Monday, March 16, 2009
On to Swat?
For the moment I have set my accumulated cynicism of the last year aside. It is deeply heartening to know that protesting and resistance can actually work, even in our times. Even in our country. This is just another reminder of the fact that apathy never got anyone anywhere. I am back to watching news channels, but these ads for Care Fairness Cream and Hoor Beauty Soap will be the death of me. Just goes to show in how many directions we still need to protest. Swat and female education being the top priority. Will the people of Pakistan also ever rise up as one against extremists and terrorists in their midst and protest the murder and persecution of innocent civilians at the hands of barbaric fanatics? Will they stand up for the rights of oppressed women along the length and breadth of the country? If only some day the anti Taliban movement could gain as much currency in the Land of the Pure.
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11 comments:
Such an event is never a one-off. It's part of an awakening. I think that we are finally beginning to see a change in some mindsets. There may even be '2 steps forwards 3 steps back' for a while ... but have you ever watched a crouching tiger (or cat) before attack? It wiggles, inches forward, moves back and then pounces. So will civil society...
A day worth celebrating. Any step in the right direction has to be good. Anything that brings even fleeting hope, is better than the despondency generated around us day in and day out.
Little drops of water, little grains of sand...
:)
little words of wisdom, little little minds ...
AUDACITY OF HOPE !
@rahmat masih
You certainly go after Sidhusaaheb every opportunity you get. Any reason?
If your understandying of the situation in SWAT is limited to "Taliban", Barbaric, Women Rights, Sharia, Cuting Hands.
Then you have no clue what is happeneing there.
X
Hello,
Just stumbled upon you blog. Commenting from across the border, definitely if I can feel extreme emotions at the developments in Pakistan - from Swat to the recent public resistance, I can feel what you all might be going through.
Now that I have read once I am sure I will be coming back for more!
Cheers
I am a tiny bit more pessimistic so in answer to all your questions, no, no and no. Answer to all our problems education, education, education.
@anonymous
Education?
The ones in charge of most of the mess in this country are 'educated' (in conventional terms ... from 'peela' schools and> the elite westernized institutions).
The ones supporting fundamentalism and a specific 'brand' of Islam are 'educated' … even though the majority may be from Madrassas. (After all, Mush's government accepted the Madrassa certs as valid and equivalent to conventional degrees).
Elsewhere, too, things are no different:
• Sri Lanka has a very high literacy rate and a lot of 'educated' people. LKook at the crisis they are in, the violence that exists, the poverty they continue to live in.
• Americans have compulsory education and 50% of them support rectoids like Bush and continue to believe in fantasies like Epiphany and stupidities like Creationism.
I believe that as long as Education = Indoctrination (Religious, Nationalistic, Sectarian -anything divisive), things will not improve.
What we need is to help people develop the most essential and basic ingredients of an education that supports real learning:
1. Get them to question everything!
2. Get them to analyse everything through the tests of a good Bullshit Filter (which is what an education should help them develop).
3. Inculcate in them a lifelong desire to learn.
4. Get them to understand that people differ in their views and that this is natural even within outwardly homogenous societies - so intolerance and bigotry are ridiculous aberrations and products of bad nurture.
Incidentally, traditional literacy (which was confined to basic numeracy and letteracy) must, at least, be partnered with visual literacy and media literacy, two aspects of communication that they will encounter increasingly more often through the years ahead. Without understanding the subtle subtexts within these forms, they could still remain victims of indoctrination.
props
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