Pathetic state of apathy

Pervez Hoodbhoy and Rasul Bakhsh Rais has pointed towards the sickening apathy of Pakistani civil society against the rising tide of religious extremism and terrorism. Ayesha Siddiqa provides her diagnosis of this sorry state of the nation:

As long as our honour is secure and we are not being insulted, why get up and fight. Unfortunately, today this is the mindset of most people. Everybody wants to secure his or her own space without bothering to stand up for the other.

I am reminded of the story of a king who ordered all his subjects to bring a pail of milk and empty it into the pond in front of the castle before dawn. Next morning when the king woke up, he found the pond filled with water and no milk. Everyone thought that others would bring milk so a bucket of water would suffice. This is pure realpolitik and pragmatism. People are encouraged not to fight for norms, values and principles but to save their interests. Power is the name of the game and people are meant to respect that.

How, then, can we expect a society, which could not snub two extremely arrogant agents of the state for insulting an educationist, to stand up against terrorists that kill innocent security personnel? This is not to justify the society’s complacency but an effort to understand the sickening apathy. Both the individual and the society he lives in do not have the strength to stand up to often violent humiliation at the hands of all sorts of rogue elements.