Our own fatalism
It is easy to criticise and poke holes in the attitude of the Saudi authorities, but how different are we?
The writer is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute professor of Biomedical Engineering, International Health and Medicine at Boston University. He tweets @mhzaman
There is still a lot that we do not know about the huge loss of precious lives in the accident during Hajj last week. Apart from the body count, that unfortunately continues to climb, a lot remains uncertain. Even the national identity of those who lost their lives is a subject of debate. As we are bombarded with often contradictory information, many of us have chosen to use the sieve of passion and hardline stances to process this information, instead of reason and ground realities. While real information is slow to come forth, what did take root instantaneously was the strong sense of fatalism. Fatalism is used as both a plausible cause and a clear explanation of the tragedy. Driven in part by the immediate reaction that uses destiny to explain all accidents, and in part by the stance taken by the local authorities, the accident was deemed inevitable, beyond human control and an automatic consequence of hundreds of nationalities and thousands of languages. The initial blame on the typical target of ‘uneducated and unruly’ African pilgrims, who are often poor, is not a new one and represents deeply rooted biases and prejudices against black Africans, who continue to bear the brunt of our misplaced suspicion.
It is easy to criticise and poke holes in the attitude of the Saudi authorities, but how different are we? What is our response to our daily tragedies? I would argue that we suffer equally from the problem of fatalism and blaming the victim, and our attitude does little in the way of solving our problems. I see fatalism as I deal with challenges in my own research area, where we focus on detecting substandard and counterfeit medicines at various points in the supply chain.
The issue of fatalism continues to be a major bottleneck in identifying the source and the cause of the problem. It also stops us from taking corrective action. When it comes to the sudden death of those who are poor, sick and without any financial or political support, we rarely seek to find answers. We deem it inevitable. In a defeatist manner, we blame it on the underlying health condition, and refuse to seek any other answers. When a given medicine for a particular ailment fails to improve the condition, we blame it on destiny and fate, but do not bother to see if there is something wrong with the medicine itself. We use terms such as “the medicine did not suit him or her” — but what if the medicine had nothing in it to suit anyone? It is possible that the deterioration of the condition, or an untimely death, may be due to bad medicine or due to other factors, but not trying to figure out does not help anyone.
Trying to figure out what went wrong is not to question destiny, but to improve the chances of survival of others who may also be on the path to a similar ‘fate’. Blaming the victim is also not lost on us. In the recent past, whenever there have been reports of deaths by poor quality drugs, the authorities immediately blame the victims for their misuse or abuse of the medicine, well before any facts were established. The terms charsi, and bhangi are used widely to describe the victim, lest there be any doubt who was at fault. We have seen similar situations in the Thar famine crisis where the government absolved itself by arguing that the poor children died of malnutrition and poor health and not by criminal government negligence.
Our sense of fatalism takes away our sense of responsibility. It takes away our ability to take corrective action. It robs us of our chance to get better. But we can do better. We can still adhere to our values and beliefs, while demanding answers when things go wrong. Or we can all agree that our fate is sealed and the poor, the sick, the women, the black Africans and the refugees are to blame. It is a lot easier that way.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 29th, 2015.
It is easy to criticise and poke holes in the attitude of the Saudi authorities, but how different are we? What is our response to our daily tragedies? I would argue that we suffer equally from the problem of fatalism and blaming the victim, and our attitude does little in the way of solving our problems. I see fatalism as I deal with challenges in my own research area, where we focus on detecting substandard and counterfeit medicines at various points in the supply chain.
The issue of fatalism continues to be a major bottleneck in identifying the source and the cause of the problem. It also stops us from taking corrective action. When it comes to the sudden death of those who are poor, sick and without any financial or political support, we rarely seek to find answers. We deem it inevitable. In a defeatist manner, we blame it on the underlying health condition, and refuse to seek any other answers. When a given medicine for a particular ailment fails to improve the condition, we blame it on destiny and fate, but do not bother to see if there is something wrong with the medicine itself. We use terms such as “the medicine did not suit him or her” — but what if the medicine had nothing in it to suit anyone? It is possible that the deterioration of the condition, or an untimely death, may be due to bad medicine or due to other factors, but not trying to figure out does not help anyone.
Trying to figure out what went wrong is not to question destiny, but to improve the chances of survival of others who may also be on the path to a similar ‘fate’. Blaming the victim is also not lost on us. In the recent past, whenever there have been reports of deaths by poor quality drugs, the authorities immediately blame the victims for their misuse or abuse of the medicine, well before any facts were established. The terms charsi, and bhangi are used widely to describe the victim, lest there be any doubt who was at fault. We have seen similar situations in the Thar famine crisis where the government absolved itself by arguing that the poor children died of malnutrition and poor health and not by criminal government negligence.
Our sense of fatalism takes away our sense of responsibility. It takes away our ability to take corrective action. It robs us of our chance to get better. But we can do better. We can still adhere to our values and beliefs, while demanding answers when things go wrong. Or we can all agree that our fate is sealed and the poor, the sick, the women, the black Africans and the refugees are to blame. It is a lot easier that way.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 29th, 2015.