The writer is a 19-year-old medical student dedicated to creative writing and poetry
I blame the young boys who get murdered every day in passing for stepping out on the streets when they know that the world is a dangerous place. How dare they leave their houses? Do they not realise that they are automatically endangering their lives when they parade around, laughing loudly and attracting attention? They, too, are ‘asking for it’. I blame the children going back to school for any future mishap that might take place. What are they thinking, pursuing education when the angel of death hovers over every corner of every educational institution, waiting to claim its next victim? While I am at it, I blame their parents, too. Clearly, no one ever learns.
Working my way upwards, I blame the media and social activists for fighting a lost war against corruption. Are they out of their minds? When television anchors speak out and expose our leaders, do they not realise that they only make us more vulnerable? We are, after all, meant to cower in fear against our great leaders. How dare they raise their voices and try to awaken a comatose nation?
I also blame Imran Khan for getting married. How dare he try to find happiness when the world is stooped in sorrow and blood? How dare he try to make amends or offer his condolences to parents mourning their children? What was he thinking? I know who I’m not voting for.
The list goes on and it works its way up the social hierarchy. It is, in fact, never-ending. You see, when we start the blame game, it never ends. That is just the way it works. The Peshawar attack has been accepted as a part of Pakistan’s bleak history. The ongoing political turmoil has been accepted as routine. It makes me wonder. I have pinned down everyone I can possibly think of as an accomplice in the slow poisoning of the world as we know it. Have I forgotten anyone? Have I forgotten myself? Am I responsible for Peshawar? Am I the reason for the fear we instill in our girls and the sick chauvinism that exists in our boys? I sit at home flipping channels, scanning newspapers and ignoring both a few days on end. I shake my head in disapproval at the rising death toll, complain about corruption and all the while, I do nothing.
Maybe I am responsible. Maybe, you are too. Maybe, just maybe, the fact that we want our boys to man up and our girls to shield themselves is creating a divide deeper than ever before. Maybe, I need to start by blaming myself and accepting my fault. Maybe, I’m the one who needs to change. Then again, I could be wrong. Maybe I should just blame my parents for this mindset.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 16th, 2015.
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you have highlighted a very important point...
You have made a nice point..........but when an incident of such magnitude happens its the government and only the government that stands to blame. In a democratic dispensation the people elect a government...to govern and to institute policy. When they fail then incidents like Peshawar happen and we have had many such before the Peshawar incident.
Sajeer. This was incredible and I love you.
Victim blaming, is a cruel practice that is way too common in Pakistani society.
While, I consider it useless to blame the victim after he or she has been victimized, putting undue psychological pressure on the person who is already suffering with speeches of "because you did that", there is also something important that social justice warriors ignore while addressing issues like this - discussion of responsibilities.
Dressing provocatively, in an orthodox conservative barbarian society where even boys of age 6 are not spared from sexual assaults, how can anyone shake of the notions of consequences off, that might arise due to his or her actions?
Pakistan, I am sorry to say has never been famous for its social justice, nor for the cordial, forgiving open minded liberal society. When, you are or anyone for that matter is living in a place like that, what one does CERTAINLY affects the outcome. Locking our own doors in night, instead of believing that it is our home and our right to keep the doors open and then getting robbed, is not what I believe to be logical.
IK did get married, nation was in state of gloom, while IK's marriage was his right, and there was nothing wrong, he is living in the same society. He should actually have thought about what people might think. Because as it happens he is not in France or UK, he is in Pakistan which has never been forgiving.
Victim blaming, sounds cruel to many, but it also because it forces people to take into account their own responsibilities. Look before you leap, not just leap because it is the right of your legs to do so but look ahead and see what might happen if your legs didn't take the responsibility to landing you safely on a clear patch of land.
I enjoyed the piece. The world we are living in, particulrly the one which does not allow all forms of freedom of expression, minds wander from one extreme to another, sometimes picking the wrong conclusions. Your last sentence, perhaps tells the truth. Yes, many of our parents are to blame if we learn from them hating those we disagree with, or telling us that the world is black and white, which it is not. There is good and bad mixed in all of us and hating 'others' is wrong. Disagreeing is what we should, nothing more. Good luck and carry on dreaming of improving the world.