In December 2009, two suicide bombers exploded themselves in a congested market in Lahore known as Moon Market. The place was packed with men, women and children. Over 60 people were killed. The carnage was claimed by the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). TV channels and newspapers reported harrowing scenes, including those in which women carrying small children were blown to bits.

A week later, I suggested to a friend working for a news channel to do a story on at least some of the victims who, by then, had become mere statistics. This was not a unique idea as such, because Dawn had done a heart-wrenching piece on the 12 victims of the June 14, 2002, terrorist attack near the US Consulate in Karachi.    

The piece had given the cold, wretched statistics a human face. Those who died in the attack were common everyday men and women. Some were on their way to work, some were out shopping, and one was just days away from getting married. But as the intensity and casualties of terror attacks increased, stories about the victims began to vanish. 

They were replaced by empty condemnations from government and state personnel — or worse, by the clamour of the apologists, who continued to insist that those who died in terror attacks were collateral damage in a war being waged by pious men who were battling an evil enemy in the shape of the US and its ‘lackeys’ in the state of Pakistan. What’s more, the apologists were provided ample space by TV channels.

A child’s unfortunate demise has quickly become a political ploy to highlight the ‘plight’ of PTI men and women who were arrested for rioting and setting fire to state property on May 9

However, this began to somewhat change after the December 2014 attack by the TTP on a school in Peshawar. Suddenly, when images of young students slaughtered by the terrorists began to circulate on social media, statistics morphed into becoming faces again — faces that everyone could recognise in their own children. As a result, out went the apologists and in came voices demanding an operation against the terrorists. The militants weren’t expressions of Divine will, after all. What a revelation, no? 

But giving a tragic statistic a human face can also provide political mileage. Politics is amoral. It takes this and flaunts it. Often, the flaunting is done by those least impacted by a tragedy. What’s even worse is that tragedies in this regard are largely cherry-picked.

Here’s an example: in August this year, a two-year-old child belonging to a low-income family died after falling into an open manhole in Karachi. Newspapers and news websites carried the story, but not even once was the child’s name mentioned. There was no outrage on social media, nor any photographs of the child.

Yet, when on September 18 this year, the eight-year-old son of an arrested Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) member tragically passed away due to a neurological disorder (SSPE), some journalists and many PTI supporters took to social media to claim that the child had died from the stress brought on by his father’s arrest. 

Thankfully, a less sensationalist take on the tragedy was provided by journalists Azaz Syed, Umer Cheema and Zarrar Khuhro. They clarified that the disorder that the child was suffering from is caused by a rare ‘sleeping’ virus, which can get activated later in life. But can stress speed up its activation process? According to most doctors, there is no evidence of this. There is, however, enough evidence that the virus is not treatable. It always ends up killing its host.

Not surprisingly, the unfortunate child’s untimely demise quickly became a political ploy to highlight the ‘plight’ of PTI men and women who have been arrested for rioting and setting fire to state property on May 9 and 10 this year. Most of these geniuses, including the child’s father, actually took selfies of themselves doing this, or became willing participants in videos that show them rioting. 

I have often heard many men and women saying that, after they had children, much of their lives were focused on caring for their offspring — at least until the children became adults. Caring for one’s children or altering one’s lifestyle for this purpose is an instinctive outcome. It is part of how humans evolved. It is organic in nature. On the other hand, there is nothing organic about ideologies. They are external, subjective worldviews that people adopt and then internalise.

Various species of mammals, reptiles and birds are naturally encoded to protect certain vital parts of their body which aid them in hunting down prey. For example, if a lioness even loses a tooth or injures a claw, she would struggle to survive in the wild. Instinctively, a lioness with cubs is even more cautious in this respect. 

Now, imagine a lioness with cubs deciding to hunt an elephant on her own. She is most likely to be crushed by the elephant, or lose vital limbs. Her cubs would starve, especially those who have yet to be inducted into a pride. Afia Siddiqui, the Pakistani woman jailed in the US on terrorism charges, left behind her children in Karachi, picked up a shotgun and travelled to Afghanistan to bring down the US. A subjective ideology overpowered her maternal instincts. A certain ideology portrays her to be a hero when, in fact, her actions were clearly callous, irrational and even selfish.

What about the late Benazir Bhutto? She was assassinated when her children were not adults. Well, the thing is, she did not leave behind her children to set state buildings on fire or gun down her opponents. She arrived in Pakistan to run an election campaign. Ideologies can be fought for in ways that are not likely to result in long jail sentences or death. Peaceful protests, the courts, electoral politics etc can be used.

Lionesses with cubs do not stop hunting. They just become more cautious. But in Benazir’s case, even if she had just sat at home (in Pakistan), her opponents would have found a way to remove her. Therefore, compared to Afia or, for that matter, the PTI gentleman who sadly lost his son, Benazir was the hunted, not the hunter.

For politicised parents, parental instincts and common sense must override the subjective logic of an internalised ideology. Equally to blame in this respect are the men and women (not necessarily parents themselves) who turn others‘ tragedies into propaganda tools. They flaunt them (especially on social media) to signal their own oh-so-outraged selves. They too are being driven by an ideology and a curious form of narcissism.

They choose tragedies that they can lament about according to an ideology while mocking similar tragedies faced by their ideological opponents. This has happened on numerous occasions. Clearly, consciously or otherwise, their sympathies are invested more in an ideology than in the tragedy that they are bemoaning.

Published in Dawn, EOS, October 1st, 2023