Pakistan’s Victimhood Rant

There is an inherent problem with the average middle class of Pakistan’s mindset. The sort of ethos that sets in when one doesn’t get to run off to Dubai or another island retreat to satisfy their each and every whim.

That is, the mentality of being a victim.

The negativity that the victim-hood narrative brews, drowns the senses with its sheer prevalence. It is a collective schizophrenia of sorts – excuse my political incorrectness. Allow me to explain this concept holistically – the entire world (chiefly Jews, RAW, CIA, Mossad, American NGO’s) is out to get you and any misfortune that befalls you is a result of these nefarious forces. This is the mindset that wants to believe in the Paani Waali Gaari (the water kit car which was obviously later debunked); the mindset that calls GEO a RAW funded channel every time it diverges from popular opinion; that sees the Illuminati in every triangle, treaty or any bit of skin shown. In every threat-past, present and future-to Pakistan’s awe-inspiring integrity and any attack on Islam you can see the victimhood narrative painted all over it; you can find it being popularised on the radio, TV screens, social media, political discourse and on the back of the occasional rickshaw . Pity the average victim for she is easily frustrated. She does not get why CNN, Fox and the Guardian badmouth her so much. Ah they don’t get the strategic depth! She wants the world to see Pakistan’s softer side with its burgeoning social media platforms (wink Gaandas wink) and her carefully edited Instagram posts of her recent Hunza trip. When she was young her mother fed her stories of how Neil Armstrong heard the azaan on the moon and later converted to Islam. She loved Mehdi Hasan’s speech at the Oxford Union where he argues that Islam is a peaceful religion and has shared it on all her social media accounts and even memorized some of the lines. Last but not least, the average victim adores the armed forces. When he isn’t tweeting non-stop about Pakistan Defence forces on Twitter you can see him get into intellectual fistfights with ghaddars who don’t like the Army for its duplicity and crappy views on statecraft. The victim is also a huge fan of conspiracy theories: forget the moon landing and JFK’s death, this guy thinks the new iPhone X facial recognition is a CIA ploy for world domination, and don’t get him started on 9/11 otherwise he’ll tell you that his finance uncle in Manhattan told him that there were no Jews present in the towers on the day of the attack and how Osama Bin Laden was a CIA operative whose actual name was Tim Osman. Ah yes, the victim: it’s not the poor idiots fault – he’s just a by-product of our dysfunctional society. What else do you expect when you’re fed a steady diet of Pakistan Studies, Qari Sahab ki maar , Islam is the greatest ke dars and Orya Maqbool Jan in the evenings. I’m sure my incoherent rant has given you an inkling of an idea about these people and the ideas they espouse. In fact, you’ve probably even identified a couple of them in your midst. Or maybe you feel offended because you have no less than fifty shades of the victim-hood paranoia. Either way, the problem is such: this blame-centered psyche has led us down a dangerous path where Pakistan stands virtually ostracized on a global scale. There’s a parallel narrative, that of reality, for seeing things for what they really are. Our collective failure to buy into this parallel narrative is to blame for Pakistan’s intellectual position in the world. Our narrative is wholly self congratulatory with very little room for self reflection or improvement; figments of it such as a goal of pan-Islamism are not viable in the current day and age and need to be replaced by a fact based, objective analysis of the world. Otherwise the victim-hood machine will keep churning out more Oryas, Zias and Zaid Hamids.

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