Stop the Drama!

Nofal Ramay

Stop the Drama! That’s one statement for it. There has to be a clear difference between a morning show and a theatre performance, and Maya Khan has victoriously blurred it to invisibility. Don’t you get the feel of being cheated, your naivety in gluing your eyes on the morning TV screen being mocked at, and you as audience being hoaxed in the name of  ‘creating awareness’? Yet I should salute Ms. khan for her ‘genuine concern’ for the people of Pakistan and her absolute devotion in shelving her married life in a corner so she could rightly serve the nation.

Any better reasons than the ones given? For they miserably fail to appeal reason. Is she justifying the ‘drama’ staged for ramping up her show ratings by telling us the People of Pakistan; the parents and women, calling her  to take up the issue of park-dating, and that she was simply helping them? How? By orchestrating a brilliant performance and passing it for reality? Was this the only viable way left for her to bring the grave issue to light? Good Maths – minus multiplied by minus gives you plus, but truly Bad Ethics! Two negatives never make a positive is one lesson someone smart might have skipped.

Her fumbled response on not having a do’s and don’ts list must have given you bigger surprises. I’m not aware of an explicit and documented policy or law in our part of the world, but I’m sure of the well-defined, implicit values and notions taught from right after the birth that enlighten a person enough ton be able to differentiate between a glaring wrong and right. What more can I say on that- it’s all quite self-explanatory.

Given a prestigious platform where issues can be discussed and debated upon, without having the necessity of being enacted, does not legitimize any of the given limp excuses. For all the noble deeds Ms. Khan may have in her bank to vouch for her goodness have already come under a credibility check. It’s no one else’s fault; the ‘concerned host’ has herself lent her so-called credibility to fabrications.

And Yes the very NGOs whose good work she discounted for cashing in on the plight of downtrodden women, how does she distinguish herself from them? If this is how she labels them so and unjustly so, shouldn’t she choose a label for herself as well, for standing in precisely the same league. Banking on people’s miseries to earn yourself ratings, what nobility is that?

And a bigger wow to the public show of her private life by having her husband raise a complaint of her selfless devotion to solving her countrymen’s issue. Whatever dose this was, it was pretty inedible.

Being a part of media, to bring out the truth is one uphill task that comes under our very job description as journalists, but to package and present it in the folds of deception and deceit is unequivocally condemnable and despised.

Pakistan's Law Need To Have Some Change.....

Perhaps one of the biggest pitfalls of living in an age of rapid development is that the bad tends to progress with the good. In some ways, the former even ends up progressing faster. A computer virus is always developed first before an anti-virus software is created to combat the virus. In its wake the virus can leave trails of destruction such as identity theft, lost data, documents being stolen etc. It is the ability of anti-virus companies and software companies to come up with a solution fast enough that minimizes damage and thus minimizes the loss.

Rules have always been created because someone did something that mandated them. Similarly laws are mostly made on an ad-hoc basis as cases arise. Yet, unfortunately we have been unable to keep up to speed in this process of law making. As a result, so many actions occur which should be classified as “crimes” but aren’t so because either the laws have not been made, there is no implementation or worse that the problem is not even fully understood.

Bullying and harassment, a crime, which is most disregard as being one. While only just a few years ago we started taking harassment of women in the workplace seriously, other forms of harassment and bullying have been disregarded. With mobile phone usage on the rise with more than 100 million mobile users in the country harassment and bullying in the form of calls, messages and even on social media continue to happen. Some of these can take extreme forms. Girls have to leave college and schools because someone posts compromising images of them on social media or takes pictures of them using their phones. Some have even resorted to committing suicide. Apparently the victim is the one to blame and not the criminal. Still, there are no avenues that anyone who is being harassed, stalked or bullied can pursue easily. Most of these cases are not even taken seriously and as a result the trauma inflicted destroys the lives of many.

Another case is child abuse. Where it is not only a taboo to talk about, but children are never encouraged to come forward when they are facing abuse at the hands of teachers, parents or even strangers. Molestation is almost never reported. There is a need for stronger laws to be enacted to protect our children from horrible monsters lurking in our streets taking the shape of ordinary citizens! The United Nations state that child sex-abuse, a widespread problem in Pakistan, is on the rise at an alarming rate because it has been left largely unchecked due to its ‘sensitive’ nature. In Karachi 170,000 children live on the streets. Ninety percent of them have been sexually abused. Even those amongst the more privileged are not completely free from this horror.

Cybercrime again is a huge issue which we have left uncheck. While ministers and government officials use existing legislation for cybercrime to mostly block incriminating content against them and YouTube. It has not served any useful purpose for the common man. It is even now outdated and largely unenforced. For example, so many ATMs are popping up across the country now. Very easy targets for hackers and thieves who can install a device on top of the card reader which will read and record the ATM cards information which they can later use to withdraw money. Other forms of ATM fraud are fake calls asking for ATM PINs and other personal information which can be easily used in identity theft. What makes it worse is that given the poor consumer protection laws we have, it is the ordinary person who has to deal with and live with the consequences of the crime! The banks and corporations end up getting away with it.

Phishing is another form of stealing data where people are led to a fake website which looks just like the original. Generally these are websites of banks, government institutions and other organizations which are important and hold key data. Recently the FBR has also been a victim of this where malicious groups were sending out emails posing to be from FBR and redirecting them to a website where they were asked to enter their banking information. The government which takes pride in blocking websites like YouTube should at least enforce a block on these phishing sites as soon as they are discovered.

We now have a newly elected parliament and new legislators. I hope that they will pay a little more attention to these issues than their predecessors. Everyday we end up going further back in this battle against new crimes. If action is not quickly taken we might end up losing it, and losing it badly!

opportunities and challenges......

It is not rare to hear the phrase; “Pakistan’s future is very bright, because we have a seven crore youth population.” Most don’t even know whether the exact number is six, seven or eight! Yet, this has become part of the most widely used rhetoric about our country’s future and this rhetoric is even more prevalent on our national days. But, the problem with this assertion is quite simple, an army can have the best weapons in the world, but if it doesn’t use them properly and effectively it still loses the war.

The same is true for our youth; I would be stupid to deny the fact that our youth in a large percentage of our population (66% in fact) and that it is full of talented people who have great potential.
Yet, the problem remains the same if they and their potential isn’t used and channelised effectively there won’t not only be anything to gain but also there would be much to lose.
We must remember that, it is misguided youth caught in empty rhetoric that is donning suicide jackets, turning to crime, committing fraud and killing in places like Karachi. So what does this “proper and effective” using of their potential mean and what challenges stand in the way of doing so?
The first challenge is the education emergency that Pakistan is facing. Seven million children are missing out on primary education in Pakistan, enrolment in secondary schools stands at a mere 23% and only a mere 5% of Pakistanis make it to university. 25 million children are being denied their basic constitutional right to a free and compulsory education.
Furthermore, those who are being educated face the issue of attaining a quality education. According to the Education Emergency report, 50% of rural school children cannot read a sentence and only 35% can read a story compared to 25% of school children.
The second challenge is that of employment and economic prospects. According to the Next Generation Report, Pakistan will need 36 million more jobs in the next 10 years with our population increasing by 44% over the next 20! Our current unemployment rate stands in excess of 20%. This also partly contributes to the much talked about brain drain, because there simply isn’t enough room to accommodate a large part of our youth and what is more unfortunate that most of our talented students end up doing menial jobs abroad.
The third challenge is one that became more apparent to me over the past two weeks. Through interactions over facebook, emails, twitter and sms the level of depression, confusion, differing perspectives and the degrees of these segmentations became hauntingly clear. It is also not the varied opinions that are the challenge. Varying opinions and different beliefs are healthy and encourage diversity; however, it is the extent of blind faith and a lack of willingness to engage in dialogue, which is alarming. There seems to be no consensus on even the most basic of issues ranging from systems of governance, education and to some extent even terrorism.
The responsibility for creating and now meeting these challenges of course primarily lies with the state and its leadership, where leadership does not just mean the government, but it also includes: politicians, civil society, and the media. However, it is unfortunate that many a times the youth has just been reduced to a brand name that has been exploited by the same. The government holds one event a year, and then dismisses the youth until the next. Political parties only use young people for their street power and rallies, never including them in the decision making process. The media tries to use the youth for ratings; it calls them but by engaging them in rhetorical and conclusion-less debates only
These rhetorics lead to the hopelessness or the false hope that the youth are engulfed in today. The government needs to work on education with a solid political will and create economic opportunities. Political parties need to listen to the youth and not just exploit them, and the media needs to engage the youth in more productive debates. But what about the youth’s own role?
It is time that the youth realises its own role and tries to mark out its own path. The time for waiting for messiahs, leaders or anyone for that matter is over and we have to start addressing our issues ourselves in whatever capacity we can.
Depression in a way is a sign of good, because it shows love and a strong connection to and concern for the country.
However, at the same time depression coupled with hopelessness and very strong opinions becomes an impediment to the successful resolution of issues. Opinions are good and we hold them because they are a means to an end. We all are working towards the same end, a prosperous Pakistan, then our opinions should be formed after dialogue and though not inherited or accepted blindly.
The youth needs to come out of this endless cycle, and act. This action doesn’t mean coming out on the streets, protesting and falling prey to empty rhetorics, but on the contrary it means developing capability, capacity and competence.
If Jinnah wasn’t a lawyer, if Iqbal wasn’t a philosopher and poet, if Dr Abdul Qadeer, Dr Abdus Salam, Dr Samar Mubarak and Dr Umar Saif weren’t scientists and Babar Iqbal, Ibrahim Shahid and Zohaib Asad weren’t good students could they have done what they did for Pakistan? Education needs to be the top priority for all those who are luck enough to receive it. Only after developing themselves will the youth will be able to develop Pakistan. I am not suggesting a total disconnect from politics or the ongoing situation of the country but the right priorities, where “jalsas”, talk shows, protests and political “chaskey” come only after educational responsibilities. Those lucky enough to receive an education must not waste it and they should also encourage and follow the work of people like Master Auyb (who has been teaching children free for the past twenty years in a park).
Action for young professionals can mean trying to excel in their respective fields, to become entrepreneurs and create jobs and economic opportunities for others as well. There are so many startup companies doing well in Pakistan and there is room for a lot more. The journey isn’t going to be easy. A lot of people talk about the fact that conditions aren’t welcoming or fruitful for their purposes, but this is more or less true for everyone.
No one has ever had everything handed to him or her on a silver platter. Neither did the Prophet Muhammad SAW have the ideal conditions in Mecca to spread Islam nor did Muhammad Ali Jinnah had the ideal conditions to form Pakistan, yet they like so many others persevered and succeeded in time. Change is never overnight and it takes time, but is a worthwhile endeavour to work for.
There are many countries, which are going through or have gone through times similar to the one Pakistan is going through; Singapore, India and even the United States all come to mind.
There is light at the end of the tunnel but only if we have the will and patience to pass through. The youth of this country is undoubtedly its biggest asset and it is up to all of us to make sure it serve its purpose in the best way possible. The purpose of writing this is to not spread despair but to highlight the challenges that lie ahead and to resolve our capability of meeting those challenges, a capability, which is more than adequate only when combined with hard work and patience.