Daily Times

There are none as blind as those who cannot see. The scenes of hapless, emaciated looking men being bashed and bruised by big, brutal and brash men in uniform is the stuff ‘B movies’ are made of, where exaggerated melodrama or villainous behaviour is credited to the bad guys to get the message across of how twisted this world can be. However, what we have been witnessing is that the very institutions that are there to protect us from social savagery have become symbols of apprehension and avoidance. If any doubt was present over the police being a symbol of fear for the innocent rather than the criminals, the sickening scenes of the blind being baton-charged keep on recurring in our memory to remind us of the new lows we are discovering in being sans humanity.

The concept of a society being characterised by its adherence to values based on universal principles has long become outdated and unfashionable. The unlimited tolerance we have developed for wrongdoings is a classic example of how the moral fabric has been torn and how readily we have accepted the idea that this is how we really are and this is how we will be. This desensitisation to this moral and social degradation is the main reason why what is abnormal has become normal. The comparison standards for us are not who is more competent and honest but who is comparatively less destructive and corrupt. The ordinary citizen, over time, has come to accept many wrongdoings as facts of life thanks to the constant hammering of the same by people at the top. Some of these so-called norms are: politics is all about corruption and manipulation, to reach the top you have to be above the law and above any accountability, all leaders are corrupt but some are more than others, all elections are rigged so voting is either useless or a matter of superiority in rigging skills and democracy is only for developed nations because in underdeveloped countries it creates chaos.

Actions follow thoughts that then turn into beliefs. Thus, when thoughts have become resigned to these norms and beliefs have become negative and entrenched, the danger of going abysmally low in our expectations and behaviour is an inevitable result of this apathy and indifference. That is why, when two children die daily in Thar, we feel uneasy but change the channel thinking that at least it is still in single digits. That is why, when 12 people are shot in target killings in Karachi we feel that at least the score is not going up. That is why, when we receive inflated bills, we feel that at least the government has admitted this has happened. That is why when we find that our law enforcement agencies are abetting crime instead of stopping it, we thank God that at least our families and businesses are still not affected by them.

To support this strange acceptance of wrong is the research findings of choosing country leaders. In most of the election campaign studies on who should be the next leading party or leader, the recurring answer was that we will choose the lesser evil as all party leaders are corrupt but, if one leader is known as Mr 100 percent, we will choose the other one as he is still only Mr 60 percent. This reasoning is frightening in its connotation and is almost a carte blanche for all that is grey and black. This concessionary attitude on compromising on principles is the demise of nations. It runs in nearly every aspect of life. Punctuality is a typical example where coming on time is taken as a laxity that can exceed a couple of hours depending on the occasion. Similarly, quality is a big victim of this attitude where products and services are as good as the buyer’s ability to accept substandard delivery and performance. Obeying traffic laws is a matter of how vigilant the police is to catch you breaking rules and signals. Getting grades in exams is a matter of how efficient you are in cheating and doing a copy paste not catchable by human or software assessments. Filling in expense sheets is an ingenious accumulation of false receipts that pass as genuine in most tests.

A nation where pride is taken not on being law abiding and going by the system but by breaking and evading laws and bypassing systems is a nation that is spending most of its energy in proving that genius lies in evil. The sad part is that for our younger generation, role models have become those people who are corrupt, incompetent and without merit but through sheer focus on wrongdoings have managed to get to the top. People like Quaid-e-Azam are immensely admired but thought to be irrelevant in the present time. On the other hand, all contemporary leaders who have proved to be disasters for the country have not only lived lavishly in the country but, in times of distress, just packed their bags and flown out to the massive villas and ranches they have built abroad to live a life of leisure. It is this picture of the criminals living the life of affluence and the honest guy a life of oppression that inspires people to believe that all this nonsense about values just belongs to history or impractical bookish stuff reserved for idiots. This constant confirmation of seeing the most corrupt lead and the honest struggle makes people become disillusioned and give in to the temptation of short cuts.

Individuals and societies lose their way when they cannot see beyond themselves and beyond their own convenience. This is what is known as lack of vision and foresight. This leads them to bend, break and berate rules and values that make morality look a ludicrous concept. However, this moral blindness leads to a headless rush into blind alleys. What we need to do is go back to the basics of living. What we need to do is rediscover what being entitled as human beings requires. What we need to do is appreciate principles and punish those who break them. What we need to do is to sing about honest, unsung heroes. What we need to do is cure this social cataract that has clouded our worldview to our own ability and our ability as a society to reverse this self-created belief of change lying somewhere out there and not within.

The writer is an analyst and columnist and an office bearer of PTI. She can be reached at andleeb.abbas1@gmail.com