Ignoring the collective opinions of ordinary people imperils the entire social structure.
ISLAMABAD: Secularists in Pakistan are a miniscule but vociferous and an enormously resourceful clique wedded to social elitism and determined to promote conventions repugnant to local culture. The very tendency of giving unwarranted attention to ‘events’ like concerts, that have no bearing on the lives of the common people, smacks of detachment from ordinary people’s problems. By doing so, the secularists ignore the rumblings of moral uncertainties that are at heart of the social convulsions that manifest themselves as ‘vigilantism’.
Such moral uncertainties have made social and political conservatism a norm throughout the civilised world. Nowhere, however, are people subscribing to a certain viewpoint dismissed as a “minority”. Nor do elitist intellectuals work indefatigably to paint their societies as “obscurantist” — though all civilised democracies are held hostage by rightist elements in varying degrees. Right or wrong, ignoring the collective opinions of ordinary people imperils the entire social structure. Playing with the sensitivities of the masses is playing with fire.
Nadeem Zaidi
Published in The Express Tribune, September 3rd, 2012.
