Daily Times

On December 16, 2014, Pakistan became deeply shocked to learn of the murder of more than 100 children by a group of terrorists. In the wake of these events, Pakistan’s population displayed symptoms of collective emotional shock and bereavement, and endeavoured to come to terms with these feelings as a community. In addition to individual interventions, the press, radio and television programmes also helped but when the nation eventually began to emerge from this shock and bereavement, on January 3, 2015, the Punjab police launched an investigation against a local cleric after a six-year-old boy was found strangled and dumped in a mosque after being sexually abused. The same dark vision pervades, full of resentment, violence and anger. Good and evil appear to be joined in every culture at the spine and violence is strangely capable of returning its characters into reality and preparing them to once again bleed our hearts. In response, on January 6, 2015 we acted to prevent excesses by, among other things, the 21st Constitutional Amendment Bill and the Pakistan Army (Amendment) Bill, 2015 in favour of the laws aimed to set up constitutionally protected military courts to try civilian terrorism suspects.

It is difficult at this stage, after the public firestorm has unleashed suspicions about an imminent local cleric and the host of child abuse allegations they have triggered, to imagine any mainstream religious group making anything like a defensive plea. But if it is shocking to realise the ultimate betrayal and how dramatically attitudes towards child abuse have changed in just three decades, it is even more surprising to discover how little sympathy there is even now among those who are considered guardians of religion.

This is a moral dilemma that analyses the conflicting ethics surrounding the case of a local cleric who is a suspected homicidal, paedophilic sex offender. As both a preacher of Islam and a perpetrator of violent crime, the cleric’s actions are positioned precariously between religiosity and criminality. It is precisely because of this blurring of boundaries — between predatory desires and victimisation — that this case has received widespread critical discussion. Despite attempts to consider that he may be innocent, the alleged cleric still presents us with a painful paradox.

For years I have pondered an ethical and moral paradox that investigates the practice and fundamentality of religion. This religious conundrum also reveals the intellectual retreat and creative inertia of religious life in Pakistan. Stated simply, the paradox is that, although Islam constitutes the largest religious group in Pakistan, the meaning of practicing true Islam currently enjoys almost no positive presence in the lives of most Pakistani people. This situation not only represents a demographic paradox, it also marks a major hypocrisy — an impoverishment, indeed even a disfigurement — for Islam, which has for two millennia played a hugely formative and inspirational role in establishing the highest code of moral ethics.

No one wants publicity for preaching, but does it not seem strange that the preachers of the religion have retreated to the point of doubt and suspicion? Has the decline generated religious controversy? Not especially. Neither the cleric nor the ordinary man cares much about the issue. There seems to be a tacit agreement on both sides that, in practice if not in theory, religion and society no longer mix, a consensus that would have surprised not only Iqbal but also Jinnah. The consequences of this situation are unfortunate, in different ways, for both society and the mosque. It can never be generalised but there is an urgent need in present society to unpack the relationship between the cleric’s religious persona and his criminal culpability.

Sexual violence against children is believed to be common in Pakistan although authorities lack accurate statistical data because many families hesitate to report such crimes because of the attached stigma. Of importance in finding the severity of child abuse in Pakistan is that current knowledge may not reflect accurately patterns in male victims, for it is well known that abuse of males is seriously underreported in our society. This touches on the reluctance of disclosure of victimisation by males, which may be the result of significant cultural biases against males as the victims, or because males perceive themselves as being self-reliant individuals who should be capable of preventing abuse from occurring or because males may have a psychological response to abuse that may foster a strong sense of self-blame in male victims.

After drawing attention to what may be the psychology of paedophiles, analysis shows that they have a block in their minds in their social and heterosexual relationships but children, because of their lack of dominance, have some special meaning for them. Many perpetrators of sexual abuse were themselves victims of abuse when they were children. It is commonly asserted that child sex abusers are often frequent users of pornography. The question arises about whether the criminal investigation in this case so far has supported this assertion.

The complexity and sadistic nature of this case may have helped create today’s panic around child abuse and has brought mobs onto the streets to demonstrate against the presence of shadowy monsters in their midst. However, as a result, paranoia about the danger from solitary, predatory deviants far outweighs the infinitely more real menace of abuse within the home or extended circle. The vast majority of sexual violence is committed by people known to the victim and only very rarely is the danger from the ‘stranger in the white van’.

The government’s reaction to the sexual exploitation of children is a classic case of ambivalence. The media and civil society react by sermonising and smirking, condemning and condoning, punishing and promoting. On the one hand, they support tougher punishment. On the other hand, Pakistanis support multi-million, multi-media activities that actually promote the seduction of children and the incitement of child abusers. The nation must face the disturbing implications of the fact that internet access has provided a free highway to the sexual exploitation of people both young and old.

Online porn video access marks a deep sexual disturbance in the society, a cannibalising of youth by these vampiric adults. The myth that children want to be sexually used by adults — paralleling the age-old myth that women want to be raped — is compatible with the various ways internet porn promotes or at least winks at paedophilia. On a national level, the Child Pornography Prevention Act should be considered as legislation. This constitutional law should be adopted on the grounds that child porn gets used to seduce children and incite child abusers.

In a country where seven militants convicted of attacks on the Pakistan army headquarters and former military ruler Pervez Musharraf have been hanged so far, you might think there is no such thing as a punishment considered too harsh. However, as legislators consider joining the small but growing number in civil society by making certain convicted paedophiles eligible for the death penalty, unsurprising vocal support from the masses has emerged, insisting that the measure will be long sighted, result oriented and probably constitutional.

The writer is a professor of Psychiatry and consultant Forensic Psychiatrist in the UK. He can be contacted at fawad_shifa@yahoo.com