HONOUR

The other day I was watching tv and a lawyer who had gone to Kasur was speaking about what she had learnt there. What stopped the people from coming forward earlier? They felt they would lose their honour or IZZAT if they did. This is not the first time i have heard this. All of us in Pakistan, the subcontinent, have been hearing this since childhood. Something bad happens to you, especially if it is related to females and to matters which are considered taboo, like rape, molestation, insult and even injustice, one is supposed to hide it, one is supposed to feel ashamed of oneself, not feel enraged and justified to avenge oneself against somebody. In the west, this is the favourite defense of the rapist. " she asked for it". We as a society seem to be enveloped in the same kind of denial based mentality. It is a society where the strong has the last word and the weak is supposed to spout the same propaganda,which puts all the blame on himself, not the wrongdoer. "you made me do this. " A patriarchical society runs on this mindset. The wrong doer is thus absolved of any responsibility of his actions and the victim is made to feel ashamed so that he or she would remain quiet and not demand justice. A harrasser , a rapist, an exploiter,a criminal, a wife beater, an abuser, remain free from blame not through poking dust in the eyes of the law, but through this social arrangement, this social contract whereby evil is allowed to perpetuate and the good is silenced. Over the ages, this conspiracy of silence has eaten away at the fabric of our society and is slowly making it die. Our problems as a nation are basically of social deterioration. we as a society are slowly dying. That is what happens to people who embrace lies and shun the truth. I have always wondered since I was a child, how and where did our society become so hypocritical. We tell lies, we live lies, we pretend to be what we are not and dare not express what we actually are. A woman is harrassed, a child is molested, a woman is beaten, a servant is mistreated, but they are all supposed to keep quiet, because if they tell others what happened to them they cannot expect sympathy or help. they can expect jeers, ridicule, humiliation. That is why people are content to live a life of pretention, false honour and false pride, rather than become vulnerable to the heckling of society. Perhaps we all know in our hearts how helpless we all are in our own lives, but learn to hide it early, so we enjoy it more when somebody eles weakness is exposed. Perhaps it gives us a chance to feel better in comparison. We wear these masks and feel that nobody can see our sadness, our pain, our helplessness and cowerdice. Cruelty is the attribute of the coward. All brave people I have met in my life, are essentially kind. And all kind people I have met, are essentially brave. Kindness and bravery seem to go hand in hand. No wonder that this nation of cowards is so cruel, its sense of right and wrong so skewed. What they do not dare to change, they learn to invert and internalize. Perhaps that is why we are so preoccupied with honour, or retaining the pretense of it, however skewed. Everybody likes to pretend to be what they want to be if they cannot be that in reality. We know in our hearts that we have no honour. Are we going to exist like this forever? This society cannot go on like this. there is a limit to rot also. The only way out for us is to speak the truth to ourselves, and to each other. If we face things, we can change them.