Abuse, murder, lynch: a blanket policy convenient for all
Zeus punished the Titan Atlas by forcing him to lift the sky. Each day, Zeus would ask Atlas what was heavier, the weight of the world or the sadness of the people in it? Each time he would reply: the cries of anguish.
“It’s a human superpower, forgetting. If you remembered how things felt, you’d have stopped having wars and stopped having babies”
– Frank Cottrell-Boyce: Doctor Who
On Monday the police in Lahore were targeted by the Taliban in a terrorist attack that left 26 dead and 52 injured. In the aftermath, we witnessed the initiation of what I like to call the “never forget” protocol.
Under this protocol you see condemnations by the usual suspects, some form of compensation announced for the victims and/or the families, swift retribution promised, and within hours you hear about x number of people killed and y number arrested. Finally, people claim it was the efforts of a foreign hand and that we will never forget the victims nor the attack.
The protocol has been in place ever since the country decided to join the war on terror and has worked brilliantly I may add because the Lahore attack was forgotten by the time the 9pm news bulletin finished. This has worked so brilliantly that I fear a day may come when there won’t be a single Pakistani left to initiate it because we would all be dead.
This never forget protocol isn’t just limited to terrorist attacks, the protocol can be used anywhere. For instance: last year we lost Amjad Sabri Saab – soon everyone forgot. A few weeks later Abdul Sattar Edhi Saab passed away. The protocol was initiated and now the Edhi foundation is facing up to what is now a 30% drop in donations. This is after the nation uttered the words “We will never forget Edhi Saab nor his work, we will all contribute to the foundation”. The protocol has been used regarding Quetta and Balochistan in such a way that they have escaped the eyes of the country entirely. They are, in fact, in a perpetual “never forget protocol” – to the effect that people have forgotten they too are a part of the country.
This protocol was used to cover up the Kasur child abuse scandal two years ago. The scandal revealed that almost 300 children had been sexually abused, filmed, and the videos sold as pornography worldwide while the families of the victims were blackmailed. It’s okay if you forgot, I suppose. In this country people forget everything after a week. The Punjab law minister Rana Sanaullah termed this as property dispute, misreported facts and what not. Even now the criminals behind these videos are reportedly enjoying perks in the prison despite being in death row.
Two years on, once again news has come out of Kasur that another 10 children – 7 girls and 3 boys all between the ages of 5-10 – have been sexually assaulted and killed. The people of Kasur have been regularly protesting and the police have just as regularly been promising action but nothing has been done. We know that the protocol is working – because this, which should be blaring from the mainstream media, hasn’t made the news. Instead the nation is holding its breath waiting for the Panama case verdict. I mean why would anyone think that the lives of these 10 children are far more important or worthy of news when the nation wants to see sitting ministers defend the Prime Minister and his family rather than do their jobs?
The never forget protocol works on me as well, I must admit. I will forgot all this and in a few days move on with my life. I mean, I live in a country where the federal ministers defend the PM instead of doing their jobs, where despite a train accident the railway minister decides to go on the defence, where the interior minister meets leaders of banned outfits who kill Shias and openly call them Kaffir; the interior minister refuses to resign after he is held accountable for the attack on the cadet school in Quetta, and where political parties ally with parties that kill people in the name of religion.
Can we blame the protocol for working in a country where Qandeel Baloch is killed for honour, Mashal Khan for standing up for his fellow students, Nabeel (a Christian) for liking a picture faces life in prison but a captured female bomber is to be rehabilitated because she was let astray? Where 70,000 people have been killed but they are forgotten the day after, in a country where the children of Lal Shahbaz Qalandar are of a lesser God and the massacre of an entire generation of lawyers may as well never have happened.
Where the NAB chief refuses to investigate the prime minister and despite being called a man who has sold his soul to the devil refuses to resign and where the FBR can’t investigate the people named in Panama papers. Were a complete stranger had to resort to violence because nobody would read the funeral prayer of Mashal Khan. Where Malala is an agent of the West because she didn’t die, Dr Abdus Salam is not a hero because he was an Ahmedi, Afia is a hero despite being a terrorist and Qadri is showered with rose petals.
We all forgot this, so what are a few more dozen lives in comparison?
Nobody says anything then – but watch them shout if they see the smallest hint of female skin.
Maybe people use the protocol because they can’t be bothered to care or maybe they are tired of caring too much and have given up because nothing changes.
