“What would you do, if someone’s gonna get shot” – by Faisal Raza

The games in ancient Rome are known as the bloodiest exhibition of public entertainment known to mankind when men, women and children flocked to coliseums to see blood thirsty fighters and gladiators killing the weaker among them, they even cheered them on and screamed for them to kill warrior lying almost dead on the ground, being gladiator was an occupation for social outcasts and barbaric men. The city of Sialkot was neither a Roman Coliseum nor the killers were gladiators, then how stage was sadly set for such an outrageous and disgusting display of heartbreaking inhumane act was a critical social question for all of us to answer.  Learning from history has seldom been hallmark of our ruling elite but images of general public acting as spectators in the ‘holi of blood’ in relatively industrial and moderately urban city of our mainland are convoluted. 

 I don’t wish to make any blanket analysis of the events unfolded recently but what has been happening in our country has no analogy even from known historic times. The worst accounts of barbarism and of beastly behaviors fall short to find affinity with this incident of painstaking unforgivable coldblooded murderous act of highest degree and ruthlessness. It cannot be readily compared to the open bloody games of Roman Coliseum as intents and realities were quite different there. I don’t see any cynical psychotic mind would opt for such a vengeance in normal circumstances. Some would like to subscribe an idea that it came of outright illiteracy and brutal sense of revenge which could be peculiar to our indigenous mindset, however Its very hard to ignore extraordinary lawless activities like this with such common superficial causes.                                           

There is kind of documentary program “what would you do, if someone’s gonna get shot” by ABC channel in which a Latino was shown severely beaten up by a gang of white male. The television crew then recorded the responses how many people would stop and intervene to save the victim of ‘hate crime’, astonishingly less than 15 percent people played any significant part. Although it is not right to indulge in any kind of comparison with responses obtained from that segment of society, it wasn’t a very rosy picture there as well but visual imagery was far less grotesque as glimmer of hope found in it.  The notables amongst who stopped were rather feeble Hispanic girl and Afro- American guy. They seemed prepared to take on the challenge and give what it takes to save the lynched boy.

We are undoubtedly caught in the worst situation known to us after inception of this country. Most frustratingly, we are totally becoming devoid of those worthwhile morals constructs like credible courage, compassion and rational thinking, now rarely talked about by so called ethical pundits. What has caused such a decay of our desired human innate senses and mutation in our genetical make up is an inquisition that must now seriously be probed by all of us who are deeply saddened and petrified by these gruesome incidents. Leaving it to few who are happy merely ordering yet another futile high level investigation or suspending the few officials will not resolve this predicament which is already gotten deep roots in our social and cultural psyche. The  increasing death tolls from varying acts of callousness , manslaughter and terrorist attacks ,their equally  highlighted non-directional coverage with pseudo emotional running commentary has arguably made us more cold and our souls even more frozen .Whereas such extremist tendencies must be rooted out by vigorous political campaign aimed at broadening reconciliation far and away and these vociferous acts  may be crushed with robust military strategies whenever needed, the social phenomena where public is getting indifferent, insensitive  and disillusioned may also be thoroughly considered  and taken up as a top priority at all possible tiers within our social fabric. In fact, the root of terrorism breeds right in our ostensibly peaceful neighborhoods when we turn blind eye to some disgruntled youngster who quietly agrees to blow himself up by finding a way to such outcast organizations.                                                     

The pattern is somewhat homogenous in the creation of home grown terrorists and in such hardhearted manifestations of congregation of general public in one of our towns, where generally they don’t care what enormous changes are taking place around them. By seeing the images of persons lying dead in our streets and roads more dreadfully than in the battlefields, most of us now think that cost of human life remains nothing but it has virtually  come down to making a video and share it like any other amusing piece with popular media outlets and on Internet. Thus sharing of blood has just numbed our potent human biological impulses that are necessary to see through the reason and are watchdogs of our survival too.

It is depressing and ironical times not witnessed anywhere in recent history where terrorists , assailants and outlaws have been let loose and now public after getting sick and tired of repeated imagery of game of death start appreciating them as gladiators of Roman age. This acceptance of anti-life debilitating thrust is disastrous and lethal trend. It may ultimately turn out to be decisive factor .It is relevant to quote Albert Einstein here “the world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it”.   Lastly, here is the link for the video “what you would do, if someone’s gonna get shot “. Have a thought for moment, would you let someone bleed by brutal thousand cuts or you ready to take a blow or two for real moral stand, see and say what do you think of it..?

“What would you do, if someone’s gonna get shot”

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