Victims of yesterday, celebrities of today!

Whenever tragedy strikes, two kind of individuals creep up; one who are there to exploit the miseries of the victims and use it to their advantage and then those among the victims who want to cash their misfortune and trade it with the media, with the latter not even knowing it. Similar has been the case here since 8th October earthquake disaster. Where aid is underway at quake-hit areas and relief intact wherever there are quake survivors, there the then just mere dots in the swarm of the country’s masses, have now become full fledge celebrities, being treated like not just real people but being given extraordinary treatment. However, as the new taste of free relief has touched the lips of the quake survivors along the media hype, where the genuine victims are indifferent but a bit fortunate ones have started trading their miseries with the hype surrounding them.
Actually, it’s not a matter of what you went through but which kind of people surround you and assist you in which way, throughout your tough time. No doubt each one of the quake survivors have gone through a great trauma and till now even, the tragedy has not really ended. For instance, what Mukhtaran Mai went through and the fate she’s still suffering, is no doubt a great ordeal. However, what’s different in then and now is that the NGOs who surrounded her back then, did not just help her out of the trauma and worked for giving her justice but showed her a way through which her case got all the media hype and she became a social figure, a supreme being other than just a victim. Gender empowerment is good but it should be aimed at educating the weak so that they can fight their battles on their own, not become an untouchable celebrity, unable to live her normal life.
This has in turn brought out many more Mais, some genuine, others fake, who all have claimed to have suffered some kind of sexual assault on the hands of cruel men and have started demanding justice from the government. Similar has become the case of most of the quake victims. They have begun to enjoy the hype and attention and are willingly letting certain agencies exploit their miseries. Just when these victims were brought in, those who visited them would tell you that the quake survivors wanted to earn a likelihood and refused to accept even a single penny as it hurt their integrity. But today, the same have started making demands like that of cosmetics and have become selective of the jewellery you give them on certain occasion, like the past Eid for instance. To top it all, every NGO has marked their area of relief and attending to only that clan rather making money through bringing out in the open, the miseries that the said family suffered when the quake occurred.
And thus, none of the quake victims are talking about the emergency relief that’s keeping them together but they are in fact, fighting over and demanding as well as criticizing of what else they should’ve been given by the government in the first place. And after putting this psychology within the minds of the quake survivors, the aid agencies and NGOs that have recently crept up like ants, from every corner, are collecting aid through musical nights, dancing bellies and every anti-cultural activity, keeping high tickets for the shows, thus arranging them only for the elites and thus, making a lot of money. Neither the registration of NGOs volunteering for relief activities and sending relief to quake-hit areas, has begun as promised by the IGP last month, nor there’s any knowledge of how the collected funds are being utilized, to anyone.
When there is a President’s Relief Fund already set up, is it just for the provincial governments and federal ministers? Should everyone else too, not donate in the fund? But then again, this would not give anyone individual coverage by the name. And thus, each day, pages and pages of newspapers are filled with coverage of relief from various agencies, all in separate news items. Yeah, the quake has united the country, but only for grabbing an opportunity of facelift under the pretence of a noble deed, nothing else! And of the quake victims, well there demands are ever increasing. On every other road, there are beggars all around. Why don’t we all give them cash? Because then they’ll never stop begging rather they’ll start demanding, finding it an easy way of collecting cash. But unfortunately, that’s the trade the quake victims have learnt already. The quake victims now know that provided they cry in hiding, their integrity would be saved but what good is it if they cannot have what they require. So they’ve started raising voices and demanding and demanding some more.
When the tragedy had occurred, the need was to equip the survivors to such an extent and lead them to such a direction, from where they could easily stand on their two feet while holding fast to their integrity. The need was to initially help them survive through undertaking their medical expenses and giving them food supplies while urging them to get out of the trauma and get back to normal on their own feet, rather on somebody else’s shoulders. The need was not to physically empower them but to teach them ways of how they could snap back, to remind them of not what they had lost, but what and how they had to live for and go on. The need was to make them realize that they were lucky to have survived a great natural tragedy but their existence was not for sitting idle but getting up and doing something constructive with their state and life. The need was to encourage them to live, not to spoil them with pampering as they were just kids who had to start life from scratch, totally anew.
But as this never happened, so sorry to say, the relief efforts have really gone to waste! Let’s hope we learn from our blunders this time and act more sensible if God forbids another disaster of this kind occurs!

—By Uzma Zafar