Sabeen Mehmud's Murder

Sabeen Mehmud’s Murder

Sitting at dinner I heard T2F’s owner Sabeen Mehmud has been gunned down in Karachi after hosting a discussion on #UnsilencingBaluchistan; Sabeen had offered to host the Talk which had been recently banned at LUMS. A talk. A discussion. & She was killed.

Shocked and unsurprised many of us carried on. Naturally the remainder of the evening went by uncomfortably but carried on we did.

Several missed calls from my sister, Sabeen’s fellow mate at Kinnaird, this skin crawling feeling grew. I couldn’t sleep that night, thinking this could be me, this could so many one knows, where am I living? I cannot recognize this land I live in. This is my home. What is going on? & I do not think only so called ‘liberals’ or ‘secular’ or ‘progressives’ were the only ones thinking this that night.

Reading Moeed Pirzada’s tweet sometime that same evening, just increased the skin crawling feeling further, blame anyone but ourselves, it’s the Fucking Indians again! How could it be anyone else?   Doesn’t end, Ahmed Qureshi apparently on a vilification campaign against anything rational is also on a rampage against DR. Taimur Rehman blaming him for Sabeen’s death. How does one blame a human rights activist for a crime a gunman committed on behalf of those who do not want open discussion on ‘sensitive issues’ publicly? I would love to understand that point of view. Actually, I lie; I do not want to understand this point of view. I want to scream.

At the Islamabad literature festival another half whit tried to raise the issue of what is the State doing about the vilification campaign against our security forces? Imagine. Sabeen hasn’t been buried, it isn’t even 12 hours since her brutal murder and you have citizens in this country asking, what is being done to protect an intelligence agency. Normal? Or Sick? The Instinct to protect an institution but not a human being; a dead human being now; but not dead enough clearly?

Today, Mosharraf Zaidi’s piece also tries to shift the blame from the obvious perpetrators of this heinous crime against humanity. So many defend the indefensible. Ethics. What does that mean now? I’m sure someone will come up with a theory.

What does it take to sell your soul?

 I don’t know what makes relatively educated folks turn away from the belief that  unequivocally  it is the unalienable right of every human being equally  To believe in anything To say anything without harm. People always over a ‘nation’ or an ‘institution’. People 1st Breathing beating hearts people. Always. It bothers me. It does. Always has. And I hope always will. 

Pre Modern Situation

  

I look forward to Saturday; Kuch Khaas’s Farmer’s market is always a wonderful way to spend the day have brunch and buy your weekly farmers goods.

Coming out the farmers market today, a young man rammed his car into my stationary car. I was so not in the mood to deal with this, but then that’s when one usually has to deal with these situations. In any other place in the world, such incidents are sorted out in a few minutes by exchanging contact details/ID and damages are sorted/ insurance etc. BUT in Pakistan this is what happened/happens:

The driver came out, and his companion suggests it was both parties fault, when I argued that a stationary car couldn’t possibly be at fault the sheepish driver meekly acknowledged his fault and offers to pay for damages. One imagined here the matter would end. Inhale and carry on sorted no? Noooooooo when I asked for his ID card to have some security and requested his cell number that’s when the Paki stepped in. I need these two items so my (absent) driver could call him to sort the damage later.

The two morons, that’s what I am going to call them, must have sensed weakness? Since everything in this country is evaluated by weakness or strength clearly rather than right or wrong.

Why do you want my ID Moron 1 asks? I cant move around Islamabad without my ID (true if you are not moving around in a land cruiser but he did have a green plate); I explained that it is not matter or ‘trust’ I do not know him and need some assurance he would pay once my driver returned and sorted the damages and would then contact him for payment.

Sensing I have no one with me, he attempted to take advantage of the situation and suggests lets instead call the police who can then decide who is at fault! Now wait a minute, how will a policeman who wasn’t present decide who was at fault? Further didn’t he acknowledge it was his fault already? Here comes the belligerence and taking advantage of a situation, a girl alone so why not harass her by entangling her in a long useless unproductive time wasting process with a policeman.  

A simple accident should have been dealt with exchange of numbers & some sort of assurance to get in touch when damages needed to be paid for.

 But no, a friend was pulled in, aggressive behavior to wiggle out of a simple case of an idiotic young man not watching while reversing his car.

Anyway it gets even more annoying when, a few minutes later the two morons see me with a friend inside the farmers market (went back to calm down).  The two morons recognized my friend, they came over to engage him to get involved in the ‘dispute’, I nearly blew my top; thankfully our common friend realized this was becoming more ridiculous & reiterated, if you have acknowledged your fault just pay the damages what’s the issue? Why do you want to wiggle out of it? The two morons continued to try and say why don’t you ‘decide’?

Witnessing this pre modern idea of dispute resolution I realize these traditional ways are nothing more than silly men trying to equalize scores between men; this process has little to do with using reason or finding simple straightforward solutions for quick resolution for logical restitution.