Jami, also known as Jamshed Mehmood, and his family would be in a very strange and unnerving position at this moment. A rape survivor, who just called out his trauma and the support that media has not given him, seems to be the common bane of a topic poised. The thing is, the conversation is not paused because nobody believed him. We need to give him the benefit of the doubt that he certainly went through a truly traumatic and life-changing brutal violation of human life. A man at the height of his career claimed he was raped by another. The doubt was never there over his integrity. It was based on confusion, which came when he did not name the perpetrator directly. Speculation made it more confusing for those following as nobody will ever convict or judge based on speculation.
Rape has been used as a tool for violence, control, degradation. It is the complete removal of human dignity being one of the most heinous crimes against humanity. Jami did another thing as well. He redefined the narrative in Pakistan when he came out with his story on being molested as a man. He stepped up to confront the uncomfortable harsh reality we need to face today. Rape happens and cannot be shoved under the carpet like a dirty word and frankly neither should the survivors be lulled, manipulated or terrorized into silence by our fear as a society. They are living, breathing human beings and they need us there to hear them out at the very least.
The ones who were following this on social media were incredulous that people had not heard about it, creating dissensions as to why support was not given; but it remained a fact that it was very much there; entire publications were suddenly on pause. The initial silence on the matter in mainstream news was truly saddening but understandable given that media is usually controlled and configure the facts as they want to.
Rape cannot be shoved under the carpet like a dirty word
Facts true or not, whatever one chooses to believe, this man has taken it upon himself to portray a very difficult and heavy cause. The story has not reached a conclusion, the event of the rape and the sensitive details are there but there is no end. For the survivors, as one person told me the story, the ordeal never ends. It is, for them an unending reliving of the same nightmare, each time, their story is told. The survivors develop different coping systems so that they can do the next human thing, is to live with it. But they shouldn’t have to live with knowing the community and the world don’t support them.
This time, however, it was slightly different in intensity, the scandal and hints of who it was and the consequences that would be faced outweighed all possibilities. The outcome of stone silence at first when the shock wore off was jarring, to say the least. It is not a wonder that everybody just shut down. It was a wonder how many did not come forward with their stories. Are our safety nets of conversation so blacked out that we need another few steps to the next century or another generation to carry their stories forward?
The core of this conversation is where we stand, as a responsible community, as Pakistanis. Simply termed, where is the help? A citizen cries “fire,” nobody listens and the result, metaphorically speaking, is that the community burns down. Are we so bent on maintaining the silence that we just forgo the relevant questions, who is going to safeguard our future?
Moreover, so where are our immediate systems? Jami, like countless survivors, should have been first rushed to, not for sensationalist news. But for support, even if for advice for legal and/or medical help and guidance. Whether it happened now or decades ago, it should be the right of every citizen to seek help.
The change will not happen if we sit on podiums to hear accolades of people cheering us on without practicalities on the ground. The promises of change can certainly enable a positive impact and we, as citizens of this world, are here in the history to make that change. As the #Metoo movement was hijacked by a trouble-making handful, figures online are naming and shaming everybody they can find. Here, a note must be added. Have there been fake calls to take down somebody personally? Yes, there have and we must never accede that there aren’t. Are there people who have taken advantage and incorporated #Metoo by equating it with other forms of harassment, creating confusion about the issue? Yes, there have.
We need to be able to define those wanting the country’s instability with a higher agenda and we also need to sort out the wolfpack mentality. We need investigative networks so that these cases are handled with empathy yet utmost sensitivity but most of all, with a decree of justice. A person calling out rape will eventually need to reach a conclusive point of what they want to do next–as difficult as it may be. Whether it is prosecution legally or through a proper system. Online lynchings, at several times, have distorted facts and also not furthered the cause much as one has hoped because of those jumping onto the bandwagon for sensationalist news.
There is a need to ensure a correct stance of prosecution, which cannot be done on an online forum. It is the same forum, which is destroying lives and reputations within a span of a few hours, and hangs a sentence midway. Social activists must understand that practical steps towards a holistic system must be set up that is so airtight in every which way, be it via policy, legal systems medical and social aid will be what we must aim towards.
Practical programs will need to be put into action, in terms of hospitals outreach for incoming victims, awareness programs and counselling groups (legal included) and medical aid units that have a far reach into different segments of society and accessible to all. Concerned civilians cannot work alone to do so. The funding and implementation for such a huge cause would need medical, legal and policing institutions through government channels.
We do not have these cohesive systems in place. If there are help counsels, they are few and far and will take a few, years to perfect into an effective working body. However, what can be done for immediate fire-fighting on news as it erupts (almost weekly on special victims’ cases) is to create the groundwork of centres of such specialised services. An ordinary criminal investigator, such as a local policeman, is not capable of handling such cases at all primarily because he is neither equipped nor trained. Medically or even socially construed help is a farthing as no services are available officially as being established specifically as a special victims unit.
Furthermore, we would need vital steps to create governing and policing matters that no man, woman or child would ever have to face a rebuttal for investigations in the first place.
As the world views us, we will need to address these issues as they are no longer being passed by. It will keep resurfacing as Pakistan hurtles to a verbal and discursive society on social issues.
There is a generation that will not accept empty promises without apparent solutions. A generation of those devastated into a dire lack of trust of the system now in place; something that governing bodies will need to eventually understand. That same generation will not support the latter because it will grow up – broken.
Who it is or isn’t is a legal matter, which needs to be sorted and dealt on its realm. And it must be given equal importance to both sides. No lives must be shattered as equivocal justice needs to be served. There will always be and will remain, two narratives.
Will Pakistan, poised on the revolutions of change, be able to take everything in its stride? Modernising Pakistan will mean intensive groundwork where every citizen must feel safe and secure in this land of hope. As Jami put it aptly, this conversation was not just about Jami, but thousands of others who have no voice or platform to stand upon. It wasn’t solely based on one person in the past and neither will it be in the future. This evolution, which is asked for, is about changing the mindsets for breaking the barriers of silence.
We need to ask this question to each of ourselves, not just for one person, but for the countless thousands unnamed, can the new changes promised have a place and a system for those voices that have been silenced?
(We are dedicating this article as the voice of those silenced. We are standing with those who cannot speak and with those who have survived. And we are standing in support of you.)
