What are ordinary citizens doing to change the toxicity they find in society today asks Ayesha Khan.
I am a Pakistani who lives and works in Germany. I visit Pakistan almost thrice a year, and in every single trip, I witness a new low in society and wonder to myself if we can reach a lower point if we are already six feet under.
This summer’s visit was marred by the horrific murder of Noor Mukadam in Islamabad on 20 July – the chand raat of Eid ul Azha. A few weeks later, the day I left for Germany, our Independence Day – the day we offer accolades to our national heroes – is when the Minar-e-Pakistan breaking news happened.
Indeed a truly sad, pathetic, and disgusting incident that makes one sick to the stomach. But my question is: What are we all doing after seeing the video? Are we (ordinary citizens) writing about it in the newspapers expressing our disgust, are we using Social Media to garner enough support to push our government to implement the rule of law, or are we simply making ourselves aware of how regressive this society has become? But then we all already know that we have reached the lowest point ever, the toxicity of which has risen to levels never seen before.
How did we ever reach this point? This is Naya Pakistan where a tabdeeli is meant to have happened – all I see is that violence and venom against women has simply increased manifold! I am convinced that we have ourselves to blame for it. Before we question our leaders, are we taking some responsibility for these horrific levels of toxicity? Are we reaching out to our representatives in the government who are there because we voted for them? Have we taken out time, any time to gather public support for what we believe in? Yes, everyone tweets or posts videos on Instagram, or has long conversations on WhatsApp – basically less than a minute of everyone’s time!
Men are thumping their chests in pride and fervor when they hear, Khalil-ur-Rehman Qamar write, ‘dau takey ki aurat/larki…‘ And mind you that regressive script broke TV records, and many others like that where slapping a woman and questioning a woman’s character is an everyday topic. Why is a socially aware serial like, ‘Dil naa umeed to nahin’ threatened with a ban from PEMRA but regressive scripts and productions like ‘Merey pass tum ho’ and many others like it become raving shows. This is where public opinion matters. This is where we need to show responsibility. The incident at Minar-e-Pakistan doesn’t just happen, it’s the toxicity of the environment that allows a disgusting incident like this to take place.
Where is our religious brigade who are up in arms when seeing women protest at Aurat march? Why is there no statement from anyone there decrying this? The night I left Pakistan, there was an incident being reported on TV that a female teenage corpse was molested by a gang. Society has reached the pits!
We are a society that questions why the Motorway rape victim was out driving at night, we are the same society that mercilessly judges the likes of Qandeel Baloch even after they’re buried, and sadly we are the same society that questions a harassment or a rape victim’s attire rather than take the misogynist mindset to task.
We are at a very dangerous point of existence as a society and the recent, very unfortunate incident at Minar-e-Pakistan is a stark reminder of that!
Ayesha Khan is a Pakistani Canadian based in Germany, she has worked for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and GDPRD @ Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit GmbH (GIZ). Formerly she was a journalist for Radio Free Europe and a communications consultant for Deutsche Post DHL.
