It’s not every day you wake up and realize that the world you live in has become a mess, you never expected or rather, never imagined of!
Yep, just like that.. I being a Pakistani, raised and brought up by absolutely amazing parents, who loved and cared about me like any parents would do. Who taught me world is beautiful and we as human beings are equally deserving of love and affection despite of our disputes among us.
I’ve been also taught about my religion and about the cultural norms my people share. The only difference is that I’m one of those lucky few who were given the choice, who were never forced to do a certain thing or follow a certain norm. I’ve been given the information, but how I want to live and follow it, is up to me. And trust me, that dear reader, is a tremendously huge BLESSING.
Despite of all these blessings, I have witnessed quite the evil around me. At different levels of life, I’ve seen people getting bullied merely because of their race or especially their “complexion”. Not to mention before puberty hit me hard, I was absolutely one of them. I have seen the hate people spread. I’ve seen people going to the extreme extend of their depreciable behavior to lower someone’s self-esteem and I’ve felt the pain, even for a time being but I absolutely have.
Speaking of the fact Worldwide, getting bullied over race is typically very common but getting bullied because of our skin tones with in our country of mild skin tones is rather impeccably absurd but even more common.
We follow everything West does, there’s nothing in particular you won’t find in Pakistan what you’ll find in other well developed countries. We are the mere trace or I should say left overs of western culture. It’s a mix and match and we love it. Problem is not following someone, that’s how world runs. We tend to be the followers of something better we see and that is okay. What particularly disturbs me is, that we are not ready to change our typical mindsets in (I reckon, well) FOREVER.
Just the other day I noticed how everyone was hash tagging and sharing articles/pictures about #BlackLivesMatter. It was actually astonishing because those who tagged actually belong to the category of those Pakistani people who bully their own race with slightly “darker” skin tones. I actually had to scroll back to make sure if I wasn’t sleep reading. Fortunately I wasn’t and for a moment I thought, (actually I had a slip of a thought) that they changed but …
Here I would like to point to the fact that Black lives do matter, so does Off White, Yellow, Pink, White, Orange, Wheatish etc. As Muhammad Ali said, “Hating people because of their color is wrong. And it doesn’t matter which color does the hating. It’s just plain wrong.”
It is an absolute truth that in West throughout the eras of being developed and getting everything at its best i.e. High quality education, beautiful infrastructure, advanced technology and what not, things are still the same when it comes to race and its extremely horrendous how much suffer and pain those people have to go through living in the countries, which are not only highly developed but who also have centillion of followers from under developing or developing countries.
Here I’d like to mention according to a survey every 1 out of 4 kids get bullied around the world just because they have a different skin tone than the majority.
It would in fact amaze you to know that in other countries, there are racists, there’s social bullying, physical bullying etc. But all of these kinds do not include families. In fact families are the one who take a stand for their victimized child. It would be so sad to mention here that in Pakistan, you basically start getting bullied by your own family and relatives. It starts with light jokes, which go on till they depress you and make you into something scary, they would hate even more and the chain of disasters begin to happen. Worse in the end they would blame you for what you become.
One of my very close friends has an absolutely gorgeous tan skin and her struggles started while she was a mere cub. Trying to please relatives with her other abilities which were ignored just because she had a different skin tone than the rest of their kids. I or you can never imagine the pain, anxiety or depression it might have led to her whole life. Thinking of herself as worthless piece of a coal is the least we can imagine but to her it was a real struggle. Despite of all this it made her a steel rod human being. Today she is an engineer and an amazing strong woman who can speak for herself.
For females the pressure is even higher. It starts on an early level because they’re trained to win the race in Marriage Business. YESSS!!! If you’re not fair you’re not getting married, that’s all you hear till you do get married. Yes, its spoon fed to women like they are just born to get married one day.
When you’re heartbroken from your families, then you expect least from the people outside the safest place you call “home”.
In an article by Tribune, Dr Ayesha Mian chairperson and associate professor of psychiatry at the Aga Khan University Hospital Karachi, says that, “At least 50% of my patients agree when I ask them if they are being bullied at school.”
That’s another story, where you don’t want to interact to any person let alone the mass because you feel so flawed and unnatural. You feel that you were created the wrong way and nobody will accept you for you. A worse stage of denial which was basically infused in your brain by your own relatives. And the worse you can do to yourself is, accepting the lies people told you and assume that no matter what, people are going to hate you anyways. Which is not at all “RIGHT” and you certainly have no right to call yourself ugly. Because YOU ARE NOT. A God’s creation can never be “UGLY”.
In Quran Surah At-Tin verse 4 states clearly, “Certainly We created man in the best make.” Than how can you, I or anyone mock at someone’s physical appearance? Where does this leave us? Aren’t we actually making fun of ourselves? Well same God made you and me? Didn’t He?
You all are beautiful. We all are. There is nothing we need to beautify ourselves except a huge smile and courage to look at the world with different and extremely positive perspective. The picture I shared, none of these are my real skin tones. I’m wheatish pale and never in my life would I swap that with any other complexion. I can never be thankful enough to the One created me the way I am.
Least but not last, my concern are the people who bullied others their entire lives. It’s time we stop this retarded practice. It might feel so cool but trust me it destroyed many. Especially ones with low stamina or who had no one to show them that bullies speak only one language and that is “crap”. Whereas it built many stronger but many broke down to the point where they had suicidal thoughts and many even did it.
Science Daily reports shares that, “Researchers found that bullying at any age was associated with worse mental and physical health, increased depressive symptoms and lower self-worth.” We have to bring the change within ourselves and break these stereotypes. World would be much better if a little positivism could be shared right now. We all need it. We all need a boost to get our challenging selves back on and speak for what’s right.
Life is too short to make amendments but here’s your chance. If you can’t change the past, it’s okay. It’s never too late. Do something to glorify someone else’s future. Give someone a spark. Tell them they’re beautiful, without being artificial to themselves, to others. Tell them they don’t need to prove anything to anyone but themselves. Just tell them something, something which could encourage them to make their lives a better place.
This is what equitable and this is what we call “humanity”. As Edmond Mbiaka says, “Let integrity, humility, kindness, compassion, peace, and unity follow you wherever you go. We still have a chance at making this world a better place for us and our future generations. Stop complaining about all the negativity in this world and start contributing more positive words, decisions, and actions to it.”
#SpeakUp #BreakStereotypes
Shanawar 🙂
Keen Wayfarer 