In the name of the children, our children, let us demand justice for the children of Kasur for, lest you forget, they are our children too and what happened to them could well happen to our children and grandchildren, the infants today at their mother’s breast, toddlers learning to walk, those who have just started going to school and are beginning to experience that there is a whole new world outside the comfort and security of their homes, and those yet unborn– they all could become prey to these depraved and despicable animals in human form.
We are a nation that back in the 40’s would take umbrage at the slightest sleight, insult or injury and were willing to rise up as a community to demand that our grievance be redressed and that was in an era when we were shackled and chained by a colonial power. Yes, that was the generation of our fathers and forefathers. Why are we, their successors, the inheritors of the promised land, so supine, so servile, so lacking inbackbone,unwilling to stand up for our rights that we accept every injury, every insult, every tyranny in silence,in in-action and servitude as long as it does not personally effect us. We forget at our peril that when these hyenas, these vultures will way lay us individually and our near and dear ones there will be no one to come to our rescue because we shrugged our shoulders and said, “oh, that, well, such things happen there”. Whence has our soul become the “soul of a servant” as George Bernard Shaw wrote.
We cannot leave this matter to the media alone because the media is a fickle thing. Just this morning I combed through the internet edition of Dawn, supposedly Pakistan’s most reputable daily, and there was not a word about the Saneha e Kasur, no updates; no opinions. The begrudging space that it occupied for a few days has been taken up by other “news-worthy” events. It could also be that harping on the Kasur Tragedy is perhaps not politically and fashionably correct any longer. Perhaps it disturbs the conscience of the so-called liberals who work there and inhabit its editorial board.
I am no Mark Anthony. I cannot stir the populace. Is there any magic wand that can stir the giant that sleeps within us? For to be asleep now, is to forfeit our lives and the lives of our generations to come to the compounded tyranny that our present tyranny is a mere fore-runner of. It is a case of speak-now or forever remain silent.
It is your and our choice today, individually and collectively, that will determine your and our future.
