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.
RE, your wish is granted. We DO have a MAFIA type leader today
Pakistani psyche is such that if a strong party siphons billions, abducts people without authority and even kills, this becomes acceptable or at least tolerable somehow…what is not acceptable is a weaker party to break a few glasses…oh no that is totally unacceptable
So – these are the lawyers that are being billed as the saviors of Pakistan? God help us.
I am surprised that the reactions to this article and the posting of this picture are so severe. It could only suggest that the vast majority of the audience here is disconnected with Pakistan. Growing up in Ayub’s, Bhutto’s, Zia’s, Benazir’s and Nawaz Sharif’s times, has the readership here not grown immune to this sort of rubbish?
Here is the reality. These two lawyers who are destroying that police van WERE NOT personally subjected to brutality. No one will be able to produce a picture of their bloodied heads, or those of anyone in their family (unless of course what happened right after their act of vandalism was a slap across the face by a police man :-)) All this nonsense about distinguishing the “violence of the oppressed” from the “violence of the oppressor” is, with respect, bloody rubbish. If you have EVER attended a protest in Pakistan you will know that 99% of the time the most “active” participants WANT to get into a fight with the police. They actively take “pangas”. They don’t believe in any values, ethics or issues. They just get a kick out of smashing windows under the protection of a mob. The same thing happened with the protests related to the Danish cartoon incident, the same happens at almost every large politco-religous rally where there is even a faint us vs. them theme in play… aur kyoun kay yeh kehtay huay mujhay sharam bhi aati hay aur dukh bhi hota hay, yehi pagalpan dekhnay mein aata hay jab aath das student ya dost aik “mob” mentaltiy kay saath kisi sarak mein guzartay hein. koi langra kutta nazar aa gaya to us ko casually pathar maar diya. koi larki nazar aa gaee to us ko tang kar lia. koi rastay mein aa gaya to us say laraee mol lay lee. Hamari social evolution bahaisiat aik qaum kay, aur aik decent citizenry kay, abhi huee nahieen. The vast majority of protests in this social context are nothing but demonstrations of depravity of various types.
And as for the huge outpouring of public support for the ex-CJ, let us remember, even in Pakistan, the outpouring of public support for Saddam was much greater back in 1990. Where did that public support go? Based on these window smashing protests, if you believe that some fundamental shift is afoot in Pakistan, my friends, you have yet not been introduced to the fickle nature of protest politics in our country, nor to the short attention span of our populace (and undoubtedly, most across the world). If we can’t be realists, at least let’s end our journey to freakin’ fantasy land. Someone once said to Mr. Jinnah, “the muslims of the subcontinent created Pakistan!”. And Mr. Jinnah responded, “Pakistan was created 85% by the British, 10% by me, 3% by the Congress and 2% by my private secretary”. Before you launch into a diatribe about how arrogant of a remark that was… think about it… Jinnah was not discounting the support of the masses, but merely pointing out that the masses can be mobilised for any number of causes. For good, and for bad (as we saw in Nazi Germany to name just one). Mass rallies have very little to do with right and wrong.
Don’t read too much into this rubbish. Improvement through protests and window smashing will not happen. Improvement through a 7-8% growth in our GDP, sustained over many years, WILL happen. Anything that interferes with the latter is not in the interest of Pakistan. Aqal aur decency ka koi teeka nahien eejad hua jo suddenly march mein kissi nay lawyer baradari ko en masse laga diya ho. Utnay hi achay ya decrepit hein jitnay january mein thay.
It is perfectly alright to disagree with the post and to post a dissenting point of view. I am one of the people who think the picture does not reflect the complete episode as it happened. But unfortunately, people on both sides of the arguement have become too passionate about their points of view. I do not agree with Owais Mughal the way he started the thread, but I respect him as an experienced and astute blogger. It hurts me to see that people have accused him of being pro-Musharraf and called him names. Similarly, some people on the other side of the arguement have insulted people criticising Owais- names such as monkeys and a million years short of evolution. Political debates can become emotional but I appeal to all to remain civilised and objective. Perhaps that is one quality we lack as a nation and all leaders reflect this trait of ours.