Adil Najam
This picture is of PIA employees in a violent fist fight (haatha-paee) at Karachi airport during a strike by PIA employees. The strike, its reasons, the political economy that led to it, the state of the national airline, and the politics that surround it are all important topics and all worthy of discussion. So is this picture as a picture.
At one level the context of this picture matters little. It is a representation of an angst and an anger that has now become a national disease. It is a representation of an anger that we see around us everywhere – and all the time. Anger is a natural and normal phenomenon. But there is nothing natural and nothing normal about the level of anger that seethes in our society. Indeed, within all of us. An anger you see here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and here. Indeed, you cn see it on display all over our comments section.
The first step in anger management, we are told, is to recognize that one has a problem. Let us begin, please, by doing just that!
Today at airports all across Pakistan it was even worse. badtameezi rules everywhere. No, it is not because of injustice, lets please not blame others. We are all badtameez and this behavior is everywhere. Whatever the reasons might one have been. Now, it is WE who are the problem.
@Azra – We may actually have now become the most badtameez society on earth!
There are reasons and this behavior has been inculcated in our society by vested interests. Look at the injustices everywhere in our society and no way to redress, no way to give vent to one’s feelings, no one to turned to in utter despair.
All this can be mitigated only if justice is provided and in our society justice is delayed to a point where it becomes denied.
It is ironic that a picture of 2 Pakistani men fighting is a reflection on the whole Pakistani society, whereas acts of kindness and forgiveness that take place in my motherland everyday are completely overlooked. Makes me wonder; whose side are our journalists and intellectuals really on anyway?
Actually, it is an epidemic.
And its an infectuous disease.
One guy gets it and then everyone else around him also gets it. That is how it works.
@Azra: Thanks for saying what I was trying to figure out how to say.
There are rougher spots in the world where people do not behave like that.
The reason people are showing “anger” in public is that there are repercussions. In any civilized country, the dark shirt will be arrested and prosecuted for physical assault while then white shirt will sue him for physical harm/emotional stress. Here it is a free for all.