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.
To me, this is an issue of moral clarity about violence that, it is wrong no matter who does it. Two wrongs don
Well said Daktar.
Those of us who are against violence by state should be against all violence. This was a mistake by a few young lawyers in their passion. Protestors should resist this in the future and make sure their protests are peaceful. Otherwise we will only give amunition to Mush supporters to justify their own violence.
I do not understand what people mean by things like “lawyers are human too.” By saying this are you saying that violence is justified because it is human. This is a dangerous argument. If you justify violence by these lawyers, no matter what reason, then logically someone could justify the much greater violence by the state and the police. How can their violence by wrong and our violence right? Since the state always has a great capacity for violence than citizens (except, maybe, in case of terrorist activity) this is a very dangerous argument. If we are against the violence by the state then we must also be against violence in retaliation. Otherwise as someone said we lose moral high ground. It would be wrong, for example, to justify the violence by a policeman on the ground that this was just the human reaction of someone who got tired of people hurling abuse and slogans and taunts at them. Similarly, it is wrong to justify this violence as human. I hope we are better humans than this.
It is right that the lawyers movement has been mostly peaceful and has held the high moral position while state violence has been constant and continuous. But this does not justify the violence by the downtrodden.It is only a reminder that we must not allow the state, through its violence, to fall to their own level and repeat the same brutality that we have been objecting against.
I am glad that ATP has highlighted this. After having written so often about the state’s violence it would have been hypocritical and one-sided to have ignored this. This violence does not in any way undermine the righteousness of the lawyers movement. It is only a reminder to all of us that we must not let the brutality of the state to force us to stoop to their level. We must remain above that and better than that.
I would like to add that the young lawyer in the picture is not breaking some one’s bones or cracking skulls. He is simply attacking a symbol of repression.
This one incident or a few like this do not represent the peaceful movement of Pakistani lawyers. Is it not true that they have savagely been beaten, humiliated and jailed since the uprising. If emotions occasionally overflow, it is natural . After all lawyers are human too. Instead of dedicating an entire post to it, ATP should have presented it in the right context.