About Us

This human rights blog began as part of a class project. To say, however, that this explains in totality the origins of the blog would be a misstatement. On countless occasions in the past I felt the urge to make people know what I thought and felt about various things. To mark those thoughts and feelings as my own and copyright them? Not quite. More along the lines of ‘to distance myself from what I perceived was so evil that anything short of vehement censure would make me complicit in the act’.

A few months ago, members of the male janitorial staff at the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) which I’m a student of, started wearing new uniforms. The otherwise harmless uniform bears the letters ‘M.O.P’ at the back of the shirt. Crass? But that’s too innocuous. After the initial disbelief and revulsion I tried to account for those words: must be an abbreviation for something important like an organization or association; I’m sure there’s more to it than we’re-so-practical-we-call-people-mops-because-they-use-the-same; it was not a deliberate attempt to be degrading and the such like. I was able to conjure up quite a few, each more strained than the other explanations.

And so I decided to delve into the matter and ask the administration to explain. But almost simultaneously, as I realized that I was willing to even consider explanations for why a person may have to wear clothing labeling him a mop, I realized how repulsive my own thought pattern was: you do not label someone a mop regardless of the efficacy and logic (or lack thereof) of such a measure.

I hope for this initiative to go beyond the class in terms of its reach and time line. The aim is to voice opinions on human rights and wrongs. We aim to generate discussion on topics as universal as enforced disappearances and as specific as the persistent violation of the rights of fishermen/women in the coastal areas of Pakistan and the use of the epithet mop for actual people at LUMS. While the primary aim is to make voices from Pakistan heard we also welcome contributions from anywhere else.

    Silence never won rights.  They are not handed down from above; they are forced by pressures from below.

- Roger Baldwin

I look forward to your responses!

Anonymouse 1

 

 

Being brought up in an ‘enlightened’ Pakistani household I grew up suspicious of anything seemingly orthodox. All dinner table conversations centred around modernity being the road to progression and I myself came to embrace in its entirety this Western ideology.  Joining the Lahore University of Management Sciences where like other modern day universities Western ideologies are taught as part of the daily coursework helped strengthen my belief. Initially at least.

It was not until I took up certain development and law related courses that I realised the inherent bias present within these ideologies. It is at this very junction of time that I began to question the innate cynicism I carried around within myself about religion and Islam. This is not at all to say that I was an agnostic turned fundamentalist with a new found belief in religion , but simply that I now refused to be spoonfed mock realities without questioning where they came from.

My main motivation behind this little venture of creating a  ‘Human Rights Blog’ is not to put forth ideas or indoctrinate beliefs within people. It is simply to create a platform in which both like-minded individuals and those with a different mindset can get together and discuss different issues about and related to Human Rights.

Change comes not only from knowledge of different events but the understanding of why they happened.

“Together we can, together we will”

I look forward to your contributions, 

Anonymouse 2