Adil Najam
We have used the ‘Jahalat‘ caption before in headlines (here, here and here). It is time to do so again.
This picture is from PPI and the caption reads:
“A physically paralyzed girl lies half-buried in sand at the banks of river Indus. Local mythology suggests burying paralyzed children in sand and exposing them to solar eclipse helps overcome paralysis.”
Need one say more!
I guess even a solar eclipse is no cure for jahalat.
Dear Readers,
While All Things Pakistan has remained alive and online, it has been dormant since June 11, 2011 - when, on the blog's 5th anniversary, we decided that it was time to move on. We have been heartened by your messages and the fact that a steady traffic has continued to enjoy the archived content on ATP. While the blog itself will remain dormant, we are now beginning to add occasional (but infrequent) new material by the original authors of the blog, mostly to archive what they may now publish elsewhere. We will also be updating older posts to make sure that new readers who stumble onto this site still find it useful.
We hope you will continue to find ATP a useful venue to reflect upon and express your Pakistaniat. - Editors
Ok then. Walk the talk and help them.
Sorry for the many and emotional messages but I really do take this seriously and I think so should all of us rather than just being sentimental. You are NOT helping the parents by supporting stupidity, rather we support them by pointing them in the right direction.
People believe in jinns and take kids to get jinns removed also out of desperation. They go to other totkas out of desperation. People can and do die out of these acts.
It is NOT humane to support such acts, the humane act is to highlight that this is in fact ignorance and is in fact very very dangerous. This particular act may sound less dangerous but it will lead to even more silly and possibly fatal ‘remedies’ done out of desperation. Will we support those too?
Daktar,
Since you are a physician which these people may not be and you are supposedly more learned than them and probably more resourceful, why dont you help these poor people. Believe me, they may not be able to give you any material benefit but you will feel happy and inner peace if you are able to help them out.
By the way, no one is making fun of them. But supporting ignorance does not help these parents or their child. It is itself cruel because it gives false hopes and may even take them away from real medical remedies.
I would give aything not to be in these parents shoes. I think we should be sympathetic with these people. They seem to be poor people probably with no access to modern medicine. Although we are very fast to make fun of and humiliate these people but lets see who takes some pain to locate these people and offers some help.