This photo is from today’s Dawn. It shows protesting lawyers damaging public property in Multan.
The ability to protest against that which they consider unjust is everybody’s right. But there is a fine line between peaceful protest and anarchy. Damaging property is definitely wrong and serves no one’s interest. It certainly does not serve the interest of the lawyers movement for democracy.
Violence is clearly wrong. It becomes no less or no more wrong when it is committed by protesting lawyers than when it is done by government against the same protesting lawyers. Just as we have called out against violence committed against protesters by government agencies, we must also call out aginst violence committed by them.
Anger is neither a strategy nor an excuse. The principle is a clear one: Wrong is wrong, no matter who does it and no matter why.
So essentially what Saad and Abid are saying is that violent behavior is justified if one is being opressed and has no other means of expressing it. Hmm… I would think that by that logic it is also justified to blow oneself up in a crowded place if one’s circumstances are dire enough. Interesting…
Such behavior by the lawyers is not a one time occurence as some readers have suggested. Manhandling Senator Tariq Azeem, spray panting a government lawyer’s face, crossing police lines while conducting so called “peaceful protests” and threats to burn down the supreme court depicts a pretty ghastly track record.
Use of force is the real issue regardless of who uses it.
I am from Karachi. I support Musharraf . I support Altaf Hussain . My support for one does not depend on the other.
There are a lot of people who malign Pervez Musharraf for what he has done. They do not see that Pervez Musharraf is not a corrupt man unlike the two thuggish ex-Prime Ministers and that he has recovered trillions of rupes from corrupt bureaucrats and even military officials like Mansurul Haq who helped themselves to tax-payers’ money with the help of Nawaz Sharif, Zardari and Benazir Bhutto.
In a Pakistan which still is in the feudal Dark Ages, Karachiites are the only educated tax-paying and law-abiding class of citizens. All these protests after the November emergency, I have not seen a single one in which bullets were fired .
Contrast that with Benazir Bhutto’s time when one could get killed in a fake encounter or Nawaz Sharif’s time when one could get tried by a military court for raising one’s voice aginst the excesses of the government ( as happened in the Hakim Saeed murder case).
I feel that the majority of people who oppose Musharraf are themselves prejudiced and support corrupt feudal politicians who have harmed Pakistan before and will harm Pakistan again. In feudal Pakistan there are no points for honesty and efficiency. There are only points for a third-rate tribal mentality.
I could be wrong. But then I am a Karachiite and I have seen the days when the Army mass-murdered educated, tax-paying middle-class citizens in Karachi from 1992-99 and nor a single federal (read feudal) politician raised his voice. Yet today, these “democratic” goons abuse the freedom that Musharraf has given them and sabotage and attack government property to protest against rule by the same Army.
Please tell me my fellow Pakistanis if I am wrong.
haha funny what kind of article is this? If u take a dog and u keep torturing it, its gonna bite u in the ass the first chance it gets. The same logic applies here.. when you are going to use illegal and brutal force to uphold an illegal martial law then you can expect a much worse reaction then this. And logically speaking these police are criminals since they are upholding a government which is unconstitutionally in power.
Qandeel said it best. We are definitely dealing with a different ball game here – STATE TERRORISM where Mush’s Mafia Rule deals with dissent in draconian manner and block traditional channels of expressing discontent. This Regime will most definitely receive a very high Brutality Index.
Nothing is new.
It has been like this all the time, protesters smashing property, police smashing protesters, and other people condeming/supporting police or protesters.
Nothing will change …
Owais, as a matter of principle what you say is right, protests should be non-violent and as “dignified” as possible, but I think the reason people are having a difficult time grappling with this post is your black & white approach.
Shouldn’t some legroom be given to the principle in light of all that is going on in Pakistan? Should a suppressed man be expected to behave as a gentleman? I liked that quote from an earlier comment: “in this quagmire, my hatred is justified.” The lawyers pictured here, if they are indeed lawyers and not hellraising impostors hired by Nawaz Sharif, are vandalising a car, but surely you can, to an extent, empathise with their anger/actions…?
The principle you advocate can serve as a good yardstick if we were dealing with a society as politically neutral and socially peaceful as, say, Norway. A picture like this would create havoc in Stavanger. But we’re dealing with an entirely different ball game here.
We will just wait for the day when the writer of this article will some day realise that he has in fact lowered the morales of the lawyers, journalists, and people from all sectors supporting the struggle towards restoration of juidiciary. People giving stupid arguments like these lawyers are sponsored… Shame on the establishment which is supporting a few people for very small pays. It would have been better had they join struggle with all the suffering people of Pakistan.
‘Image of Pakistan’… Remember if all the lawyers go and sit in a mosque start praying for their cause… would it be acceptable for the writer. I think this could be the safest way to protest and the result would be more effective.
These reactions are taught by the time spent during the freedom… And I wish this changes the image of Pakistan in the minds of the establishment and they start pondering somewhat differently towards the situation… to hell with the image transmitted to the western observer and elite class.
Even police has apologised with the Lawyer and have promised to mend;
http://jang.com.pk/jang/dec2007-daily/08-12-2007/m ulkbharse/nat6.gif
This article has become an example of “mudaee sust gawah chust”