Devastation, Relief Work and Full Stop!

Thanks to Doctor Nauman-ul-Haq, Pakistan Studies class was quite interesting today. Starting off with the lecture on sociological explanations for religion, he gave a remarkable talk on rituals, sacredness, ontology, etc. The best part was his knack of incorporating current events into the discussion. The main example of ongoing scenario was the devastating flood in Pakistan. To go into the details of the linkage of flood to our lecture would be to digress. So I would just write about what clicked my mind.

 He said that in the wake of this alarming situation, everyone has jumped on the bandwagon to help the victims. All media is abuzz with the statistics of destruction, casualties, and displaced people. To help is definitely valued however things of greater importance are put in the backdrop. Houses and possessions are washed away and so people do not have the legal documentations for the land they owned. When the situation has normalized, there would be arguments over lands. Politics would get involved and as we know of our leaders, there would be corruption and the matter would not be solved. Flood affected people would still be displaced.

The need of hour is to come up with better plans. Media should not be just concentrating on covering the relief efforts being made but also take the long run into perspective.

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