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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I guess this is it for me. I would just say one last thing…
it is easy to say all this and call people “jahil” if you don’t have a disabled/special needs child, or a child who is dying.
I find this conversation rather funny now given the turn it has taken.
So, here is the obvious question I would ask if I was a journalist.
So, OK, I am the parent and I am desperate so, yes, I will try anything (reasonable things only I hope). And so the parent listens to this so-called ‘spiritual healer’ and buries his daughter in the sand for 90 minutes. OK. Then what?
What happened after that? Is the girl cured? Is she running freely on the beach?
That is all I want to know. And if she is maybe I will bury myself in the sand too :-)
And did this peer sahib ‘spiritual leader’ make a buck by selling this nonsense to poor desperate parents. Yes, this is jahalat!
Thank you Anver for those more detailed stories. They make obvious just how this is in fact jahalat.
Once on karachi beach (sandspit) I got bitten by a jelly fish (blue bottle). It hurt like hell, some said rub an onion, some said to pee on it. They barried my feet in sand. When I pulled out my feet from the sand, it had blisters all over from the hot sand, but the pain got lessened. Rest I dont remember, I was only 12 years old.
Once during Muharam parade in karachi, I saw a woman was pushing her young son to walk under the decorated horse, splashed with fake or real blood. When I asked her the reason, she said she wanted her next child to be a boy as well.
I “heard” that in pakistani village, if a girl does not like to marry an arranged boy and in love with someone else, she starts acting weird and annouce that she is possessed. Then the father calls the Mullah and then they beat the hell out of her until she cries out. OK! OK! The bhoot I mean the Ghost is gone.
In Rome, there is a huge fountain. where tourists from all over world visit and throw a cent or penny in water and make a wish. Did I do that? You bet I did. But atleast I threw a dime because my wish was expensive.
The description given by Dawn with this picture and also a related story from Yahoo News about eclipses and superstitions.
http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-l ibrary/dawn/news/pakistan/12-children+buried+up+to +their+necks+for+eclipse+healing–bi-10
Children buried up to their necks for