The Change Must Begin Within!

 

The Change Must Begin Within!

Souls who look for mercy, souls who look for compassion, souls who look for love and souls who need a gentle kiss on the forehead to feel the warmth of it are none other than the children of our society who need all these the most. They are the ones who take everything from their parents/guardians be it morals, ethics, manners, etiquettes, knowledge and ideas. The only thing that they teach their elders, is how to be innocent, how to be honest and how to be truthful. They are example of such lofty traits to which the elders must adhere to. But we forget something here. We forget the “BAD” side. We forget the probability of an idea which entails the corrupting of those loft traits by the elders; corrupting not only the spirit of a child but his very person too. Society divides its people in two main groups; the law abiding and the law breaking. It’s the latter which forms the subject matter of this piece of my writing.

Law breaking people (as I may call it) in recent episode of child sex abuse scandal have once again darkened the face of humanity and proved that there is no limit to perverseness. In fact they must be boasting while believing in the fact that they had made a record of sexually abusing more than 280 children in Pakistan (which may actually be a record). And that they also know, with the frivolous criminal justice system we have, that they will get away with it easily. They may be patting on each other’s shoulders saying, “Don’t worry buddy! There are people who are taking care of us you see, and they are big people.”

All the academics, law students, scholars, lawyers and judges too might be thinking of the law at present. Seeing and finding relevant sections of Pakistan Penal Code, 1860, Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997, Juvenile Justice System Ordinance, 2000 etc. so to implicate the culprits and punish them accordingly. Farce! It’s all a dangerous farce! The truth of the matter is that the so-called guardians of law will have to bow down in front of ‘strong backing’ of the law breaking citizens and that too in the Court of law where Justice is said not only be done but manifestly be seen to be done. A maxim that today seems alluring only in the termite-eaten books of law – “in theory” as they say. Children, whose innocence had already been snatched, whose character henceforth will always be stained with a mark of disgrace, who from now onwards will be unable to escape and heal entirely from the trauma all through their lives and for whom the words like self-respect, self-esteem, self-worth, confidence, conscience, reverence and the like would be spirit-less and without any meaning, only to be given a consolation prize in the end by the emasculated society because they too know that it would be an utter surprise for them if the oppressors were put to severe punishments and that the oppressed ones are not actually the losers.

The real problem lies in the enforcement mechanism not in substantive law. And the enforcers of law, most of them if not all, have lost the courage, spirit and conscience to stand for justice, to stand for the weak, to stand for the oppressed and to stand for the under-privileged. They are slaves to the blue designed currency notes (sometimes red too) with a photo of our Quaid, thrown at them by the law breaking citizens. With such an attitude and behavior the law nay the spirit of law based on the idea of justice will never be enforced. We can only dream of such sacred notion, and if the status quo remains, we will even stop dreaming of it.

The change must begin within! It must begin soon! It must begin as early as possible! It’s entirely up to us, the people of Pakistan, either to make heaven, or hell on this piece of earth.

 

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of any organization with which he might be associated.

Asad Sami Butt

Author: Asad Sami Butt

The writer is an Advocate of the High Court, Partner at Asad Sami Butt Law Associates and law graduate of the University of London.