Another day in Outrage-istan

Absent is constructive discourse on ways to make sure no one suffers the same fate as Fakhra, ever again.

There are just too many –ists roaming the streets and back alleys of our fair backwater. Apart from journalists, satirists, feminists and activists, a not-so-new breed of –ists has recently taken root. They feed off the outrage that TV channels, newspaper columnists and radio jockeys with bad accents spread and are driven by the knowledge that they know best, no matter what the currently accepted scientific view of the situation is. The widespread presence of these parasites (mind you, not all of them are all that bad) gives us the impression that a lot of activism and voice-raising is going on in society. Unfortunately, however, these voices are restricted to the confines of local press clubs, Facebook pages, Twitter accounts and blogs at WordPress. Those of these –ists who manage to make it to the mainstream media are just too ‘happy to be here’ to actually say anything meaningful. Don’t believe me? You shouldn’t, either.

Sharmila Farooqi, the fire-breathing face of the Sindh government, has invoked the ire of social media hacks by ‘trivialising’ the suffering of one Fakhra, who took her own life after being let down by the justice system and the world. Fakhra’s story is heartrending to say the least, and serves as a grim reminder of the barbarity of the society we live in. Unfortunately, all of the outrage has been focused towards how much of a pig the alleged perpetrator Bilal Khar was and how all men should burn in hell for his crimes. I know that I too will get a lot of flak for using the word ‘alleged’ in the previous sentence, but so be it.

What is sadly absent from the picture is constructive discourse and national dialogue on ways to make sure that no one has to suffer the same fate as Fakhra, ever again. Whether this means overhauling the laws that govern the punishment meted out to perpetrators of violent crimes against women or the development of a Khaadim-e-Aala-style ‘swift-justice-through-one-window’ mechanism to punish such monsters extra-judicially; the point is that rather than looking backwards, one must look forwards and make sure that Fakhra’s death goes not in vain. Unfortunately, the outrage squad is up in arms and wants Bilal Khar re-tried, ostensibly on the basis of the same shoddy evidence that allowed him to be acquitted in the first place. Face, meet palm. Repeat until it sinks in.

The point here is not to criticise those demanding ‘justice for Fakhra’, because it is, at the end of the day, a noble cause. What is criticism-worthy is the fact that everyone’s intentions are purely retributive and cannot affect the sea-change necessary to curb and eliminate violence against women in all its forms. This is the kind of sentiment that is missing. What is in plentiful supply is the kind of knee-jerk activism that is all too characteristic of us as a nation. I ask thee, if the young lady had not chosen to end her life and make a statement against the morally bankrupt nature of our society, who would’ve even remembered poor, disfigured Fakhra? Do a Google search and you see no, I repeat, no search results from the past two years. This means that no one was talking about the poor girl, from the time that her case was closed, up until the point she decided to end it all. Says a lot for the conscience of our society, doesn’t it.

I’m a simple guy. I like the small things in life, like my mum’s parathas, chai from truck driver hotels and driving on the Murree Expressway. In the West, I would be described as a creature of habit. One that lounges around on the couch, waiting for life to happen to him. That, unfortunately is the way that most of us have now become. There is no longer any motivation to actually do something. Now, we just talk about doing something, or as the hirsute and rotund blogger Adnan Rasool puts it, talk about talking about doing something. Where are all the petitions, open-forum dialogues, legislative lobbying and actual change that we love to dream about? In fact, how many of us know what amending the Pakistan Penal Code would entail? Not many, eh? Well, there you go. That’s our problem right there, not knowing what our rights, duties and responsibilities are. Our intentions are pure, yet we would rather use them to pave the road to hell rather than actually putting them to some kind of constructive use. Under the current circumstances, we couldn’t get ‘justice’ for Fakhra even if we tried. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is a greater crime against Fakhra than Bilal Khar ever could’ve committed.

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