Responding to violence: suicide bombings in Pakistan

One of the first pieces of news I heard when I switched on the news this morning before leaving for work had to do with suicide bombings in Pakistan. Then, while I was holding my office hours I read this post at All Things Pakistan. [FYI: This post does an excellent job summarizing the event to which I'm referring plus the discussion thread is also worth checking out if you're interested.]

My first thought: which city?
A pet peeve I'm beginning to add to my (growing?) list is the way in which American news stories about the rest of the world simply specify what happened in country X without any reference to location. There are times when the geographical coordinates are more specific; more often than not the most specific one gets is "a village nearby. I guess no harm in that right? They're most likely to mention a city which the average viewer might know. Then again, after 9/11 when the name 'Afghanistan' popped up I heard a number of folks in a not-Ivy-League-but-Ivyish-enough-university in the Northeastern part of USA wonder if the country was in South America?! Nopes, I kid you not. Okay rant on "lack of geographical awareness" some other time, if at all. Coming back to where I was going with this. The nearby village might, at times, be hundreds of miles away. If not the name, I wonder if adding "a village X miles away from city Y in country Z" might be asking too much of these news broadcasts! What's my point? It's frustrating when you're trying to ascertain right there and then if your loved ones living in country Y are okay.

It appears that everyone I know is accounted for. Yes I know it's selfish. Which brings me to the thoughts that followed.

So second, third, fourth thoughts:
I wonder if I'm the proverbial Pakistani who, because of living amidst such a high degree of violence, has gotten completely desensitized to it? In some respects, I am. In others, such as when I call loved ones in Karachi to confirm that they're okay following news reports of let's say a blast somewhere within the city. Most of the time I'm the subject of much ridicule. Yes I know it generally happens in "those" areas where nobody I know lives or visits much. But still.

That's not what bothered me about the thoughts that kept popping into my head all day. I wonder - and to a large extent, worry - what this means for the prospect of change for the better. If we do become desensitized to violence - which you have to in order to live in a space-time particularity where that occurs on a daily basis -at what point and in what ways do you participate in any means to end the spiral that's spinning out of control? Are you even capable of that? A couple of years ago I was at an address delievered by President Pervez Musharraf in New York city. The audience consisted of Pakistani-American youth. When asked about the worsening law and order situation in Karachi and the lack of security he commented that Karachi was like any other city in the world. He cited a couple of South American examples to suggest that the lawlessness of Karachi gets blown out of proportion. I remember feeling offended and angry at what I would describe as his dismissive and callous response. Just because it's something that's been known to happen doesn't mean it's any less problematic or doesn't need to be addressed. It's a challenge for sure but one that needs to be confronted and tackled. No I don't want to give him the benefit of doubt of having become desensitized to it. As the head of the state, I think it's his responsibility to put the wheels in motion to take care of this problem. I do not think that an old man in his 70s being kidnapped by a bunch of thugs while he's walking from your home to a convenience store in his neighborhood for the sake of a few rupees is acceptable. The question to which I have no answer but to which I have been returning all day is can the madness stop and by what means if people learn to live with (how's that for working in the blog title!) situations they shouldn't have to? If you do become desensitized, is the lack of action part of feeling helpless or something else? Is it that you just don't know where to begin? Do you even recognize it as a problem that can be solved?

I don't have any answers to this question. But color me bothered because I don't think that everyday living should be fraught with such dangers. I don't think this is something that one should learn to live with to the extent that it becomes absorbed within your daily life....willingly, unwillingly, or out of sheer helplessness.