Our canaries in a coalmine

• Why lives of our children are stifled, bruised and precarious

Some were three years old, some were four, others seven or twelve or older. They all had one thing in common, a similar fate. They were physically and sexually abused before being cruelly murdered. This, dearest sirs and ma’ams, is the pall of fear that has wrapped itself around our children. From Mardan to Kasur and beyond, we’ve been burying our innocent canaries. And the only thing that gets our attention is exceptional amount of noise. It is noise, unceasing noise, deafening noise that wakes us up.

Once awake, we feel depressed and nauseated. The despair settles in. Some shed tears, others show solidarity. All of us air grievances. We condemn politicians, we abuse police, we forcefully demand that the culprit be publicly hanged. The frenzy, slowly and steadily, fizzles out. The Zainabs and Asmas get busy playing in the Elysian fields. We get back to living our lives as the ‘most pernicious race of little odious vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth.’ We are the beings that the king from Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels thought of us. It may or may not drain all the empty optimism from our existences but it sure does ring true right now. The misanthrope is justified to condemn mankind in entirety for the bad ones among us commit horrendous deeds while the good ones remain indifferent.

Our piety doesn’t allow us to teach our kids when to reach out for help. We shy away from telling them when they are being touched inappropriately. We shield them, feed them, provide them with toys, educate them, and bury our heads in the sand and pray that they be safe from the predators.

Canaries are small, colourful cousins of sparrows who sing melodiously. In the tough old days the miners used to carry them in tunnels as their death served as a warning sign of presence of lethal gases in mines

There is no place for certain forbidden words, damned and banished, in our scheme of things because they clash with every belief we hold in reverence.

‘Sex education’ falls in that category. In our unabashed and wholesome hatred of all things west (except cars, films, iPhones, F-16s, massive loans, no-strings attached aid and citizenship). The very topic of sex education has been relegated to the cupboard of taboos and placed right next to things it aims to deter i.e harassment, sexual assault and physical abuse.

The deeper malice of backwardness coupled with a society in perpetual state of transition, fluctuating between confusion and resentment, gripes for anything that offers even an iota of hope or retribution.

Take for example the case of Zainab. Reactive as it may, the punjab government and police immediately jolted into action. The DNA tests of more than thousand individuals, the speedy investigation, the media frenzy ultimately led to the capture of the suspect. While Asma murder case, an incident of equal hideousness that reared its head in Mardan, ‘Naya KPK’ remains unresolved. At the time of writing this column, the Chief Justice of Pakistan Mian Saqib Nisar took suo motu notice of the incident and in a rare show of solidarity, the KPK police sought expertise of Punjab Forensic Lab.

However, the most harrowing response was by none other than the chairman PTI Imran Khan. When asked about the response and progress made by KPK government about the Asma case, Khan Sahab, showing an excellent example of ad hominem, attacked the organisation the reporter hailed from and reiterated his conviction to put his employee behind bars.

Canaries are small, colourful cousins of sparrows who sing melodiously. In the tough old days the miners used to carry them in tunnels as their death served as a warning sign of presence of lethal gases in mines. The death of these little birds ensured life of many.

In the aftermath of recent events, I trust you to figure out that who amongst us is the deadly coal mine, who are the clever miners and is there anything we can do to save the many canaries in the future.

And please, dearest sirs and ma’ams, don’t use the words like ‘darinda-sift’ or equate these murderous rapists with beasts and animals. Let us never forget what Dostoevsky, the Russian novelist and foremost knower of human psychology, had to say about savage side of human nature. ‘People talk sometimes of a bestial cruelty, but that’s a great injustice and insult to the beasts; a beast can never be so cruel as a man, so artistically cruel. The tiger only tears and gnaws, that’s all he can do. He would never think of nailing people by the ears, even if he were able to do it’.

PS: The misadventures of ‘Doctor Doom’ continue

Amidst all the chaos, entered Dr Shahid Masood with a blast. Our beloved doomsday sayer-cum-knower of things hidden dazzled the masses with revelations of sinister proportions. According to Doctor sahib Imran Ali, the prime suspect in Zainab and multiple other cases, was neither a psychopath nor a deranged individual rather he is just a small cog in an international racket of extreme child pornography and has dozens of foreign currency accounts. Our Chief Lordship of Big Marble Palace took interest and Dr Shahid had also handed over a parchi that had name of some sitting minister involved in the racket.

The conspiracy-toting Doctor sahab was, however, rubbished by State Bank of Pakistan and is refusing from appearing before the JIT. Those who know Doctor sahab since his ‘End of Times’ documentary are aware of his antics and omnipresent ‘sources’.

The million dollar question right now is: Will Doctor Sahib get out of the swamp he landed himself in?