I came home from work a couple of days ago and my family has this habit of sitting down together at dinner time. My father has always been adamant that we all need to be together and attentive at that time, particularly because it is the 9pm news bulletin time.
So while I was eating tinday that my mother had lovingly cooked for us, the news anchor announces that ink was hurled at one of our ministers. Not a good sight to watch, I must say, but it happened nonetheless
The irony was that it was not only us who found it a little disturbing (replace this with amusing when I mention the “others”) but the news channels as well. Everyone was reporting it. While some wanted to deconstruct why that had happened or whether or not the poor guy deserved it, others merely showed it because well this is not something that happens everyday.
Of course, there were going to be conversations around it. Many supporting it as well.
I thought to myself, is it going to be one such incident or will this encourage more to follow? Lo and behold my concerns were proven right
Surprisingly we Pakistanis do not like sitting idle on our asses, so we tend to set new precedents every other day. What came next was a shoe hurled at a politician of ours. I really wanted to know why someone would do that. I thought of many reasons, one of which was that there is this general sense of alienation in the population and frustration over the kind of lives that they are leading but how does throwing a shoe at someone solve that?
Are we trying to embarrass people on national television? Is that the motivation? Well good job!
You not only managed to embarrass them on national television, but the international community is also going to be a witness to it. And good luck explaining to the goras, that we are so infatuated with, why the country is fucked up.
So the attacks did not stop there. In fact another attempt was made at another politician. Why, you ask me? Because now we have a sad standard to live up to
You do not agree with someone, you do not like someone, you think you are not being heard, you think that you need to embarrass someone? Easy! Pick up a shoe, buddy!
Where is the entire emphasis on debate? You are telling me that 70 years of independence has not managed to get us to a point where we talk about our differences? Our concerns are so parochial that we do not think what our actions represent?
Your are setting a precedent on national television that this is the way to express your discomfort and disliking for something?
Imagine a country of 200million Pakistanis resorting to throwing shoes incases of disagreements.
Does that make you a little uncomfortable? Well guess what? It can be any one of us. You, me, and each and every one out there. Let’s stop being amused, rather let’s be ashamed. Don’t encourage this. This should not be who we are.
