My lips may be sealed, but the heart shall beat

Lips and heart are organs of the same body but, sometimes, the distance between them becomes immeasurable. Instead of the lips echoing the beats of the heart, they become mute because of operative strictures being put in place. In Pakistan, the circumstances have been so tailored that an environment of silence looms which could break free across artificial barriers without any warning.

Going through the histories of countries that have gained ascendence over time, one is struck with similarities regarding how they safeguarded civil liberties and their people’s inalienable rights as transcribed in their respective books of law. There are also histories of countries which have remained immersed in boundless backwardness simply because their leaders were afraid of granting freedoms to people to not only deny them to tread the path of progress but frequently plunge into spurts of violence and regression so much so that it became a cogent norm of their life. That is how their espousal of freedom is blunted, thus rendering them vulnerable to harmful influences.

In the wake of the recent enactment of laws which are meant to deny or restrict such freedoms, one wonders whether this would pave the way for an upsurge of violence, or whether people would just sit back and learn to survive in a painfully prohibitive environment. In the current context, with the expansion of the social media domain and widespread awareness this has generated, it looks improbable that this would become an acceptable pattern of life. Over time, a high level of resistance is bound to take root to fill up crevices of emptiness appearing as a consequence of the pain caused by being defanged of freedom and the right to give words to thoughts which occupy one’s being.

Questions are being asked, countless questions, which battle the thought process leading to the promulgation of these enactments. Why have we reached this stage where we are being deprived of our rights, our freedoms, and our options to make decisions within the larger framework of legality and justice by sifting the permissible from that which is not? Why is our voice being stifled and our words denuded of access? Why has the use of state instruments become essential to instruct about the way to follow instead of people being able to make these decisions using their own sense of purpose and responsibility?

This and more such concerns occupy the spectrum of our thoughts generating a death-like silence as Rabindranath Tagore’s words resonate in the spaces:

“Do you hear the tumult of death afar,/ The call midst the firefloods and poisonous clouds?/ The captain’s call to the steersman to turn the ship to an unnamed shore,/ For that time is over – the stagnant time in the port –/ Where the same old merchandise is bought and sold in an endless round,/ Where dead things drift in the exhaustion and emptiness of truth”.

Seventy-six years hence, our destination is still clouded among uncertainties and our path engulfed in fog which is becoming denser with time. Seventy-six years hence, our leaders are smitten with self-interest and engrossed in piling up personal capital. Seventy-six years hence, our people remain uncertain about their fate, their destiny and whence to claim it. Seventy-six years hence, we are driven by the pain inflicted by the rampaging rod rather than the rationale of the spoken or the written word. Seventy-six years hence, we are more sceptical about things than we may have been at the birth of this country.

This enacts a gloomy picture which makes me think about my own existence which has gone through cycles of impenetrable monotony numbing my senses both of thought and action. I am lost in a maze of conflicting emotions causing a deep-set stirring which refuses to simmer down. With time, this feeling of deprivation is becoming ever more intense, ever more penetrative. It is hurtful. It causes pain.

It was Martin Luther King who said that “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere”. These words reflect his championing of human rights and freedoms. He believed that there is no compromise in such matters as, indeed, there should be none. His struggle was a defining moment in the transformation that occurred in societies which has since attained the status of being irreversible. Other countries of the world, more so from the democratic block, have espoused these values deeply which have propelled them on the path to human emancipation and the consequent development which they have been instrumental in inscribing.

Why is it then that some countries, instead of emulating these ground-breaking values, remain consumed with defying them and chiselling a path that heads downhill? Why is it that these countries and their leaderships are unable to garner faith in their people and are constantly endeavouring to chain their bodies and emasculate their thoughts? Why is it that, instead of initiating a dialogue with their people, they live in eternal fear of their intentions?

Why is it that, instead of utilising their boundless enthusiasm and energy for the advancement of national goals, these features are curbed, often buried under piles of hubris? Here is a parable echoing the proverbial (immeasurable) distance separating the lips from the heart despite them being within close proximity of each other in the human body. This distance also reflects the vast gulf that separates the leaderships from their people.

Thought leaders have always pleaded for freedoms and rights to be respected, safeguarded and augmented. As a state, we seem to be moving in the opposite direction with an indescribable propensity for bullying and badgering them and making a mockery of those who stand up to uphold their rights at the peril of their lives.

Unsurprisingly, even our core interests seem to be jeopardised. In addition to earning bad press throughout the world and criticism from various quarters, warnings have come aplenty regarding serious consequences of curtailment of freedoms and rights. The latest salvo has been fired by the visiting EU Special Representative for Human Rights, Olof Skoog, who has warned that it “cannot be taken for granted that it (GSP+) will be there for the next round”. He further said that “you cannot restrict freedom of expression just to protect the politicians, authorities or the system from being criticised”.

It makes for a debilitating spectacle. All I can say is that the strictures may seal my lips, but my heart shall continue to beat even more robustly.