Hear No Evil See No Evil

“ Hear no evil, see no evil…” I was thumbing through a popular Urdu magazine, published weekly by a renowned group of newspapers, a few days ago and suddenly my ears rang most vehemently. For a second I thought I had acquired the super sense of hearing and Lo! the world, a new super hero is born. But alas! It was only another “deeply concerned citizen” shrieking her lungs out about the “every second spreading immorality and debauchery in the society” being propagated by the newspapers, Internet and children comics and cartoons.

It’s such a bliss that we’ve still got (and quite a lot) such selfless people who are ever ready to open new vistas to our thoughts and imagination. For example, before reading that particular letter to the editor (and the like in almost every English and Urdu newspaper for a year), I was shamefully ignorant of the fact that “Mask” and “Johnny Bravo” were extremely hazardous to ‘our children’s moral health’. Mask’s ever-changing weird accents and apparels seemed so funny to me that I often thought about sending a few episodes to all our PTV newscasters, so they at least learn to smile. And my 10 year old cousin needed a CPR every time the Mask pulled ‘wedgies’ on Lt. Calloway and Doyle, or Johnny Bravo, whose cute male chauvinistic attitude made even my grandma to laugh…but now I’m aware and ashamed of the sinful life that I’ve led up to now.

“I wonder by my troth what I and my friends did till we read / Were we not wake then? leading such a sinful life shamelessly” (I ask forgiveness from John Donne’s soul). Another revelation was that our TV dramas are the major culprits responsible for spreading debauchery in the society. The means by which this debauchery is being spread are: 1) A girl and a boy shown sitting on a table drinking tea. 2) A girl arguing with her parents over the issue of her own marriage. 3) Again these ‘debauches’ (a boy and a girl) talking on the phone with each other. 4) Any party scene or a wedding in which girls and boys are not only talking to each other but also laughing together!!! And if you’re shameless enough to live through one more……5) A girl and a boy marrying (though legally and abiding by all the religious necessities) without the consent of their mother or father or neighbors or friends or first or second or third cousins, maternal or paternal grandmothers and grandfathers and uncles and aunties.

My God! What would become of this country?? Armageddon is near (and we’re short of Harrys!). Also these longhaired singers and jeans wearing girls on TV. They pose a much more serious threat to us than India’s hostile intentions and booming nuclear capability, the inflation that is soaring sky high, increasing ratio of suicide in Pakistan (with an average of more than eight people committing suicide a week) and more than 50% of population living below poverty line. But of course, these petty issues we wouldn’t deign to discuss. And the Internet, even though Internet is a doorway to another universe- a universe of limitless knowledge and information- it should be banned because our children might get acquainted with the human anatomy.

They might discover that God created a zillion other colors than Grey. There is one thing that I want to ask you, what is this all about? Aren’t we living in the 21st century? Two thousand years (2000, Do Hazaar, Twenty hundred years) have passed since Jesus Christ was born and Islam is potentially the strongest religion of all. Islam even survived Halakoo’s genocide as well as the mighty absorbing power of Hindu religion then why is it so that Islam has been made so fragile that a girl not wearing dupatta could jeopardize it?!! Why do we Pakistanis in general have such long noses? Why do we live our whole lives worrying sick about the others and meddling in the affairs of others? I can’t understand that why should somebody else be given the right to choose for what I Read, I Watch or I Do? If you don’t like these longhaired pop-singers making a din or your television, then change the channel or turn the damn thing off. If anyone else wants to watch the long haired pop singers, cartoons like Johnny Bravo and the Mask or watch “behaya ladhkiyan” in jeans then let them go to the sulphurous pit of Tartarus.

Please let us “perverts” watch Johnny Bravo wooing or Pamela Anderson rescuing drowning swimmers. Please stop bombarding the media with these neo-lithic thoughts. Instead of tearing ‘Archies’ into pieces, banning the Mask or throwing your CPU on the road, try to cultivate a sense of right and wrong. This thing which J.S.Mills called “Tyranny of the Majority” does not suit the challenges of the 21st century. Please do not impose or try to impose your personal morality code over other people. This isn’t just about cartoons or comics but what is at stake is much more important than this. This is the matter of human rights. The freedom of individual. I remember Voltaire: “I know that you are wrong but I will fight till death for your right to differ with me.”

Why can’t we express the “Ahsan-at-Taqweem” side of ours than expressing the other? We have got to make a change and especially our women. Women are much more important when we talk about changing the bent of mind of the society. Everything rests on their frail shoulders. I personally believe in the fact that one woman raising her sons and daughters does such a magnificent job on such a grand scale that all men in the world cannot equal her in their combined efforts. It is then of dire importance that our ladies let the sunshine in and brighten their homes. And to our friendly neighborhood moralists I would like to give them a suggestion of three words: “Get a life.”