespread. Major media houses, and with that most of the people who were not directly impacted, had moved on to other juicy stories. The grief of families that had lost everything was no longer of interest to the powerful. In fact, the powerful were the reason the grief had no closure. The aid that had come in had disappeared due to systemic corruption and mismanagement. But corruption alone was not the problem. Those who were displaced by floods found hostile hosts as they moved to the city. I know people, otherwise affluent and well spoken, who were unhappy to see the "uncouth riffraff" coming from the inner province to the city. We understand their grief, they said, but they are bringing crime to our neighborhood! I wonder where else I have heard this before.

I worry the same may happen this time around. The tragedies in Buner and other parts of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, and Karachi, are heartbreaking. Many such incidents are also preventable. But how do we know that we will not forget them in a few days, weeks or a couple of months? That we will get busy, once again, with the news of palace intrigues, or whether an apology is sufficient or not to bring someone out of jail?

In this cycle of devastation, that is becoming increasingly frequent, we need both prevention and support. There is good and technically sound debate about prevention (whether that is being heeded is a different story altogether!). But there is another part of this story, and that is about staying with those who are grieving, suffering and looking for support. It is one thing to follow a hashtag, make a statement on TikTok, show up when the cameras are there, and quite another to make sure that we are there for them when the news crew is not. The approach here is not to reinvent the wheel, but to return to basics. We need to empower local communities, local organisations and local journalists to ensure that the promises are kept, that those who are suffering are looked after, and that homes, schools, hospitals and businesses are rebuilt in an appropriate manner.

It is being said that not much was learned by the governments - federal and provincial - since the floods of 2022. There is a lot of truth in that. But maybe the burden of blame goes beyond the government. We too need to reflect in the mirror and ask if we are going to be different in our care, concern and support this time around. As the noise about the tragedies fades, the viral feeds of homes swept away are replaced with something else, are we going to forget all this as old news?