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.
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This is a much milder form of ignorance and should not be bundled together with Honor Killing, or killing of Shagufta or Jahalat of our Assembly representatives.
One must look more at the plight of the family and the intense desire to find a cure within the means they have. Obviously they do not want any harm to come to their daughter.
To me this photo do not invoke any negative sentiment, I am actually touched by the photo. I feel the pain the family felt. The whole family is waiting around the girl waiting for a miracle to happen. I only wish they could be educated and informed better.
This is quiet unlike of ATP not to give due thought to the title of a post.
Would I call it Jahalat, if my mother says, do not eat ice cream in winter you will get flu. Or eating parathaas make you healthy.
May I also call attention to an event happened here in USA,
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30824587/
A mother decided to pursue alternate medicine for cancer of her son, when it is proven that Chemo will benefit that type of cancer, and denying chemo would put the life of the boy in danger. If this is jahalat, this type of jahalat is not just a pakistani phenomenon.
Is it only me or someone else thinks that it’s just an innocent picture of a family having fun at the beach? Just because some idiot put a caption on the photo, mischaracterizing the nature of the scene, doesn’t mean that it’s so.
Looks to me like the girl is wearing sunglasses, buried herself in the sand, like a lot of people do at the beach; her legs are exposed, so she’ not really buried. There is another couple in the background, closer to the water, so it looks like a picnic spot anyway. And why is there bright sunshine during a solar eclipse? I think it’s the publisher’s idea of the same stupid joke that we all made when we were six and saw someone wearing sunglasses: ” babajee, road cross kara doon?”
The comments show that their jahalat is really coming from all of us. So, because they are ‘desperate’ they should bury their daughter in sand? How about put her in a tandoor as someone suggested. What about the story that one of the links pointed to: http://pakistaniat.com/2006/12/13/death-superstiti on-jahalat/
It is really the type of ideas that some are suggesting in their comments that strengthen these practices. Society should not only condemn this but stop the parents from doing this. Of course, that means society also has to give them better scientific alternatives.
The jahalat is not just their’s it is of society as the comments show. Sorry to say that.
I’m sorry to say this is a very bad picture … unless the photograher and the writer of this article have sought permission from the family to take and publish this picture ….
If no permission has been taken, I consider this moral lagardness a worse form of ‘Jehalat’ than believing in a myth or tradition …
This article has insulted the family … you can insult an idea, a belief or tradition, but not those who practise it …
yeh to kuch bhi nahin
log to beemari ka ilaj karnay k liye bacha tandoor main dal detay hain
o jee apna apna ilaj he
jitni jahalat utna ajeeb ilaj