It wasn’t me
The frequency with which a Pakistani will happily shift the blame off of their shoulders and apply it elsewhere is quite a feat in itself. From our failed exams to our status as a nation stuck in perpetual almost failed status — it’s never us, it’s always someone else.
What prompts Pakistanis to become obsessed with playing the victim is beyond all logical and normal capacity. When a child is young and falls ill the first thing a mother comes up with is “it’s an evil eye”. Which is true because people actually carry germs of envy within their eyelashes, so anytime you see someone blinking really fast around your babies, be afraid, moms, be very afraid.
When the baby grows a little older and become a young adult, the same mother is found lamenting numerous things. When the child misbehaves he/she could be like the father, or the dadi, or a number of relatives that the mother isn’t quite fond of. It can be the entire planet’s fault but her own that her ward acts like Satan’s spawn most days of the week. “Haaye, kis par chala gaya hai ye?” Well, ladies, the answer could be: you. Yes, the likelihood is that since you’re the person responsible for a child’s primary socialisation, the child is acting precisely the way you do.
What prompts Pakistanis to become obsessed with playing the victim is beyond all logical and normal capacity. When a child is young and falls ill the first thing a mother comes up with is “it’s an evil eye”. Which is true because people actually carry germs of envy within their eyelashes, so anytime you see someone blinking really fast around your babies, be afraid, moms, be very afraid.
But it doesn’t stop there, does it? And it isn’t really restricted to mothers or their children. You get passed over for a job? It’s a woman’s fault who wooed the boss. You weren’t able to finish a project on time, it’s obviously the electricity’s fault and not yours (despite the fact that you should’ve known how to plan around a power crisis). Your shoe broke while you were walking on the road? Blame the sun and the heat for ridding your shoe of its essential glue.
We will spend hours, days, months and years, countless moments in absolute terror, wondering where and when someone will strike. We have no way of saving ourselves from the agony and horror caused by people who want to do us wrong. We’d rather not accept that perhaps we are lazy, idiotic and refuse to take initiative. It is because we are incapable of handling our own mess that we continuously fall into the traps set by other countries, the neighbour’s buri nazar, and any other grand conspiracy we can come up with.
The most ironic example of this is the recent attack on Karachi. Two different TTP factions have come forward and taken responsibility for the things they’ve done. They’ve clearly outlined their motives i.e., to avenge Hakimullah Mehsud’s death and to make a statement against the strikes in Waziristan. However, accepting that the TTP is the clear-cut culprit isn’t as easy as we’d like to think. For instance, if we admit that yes, the TTP really do hate us enough to try and destroy everything in this country, we’ll then need to look at why. While we’re examining the why of the situation, we’ll obviously come across the fact that we as a nation helped give birth to the TTP. And once we do that we’ll have to own up to the fact that Pakistan doesn’t always play nice, it isn’t always (and mostly never) the victim, and that it has a longstanding role in the destruction of a neighbouring country (nope, not India, the other neighbour).
If we admit that yes, the TTP really do hate us enough to try and destroy everything in this country, we’ll then need to look at why. While we’re examining the why of the situation, we’ll obviously come across the fact that we as a nation helped give birth to the TTP.
When we’re faced with cases of violence against women we don’t skip a beat before pointing fingers at India. “At least we don’t hang out girls from trees” comes a reply. We do however bludgeon them with bricks till they die.
A couple of days from now people will be talking about how the TTP is ruining everything for Pakistan, about how this nation of innocent monkeys is being targeted repeatedly. How the international community thinks we’re only about violence and terrorism, while we’re not, truly. It would be brilliant if those people could explain how they always get away with saying “it wasn’t me” so very often. Why does the responsibility end once you’re done ensuring that the world knows that you in specific aren’t a terrorist/chauvinist/murderer/psychopath? What about the growing number of cases, sans TTP memorabilia, that prove that Pakistan is precisely what the world thinks it is: an unsafe place for anything that can be called human.
The author felt like blaming the readers for this article. Yes, it’s your fault. You can let the author know it’s actually someone else’s fault at: [email protected].
