POV: Please bear with me. I’m here to talk about collective moral policing. Please stop doing it.
As a nation, we love to bring out the moral police in us. It’s forever peering over our shoulders, just waiting for a chance to pounce, get started and unleash. When it comes to a debate, any debate, it’s hard to be neutral if you’re Pakistani. However, in this case, in the case of the Palestine-Israel conflict, it’s hard to be neutral if you belong to any nationality. In fact, it’s “criminal” to be neutral, they say. Do you agree?
But is it criminal if one’s attention wavers for a minute, to catch a movie, smile, post a picture, pass a comment, attend a get together that might have nothing to do with the conflict?
Damned If You Do, Damned If You Don’t?
With the world as it is today, shadow bans, social media censorship and not being allowed to call a spade a spade, (one-sided) political correctness, toxic social media and sometimes, one would argue, moral blindness makes it hard to air our opinion online with the freedom we are believed to think we enjoy.
So people, cut some slack for those who are struggling with the above. Just educating ourselves on the crisis, the complex history that accompanies it, the many versions we hear: their side, and ours, means one would have to have a PhD on the topic before being politically aware enough to speak on it.
But one doesn’t need a degree in Politics to speak up for human rights? You respond. Agreed. But one does need sufficient background to battle the naysayers in the divided world we live in. Trust me, one pro Palestine tweet will get you hate that will make you reach for the “mute comments” button faster than the speed of lightning if you so much as carry a fibre of mildly shaky nerves in your being.
So, like I said, cut some slack to those who are thinking this through, yet might be playing their roles in a less obvious way, behind the scenes, be it changing their profile pic or carrying on with their day without adding to the hate vitriol online. That too, is a form of protest, believe it or not.
Here’s The Mantra For 2023 Year End & Beyond:
You Do You. And let others do them.
Case in point: I visited Munich earlier this year as part of a family vacation. We visited the very cool Olympic facilities, the BMW museum and also, the many museums that mapped the rise & rise of the Nazi movement. We also visited the remains of a concentration camp where unimaginable (inhuman) acts, yet perpetrated by humans, were meted out to other human beings.
All this was part of our family trip to Munich. We laughed, we joked, but at times, we also felt intensely heavy hearted, exploring the dark history of humanity. The human mind is capable of evil, just as it is capable of love, of crying one moment and laughing the next. That is how God made us, it is a coping mechanism. Just because we smile one moment doesn’t make our tears the moment before that any less real.
So here’s some sincere piece of advice for the rest of your days – stop judging and moral policing on what others should or shouldn’t say or do about the state of the world.
You do you. And let others do them.
We die a little everyday when humans repeat the torture, vile acts, inflicting inhuman, yet very human torture on fellow human beings… but we also continue with the business of living. Ask anyone who has experienced the passing away of a loved one. They cannot die with them. If they do smile, or appear to enjoy a part of their lives, that is how they, and all of us, cope and “get on” with the business of living.
Yes we’re stunned that the same humanity that suffered so much racism & persecution would do the same to others?
Ahem… have you never had occasion to deal with a dark mother in-law moment? They suffered once & they often inflict the same on their daughter in-law? (Lighten up folks, just an example). Highlighting human behaviour.
Tip: Watch a Pakistani drama to illustrate my point.
POV: It is human nature to cry over a tragedy and then, to carry on with other parts of our life, because we can, we must, we should. It is not that we have forgotten or dismissed or reduced its solemnity, but because the children must be fed, work must go on and we all, I am sure, do our part one way or another to help relieve pain somewhere, for someone.
So stop collective moral policing fellow human beings for not doing enough, saying enough, talking about enough or weeping enough for a human tragedy.
Instead, use your voice for a better purpose, or simply… pray. There is power in prayers. Ask those who have only that.
And while you’re tweeting, texting, joining a fund raiser or simply, praying for better times, remember this: every bit counts, and collective moral policing is perhaps just as bad as collective punishment. Both actions generalize, judge, inflict undue damage and waste precious resources and energy that could have been expended better elsewhere.
So don’t waste that energy. You too, will be asked how you made the best use of your time. How’s that for a judgement call?
