Tuesday, June 18, 2013

My Bit for Change

My Bit for Change

Being Human

Posted: 18 Jun 2013 02:12 AM PDT

Being HumanEvery day, the news channels give an estimated figure of deaths due to target killing, bomb-blasts, sectarian barbarism etc. But those figures are inaccurate. There are more deaths than we can fathom. Each day, we all die as a society, nation and as human beings. We turned off our humanity a long time ago. We all have just been cold, semi-alive bodies lost in our own lives and with each day we get a step closer to death.

Incidents such as the Abbas Town and Ziarat Mansion bomb blast, Hazara genocide, Badami Bagh arson attack, etc do bring us back to life in a state of shock. We wake up, we sympathize, we protest, we help and then we go back to feeling indifferent. One may argue that there is nothing wrong in moving on with our lives. We all have duties and responsibilities to fulfil and chores to run. A calamity occurs, we wake up and we leave our houses to help the victims and then slumber again as a dead nation.

And then there are those under-privileged people who we ignore and fail to help every day? Have we ever spared a moment to think how the people who work for us, for example, our maids and drivers manage to feed and support their families on the low wages we pay them?

We have become indifferent towards suffering unless it hits us. We do not care if a child works for us for low wages, instead of attending school but we make it a point that our children should be enrolled in English medium schools and expensive only. We do not worry about how our maid feeds her children for the entire month, but we do worry when we fail to get a reservation at a new restaurant and when we do go, we never feel guilty when our bill comes down to almost being equal to our maid’s monthly salary. We never notice the ragged clothes of the beggars on the roads but we try our best to be the first ones to reach the ‘Exclusive Lawn Exhibitions’. We do not care if our driver needs his salary in advance to buy medicines for one of his family members and we insult him for always asking for money as long as our cabinets are stuffed with the best multivitamins and health supplements and we can afford the best medical facilities.

We are morally degenerating as a society. The gap between the rich and the poor is at its widest now. It's about time we realize that we cannot overcome this gap by feeding a poor person once a month, giving a hundred rupees note to a beggar, handing down our old clothes to our maids, etc. If we do that, that is good but there are better things we need to do and much bigger steps we need to take in order to bridge this gap.

‘Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime’. 

Your maid complains about her husband’s unemployment? Pull some strings and get him employed and if all fails set him up a thela, (a cart where he can sell little things). You provide grocery to various households? Instead of that, pay the school fees of your driver’s child so that one day he can grow up to be someone who can feed his family on his own. These are just two examples. Look around and you will find plenty of opportunities and ways to help them live on their own and not just survive on your mercy.

We HAVE to cut down on our luxuries so that others can get their basic necessities. Please wake up, feel the pain and responsibility, empathize, support and be human(e).

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