The real blind men

What savages in Punjab police uniform did to blind men is symptomatic of a cancer that has spread deep, wide in govt

When the State beats up its handicapped children on the streets, you know the sickness is bordering on terminal. Nothing could be more disgusting, revolting and nauseating.

And nothing could be less surprising and predictable.

This was bound to happen. In fact, it’s a miracle it did not happen sooner. Well, let me correct myself. It sure has happened a hundred times before, but not on camera. So there it was for the whole world to see, the savages we dress in police uniforms, punching, pushing and dragging visually impaired special people on the roads of Lahore. Yes, the humiliation of blind people unfolded in the glare of cameras — and shamelessness paraded up and down the avenue in synchronised blindness.

The inhuman barbarity of the Punjab police is a badge it wears with pride. But the real savages are the men who officer them, and the men who supervise those who officer them. These educated and urbane men (and a few women) suffer from a blinding disease that cripples their conscience, cannibalises their morality and pollutes their basic humanity with layers and layers of toxic arrogance.

It is they who are the real blind men.

Go ahead, visualise that image again. See that bulky savage of the Punjab police pushing and shoving the blind men. See him drag the hapless victim on the road. Watch him land punches on the face of the poor man who can only see pain and humiliation slicing through the darkness around him to pierce his body, his soul. The uniformed savage laughs, jeers and snickers as the blind men topple over and crash into the well-carpeted road built lovingly by the Chief Minister and his concrete-happy henchmen.

Rerun these images in your mind and get angry. Get very angry. Feel your temper welling up inside you like lava — rising and rising till you can contain it no more. Let it out, scream a scream of anguish — a scream of pain and hurt, and of dreams and hopes shattered; scream for all that has ravaged this society, and scream for the inhumanity that stalks this land. Scream hard and loud till you can scream no more; till your voice betrays you like your State has, leaving you to tremble and shake with unending rage.

Rage brings clarity. Rage brings focus. You cut through the politically correct mumbo jumbo and grab reality by the throat. This savagery that you witnessed in Lahore, this is the system telling you to go drown yourself in your own tears. This is the police, the bureaucracy, the political rulers all telling you to go jump in a lake for all they care. This is the sham we call our system telling us to hang ourselves from the nearest (polished) lamppost on the leafy Mall Road of Lahore.

So here’s what I say to all my dear friends who so naively plead for time to let the system evolve: get a life.

Let the system evolve into what? Mayhem? You want time so this diseased system, controlled and perpetuated by diseased men sporting diseased mentalities, to eat itself (and you) to death? You want these blind men to drive you and your children off the cliff? Today they thrashed handicapped people on the roads; yesterday they slaughtered men and women in a hail of bullets in Model Town, tomorrow they will do something worse. Are you waiting for that day? Are you such simpletons to actually believe this disease is going to cure itself?

Are you blinded to the blinding blindness of these real blind men?

What the savages in the Punjab police uniform did to blind men is symptomatic of a cancer that has spread deep and wide within the structure of the government. It is a cancer of the mind. It is this cancer that limits the capacity of the men in government to feel the pain of others. It is this cancer that enables them to feel dry under the torrential shower of shame. These men wear crisp police uniforms with heavy brass on their shoulders, yet they feel no remorse in brutalising humanity. These men sag under the boastful weight of their bureaucratic grades, and their lofty offices laden with perks and underserved privileges, yet they are deaf to the blood-curdling shrieks of their own dying conscience. These men claw their way up the electoral ladder and perch themselves on the summit of misplaced hopes, yet they cannot grow a brain that could process visions of a State that is tender, caring, just and not harsh, brittle and predatory.

So my dear apologists for this diseased system run by diseased men, wake up from your self-induced slumber and smell the stench of reality. How many decades of evolution do you need to ensure the police does not drag handicapped people on the roads? How many decades of evolution do you need to convince a government that police murdering 17 people is a crime? How many decades of evolution do you need to persuade the elected people that every single Pakistani child must be in school? And how many decades of evolution — my dear naive friends — do you need to make the rulers understand that flesh and bones are more important than bricks and mortar?

It’s a travesty what’s happening all around us. This is not governance. This is a crime. It’s a crime against the good people of Pakistan, who have suffered the acute blindness of rulers for six decades. It is a crime against our hopes and aspirations; a crime against our dignity and worth; it is a crime against our very humanness as children of a caring God who created us as equals. But here in this Islamic Republic, blind rulers exercising the blind power of the State are relishing the desecration of every sacred thing left with us.

No sirs, this is not democratic evolution; it is demonic devastation. For God’s sake, don’t be blind to the difference.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 7^th, 2014.

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