DO THEY COUNT?

 https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2021/04/04/do-they-count/

Poverty means living in tight accommodation, consuming inadequate and poor food and possessing mostly no education. At present more than half of such poverty-stricken persons around the world live in rural areas and about 85 percent are involved in agriculture. This is certainly true of Pakistan, and generally true across the third world where the welfare of the poor is very low on the political agenda if it features at all.

Pakistan is primarily an agricultural country. Its highest exports consist mainly of cotton, followed by rice. Its other exports are fruit (particularly oranges and mangoes), maize and various cereals. The people owning the land that produces these crops are generally well to do, sometimes exceedingly well to do, but those who perform the labour are among the most poverty stricken in the world, and the last to benefit from the fruits of their hard work.

With almost no education these poor individuals have no understanding of health and safety, and the requirements involved. They perceive no sense in things like vaccinations for example, and therefore few of them are bothering to get covid vaccinations these days, nor do they get themselves tested for the disease when they fall sick. Given the tight accommodation and work conditions, and so on, social distancing is generally not possible among this segment of society, and it is not considered important anyway.  In short, the manner in which the poor live and their interactions with things such as powerful machinery and electricity are more frightening than anything Bram Stoker could think of. It is not their fault. They have not been taught any better.

To allow such unfortunate individuals to handle pesticides therefore is like handing a toddler a cyanide pill to play with. And yet pesticides are used in agriculture and that is exactly what happens.

To take one example, aluminum phosphide is a pesticide responsible for  the often unreported deaths of thousands of persons in the Sub-continent alone, and further thousands of deaths worldwide. These deaths are caused by deliberate incidents, accidental ingestion and occupational exposure. Death by ingesting aluminum phosphate is the most common method of suicide in India and some other countries, and it is being increasingly used for that purpose in Pakistan although as yet there are no proper figures available for the country. There is no antidote for the poison and the treatment is mainly supportive. In Pakistan medical help is in any case too inaccessible in many rural areas.

Given all these reasons, the use of aluminum phosphide is banned in several countries because of its high fatality rate. In Europe the sale of aluminum phosphide is restricted to qualified users, which means it is used under supervision by individuals trained in its use, and yet a few cases of poisoning are reported even there.

In a case study done in a hospital in Lahore, the mortality rate as a result of aluminum phosphide poisoning was 70 percent, and another study reported a rate of 55-90 percent.

Despite all this, this chemical is commonly and easily available in Pakistan under several brand names for fumigation of stored cereal crops, and even more dangerously to fumigate homes and as tablets for bed bugs.

In 2019 five young brothers and sisters and their aunt died in Karachi when the floor of the room they were living in was sprayed with the chemical. They had all been sleeping on the floor where they inhaled the maximum amount of poison. Their mother, sleeping on the bed in the same room, was the lone survivor. It was not reported what after-effects she suffered, aside from devastating grief.

There are alternatives to using this chemical as a pesticide, but these alternatives can be expensive. They consist of purpose-built silos and warehouses with prescribed systems of ventilation, a high degree of sanitation, and other requirements such as controlled air quality. None of these methods however are possible without monitoring for safety.

For financial reasons Pakistan can probably only use aluminum phosphide, which can be used with relative safety if properly monitored, and that of course is the crux of the problem.

The general attitude in this country is: why bother with monitoring when those who lose their lives are just peasants and labourers. Do they count? If one dies there is another readily available to take his place.

Those who die as a result of this poison are among the countless victims of lack of education and gross negligence on the part of the concerned authorities who seem to be far more concerned with re-election than anything to do with the safety of the people they are meant to serve.

HINDU, NOT NON-MUSLIM

 https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2021/03/28/hindu-not-non-muslim/

We attempt to protect society and particularly children from witnessing wrong actions and ideas. We make sure they have suitable friends, watch the right shows, and read the best books, with stories and ideas that inspire them towards better values.

Dr Seuss died in 1991. His books are a great favourite among English-speaking children. He wrote more than 60 books for kids, and they contain some fabulous lines such as ‘You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose,’ ‘Don’t cry because its over, smile because it happened,’ and ‘Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.’

It would be hard to find more dynamic, stirring messages than these. And yet apparently six of Dr. Seuss’ books are being pulled from publication because of certain lines within them that are considered racist. One of them is the book called ‘And to Think I Saw it on Mulberry Street,’ in which a character described as Chinese has ‘two lines for eyes’. Perhaps the fear is that children will see this description as a taunt, and likewise taunt people with small eyes. Or some such thing. We are trying to be more and more politically correct in this generation. Sometimes this correctness makes sense, sometimes it does not. It’s difficult to work out how far political correctness should go. 

There are millions of books with racist or other discriminatory references, some more some less.

Things were different once, in some good ways and in some bad. People spoke differently and treated each other differently. Books written in such times by people who lived then took those values in their stride, or even if they did not, they missed a bit here and there.

So although once it was acceptable to say ‘handicapped’ for anyone with a disability it is now not so. It is considered correct to say disabled, or even better to say ‘differently abled’. There was also a time when one used the ‘n’ word which has now morphed into ‘black’ or ‘coloured’. Can and should all books using the old words be dumped?

‘Bad’ values are nothing but bad values unless people learn a lesson from them. That is when they cease to be ‘bad values’ and become a feature of the evolution of mankind. Naturally this applies to relatively minor examples, not to outright manic rants or Alt-right groups such as the Proud Boys, or the Lashkars, where people are incited to kill and torture. If all writing containing ‘bad value words’ are deleted the process is likely to start all over again. And also, the fact of something being deleted makes it unbelievingly enticing for people. That is human nature.

Political correctness has not made its way to Pakistan as yet, and we make many mistakes. We still speak of each other in ways that make a decent person’s face burn, we still condemn and hurt people because of their religious beliefs, we scorn others because of the colour of their skin and because of their financial status. In the Punjab the caste system is alive and well and people actually marry or do not marry on the basis of being, Rajput, Syed… whatever, or because of not being one of those things.

The same is true of many other countries, including as we are now witnessing the USA, where such bigotry is just as alive as in Pakistan, and almost as present as before in some segments of society.

If all books with insensitive references to race, religion, caste, or social status are removed from the shelves will we stop being racist, and bigoted? Will Fair and Lovely (now called something else) go out of business? Will Rajputs marry Arains, and Gujjars marry Bhattis?

If this were so people would look upon Trump as an anomaly, upon Amir Liaqat as a nice guy, upon our PM as a very intelligent man. But half of the USA voted for Trump, and Amir Liaqat, a popular television personality and the holder of several fake degrees, has been accepted into the PTI. What did we miss?

Books are important. Yes they are very important, but there are other things too that make a difference such as what we witness around us and what we hear being said. Our families, society and leaders. Those are the most important role models.

If a child reads ‘Tummak tala Tummak tala, Billi ka mun ho gaya kala’, will he or she become racist because the rhyme refers to a cat’s face being black? Hardly. But he or she is very likely to notice and take it on board when mum and dad find Amir Liaqat’s Hindu deity reference amusing with regards to Mariam Nawaz.

When a child is told to wear his mask and stay away from people who are infected with covid-19, he or she will question why the PM had a meeting and sat with people in the same room when “Aboo said he tested positive.”

People need to teach their children to speak politely to everyone, regardless who they are. They need to see the human and not the label, to be taught this from the time they are able to speak.

In this context there is an extremely thought provoking tweet by a lady called Priyanka which said: I am a Hindu, not non-Muslim.

A Hindu lives, breathes and has needs like all of us. A non-Muslim implies everything that is not, like a great black hole. Terminology matters, but its use must be taught intelligently, not by snatching away words from under someone’s nose. When adults show respect children will learn. Children forget Humpty Dumpty or Tot Batot, but a child does not forget the sight of a dead man, of someone taunting a woman’s appearance, of the ill-treatment of that woman or another child, or the simple sight of someone doing the very thing he has been asked not to do. Children are intelligent.

U in a Q

 https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2021/03/20/u-in-a-q/

After what seemed like a very long wait but was really a short time in the production of a new drug, there are now several Covid vaccines in existence and people are being vaccinated around the world. In Pakistan too the process is underway using Sinopharm, the vaccine made in China and donated by it to Pakistan. This week a further 5,00,000 doses were donated. The country now possesses a million doses, sufficient to vaccinate only a fraction of the country’s massive population. Out of these doses, according to this newspaper, more than 72,000 have already been administered at centres all over the country. In addition the Russian vaccine Sputnik is to be commercially available soon.

According to this newspaper, in Pakistan there is an ‘alarming increase in the covid 19 cases as transmission rages out of control.’ Punjab in particular is of concern.

With a fraction of the population being vaccinated, the outcome is iffy and anyone’s guess. Now yet again you wonder when anything will be done to stem the growth of the country’s population, a population that stymies every attempt at improvement in every field, health, education, housing, sanitation…. whenever, if ever, such attempts are made. For now the government and the opposition seem all too occupied with a never ending power struggle and little else, but then that’s nothing new. Of course if the outlay on the 23rd of March festivities were to be used for vaccinations instead that would save many hundreds of thousands of more lives, but then we seem to need constant reminders as to who wields the stick and owns the cow, so to speak.

Still, whoever is organising the vaccinations is not doing too bad a job. Oh, people will always get what they want out of turn, and the rich and powerful will always be catered to above and beyond anyone else, but then this is Pakistan.

Lahore’s Expo Centre is a large venue, well suited to vaccinating a crowd. There is ample parking and the building is at an easy distance. There is provision for wheelchairs and transport for those unable to handle the walk. The people at the entrance were speedily let into a hall where seating was provided, well spaced as required. Officials along the walls were processing forms, checking NICOP IDs and the codes provided after registering for the vaccine. Well organised and commendable.

It was as the forms were processed and people came up to the doors to go in for vaccination that the problem started.

Remember once again that in this country a queue is understood as nothing beyond a letter of the alphabet, if a person’s experience extends to that, and it often does not.

Even in the alphabet, a Q needs U behind it to make it work, and the problem in Pakistan is that everybody is doing their utmost to get ahead of the Q and not stay in their place. And that is what happened at the Expo Centre.

Many people have been trying as far as possible to adhere to the prescribed SOPs, which means keeping a distance between themselves and the next person. In this case however the scrum at those doors threw any social distancing out the door. Yes those in charge tried to get people to form a line, to take their turn and to act rationally but it didn’t work. The reason was that those in charge were almost all young men from non-affluent backgrounds. The affluent crowd that formed the bulk of those at the Expo Centre was going to take no directions from them.

So add this to the problems pointed out above: an unwieldy population, and an inability to await one’s turn. And the third problem of a certain small set of persons considering themselves above the much more numerous rest.

No country will find itself making any progress until such problems are given the importance that is their due, and until such problems are resolved. The inability to form a queue may seem laughably trivial in the larger scheme of things, when people are dying in a pandemic and all the other problems that beset a country such as Pakistan, but it is not a trivial matter.

Awaiting one’s turn means recognizing someone else’s right and allowing them precedence where required, and placing oneself in the correct place to receive one’s own. It means a sense of fairness and the ability to rise above the gulf that exists in societies such as ours. Without this sense of fairness the poor will remain poor and will always suffer, while the rich will gain only the short term fruit of their aggressiveness and will remain what they are at present… the spoilt entitled scions of a corrupt few belonging to a poor, failed state.

AN INEVITABLE FUTURE

 https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2021/03/07/an-inevitable-future/

The recent elections in the United States were followed manically by many Pakistanis. Most of them hoped to see the incumbent turfed out of office as fervently as if he had been their President and not a person halfway across the world strangling his country with his narcissistic web. The reason for keeping up with what apparently did not concern people here was precisely that it does concern them. This global impact of what happens in one part of the world, on such a scale, is peculiar to this day and age.

Humanity has gone from a system of tribes to city states, then on to nations and further to organisations such as the United Nations and blocs such as the European Union. This must be seen for what it is, a tentative groping towards something beyond a national identity, a search for a viable single platform for humanity’s common goals.

At present we are not far as one may expect from becoming a global nation. Mentally we may not wish for such a thing but we are more attuned to this prospect than we imagine thanks to several factors, including social media.

Those several factors include changes brought about by shorter travel times, and the fact that very many of us have a foot in several countries around the world other than our own. Businesses and corporations have an international presence; think Facebook, Amazon, Coca Cola. Now too countless individuals possess dual nationalities, which means human beings increasingly have an interest in more than one country.

Our families are scattered around the world which also ensures that we care about the welfare of those countries as much as we care about our own. Covid-19 rates in Canada, the US, Britain and the Middle East concern us mainly for that reason, and it is important to us how all these countries deal with the crisis, much more important than it would have been 70 years ago.

Even if some countries mount military campaigns against other countries, there is now according to historians much more peace in the world than there was in years gone by. It is worth struggling to maintain this, and to further it and today we can in ways that was not possible before.  It is for all these reasons that it makes sense now to prepare for this potential singularity, at the risk of sounding like something out of Star Trek. And we can start this preparation by cultivating better relationships with others in our region, particularly our neighbours, dispensing with all incitement to the contrary. War and disagreements are never productive of anything good. They only exist to further the interests of the few.

As soon as one enters Defence Housing Authority in Lahore, one gets to see scores of banners lining the roads criticizing India’s treatment of its minorities. It is hard to understand how anyone has had the gall to do this given Pakistan’s own less than commendable record of dealings with its minorities. It is also hard to understand what it is hoped to achieve by posting such banners on the roads, without corresponding posters urging a better treatment for minorities at home. We may have a tragic recent history with India, but for centuries before that our people lived quite happily together as a single nation. India may have at its head these days a leadership with certain unfortunate ideas, but which country is free from that today?

A powerful bloc consisting of the subcontinent, and its neighbours on either side would be a force to reckon with, and would be in a much better position to bargain on issues.

Finally, if there is anyone who imagines the world cannot and will not come together in future they reckon without that single largest force today, social media.

What happens in one part of the world is conveyed in the blink of an eye to the other; not just news but sentiments, images and reactions. We know of China’s warnings against any meddling in its relations with Hong Kong, of each shutdown of a city Down Under when a case of covid-19 is discovered. We knew when the US carried out an airstrike against installations in Syria and called it a warning to Iran, and we even followed as it happened Perseverance Rover’s landing on the planet Mars.

Real estate magnates, billionaires or people with jingoistic attitudes… These are all leaders of the past. What we need now is people with vision to lead the world, people who fit in with the technology that leads us and that means considerably more than Twitter and the ability to pose for photographs. It means those who think in terms of liberalism, social welfare and education and can work to further these ends.

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WORKING FROM HOME?

 https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2021/02/27/working-from-home/

Life appears to have turned itself upside down as a result of the pandemic. In Pakistan this applies to the urban setting more than the rural. Life in the villages goes on as usual, and predictably so, since there is yet little automation there, let alone electronic change. Agriculture proceeds by hand as it must have done in Harappa and Mohenjodaro times, except for the odd tractor and cell phones. The farm worker is unable to change his work practice, nor have his life experiences taught him to accept change and innovation.

Elsewhere, society has moved indoors wherever possible, and that is probably the biggest change this pandemic era has seen as compared to previous ones: it is now possible to work from home in many sectors of life. Even in the medical field where our front line heroes expose themselves in ways that make us supremely grateful to them, radiologists for example are able to work from home to some extent, although not always.

In other professions there are many where a worker’s physical presence is required, but many others where it can be dispensed with. Some have taken to it like a duck to water, but the  international financial sector does not seem to be unanimous in its approval.

Goldman Sachs operated last year with less than 10 percent of its employees physically present. According to a report in the BBC, David Solomon, the man at the head of Goldman Sachs rejected remote working as a “new normal” and labelled it an “aberration.” JP Morgan and Barclays agree with him.

The Lloyds Banking Group and HSBC however appear to have accepted the inevitable and made adjustments accordingly to their future plans.

Is working from home inevitable? Will it become the norm?

There is a lot going for it, while some factors appear to be against it.

Over the years more and more people have been working from home, particularly in the IT industry which is likely to remain the torchbearer in coming years. Yet the impact on people working completely from home is very mixed.

Humans are social animals, even those who claim to be otherwise. They need a degree of diverse human contact, more than the family at home, some more than others. If working from home becomes the norm there is likely to be a much greater incidence of depression and an increase in obesity.

The impact on families is also likely to be mixed. While it can give families more time together, there is no doubt that absence makes the heart grow fonder. There has been an increase in divorce rates around the world during the pandemic. Once again according to a BBC report, a leading British law firm says it logged a 122 percent increase in enquiries concerning divorce. The strain on finances with many people losing their jobs definitely does not help.

With children at home, since the cost of childcare can perhaps no longer be met, or with schools closed at this time, working from home for parents can also be very difficult. How do you work with a demanding toddler requiring attention every minute? Such conditions might increase a couple’s ability to communicate, to work out options and solutions, but it is as likely to increase tensions. Yet there is little doubt that the ability to stay home where needed is a valuable one. It is already available in countries like England, Australia, Canada and Sweden, but the USA is known to be niggardly in this matter.

The result may be a modification in home design. Homes in future may have greater facilities for a parent requiring a quiet, separate work environment, so that while one parent looks after the children the other can work, (and hopefully the couple can work out an arrangement where they switch around!) There may also be more attention to electronic communications in houses, better wiring, more power outlets and so on, so that people can work efficiently online.

One of the most positive impacts is likely to be upon the environment. In Pakistan the two major sources of urban air pollution are cars and industries that get their fuel from all sorts of sources including burning plastic, mind boggling as that may be . While the government appears to be doing nothing about either, when schools are closed and there are fewer cars on the road, the amount of pollution does drop dramatically: fewer people rushing to and from work means fewer cars, fewer emissions, less noise, fewer accidents.

One of the major impacts around the world is likely to be on the real estate sector.

Microsoft, Facebook and Twitter all seem to be amenable to allow their staff to carry on working from home, permanently, and there will be others. What will this do to property rates? And how, if they fall, is it likely to affect economies?

While the pandemic has been responsible for many businesses to close down, it has also been responsible for many new ones starting up, and is likely to be responsible for many more either way. The big winner for sure is and will be the IT industry, which holds this ‘remote future’ in its hands. “Mera beta doctor banay ga” (“my son will grow up to be a doctor”) is likely to be replaced by “Mera beta woh banay ga” (“my son will be…that”) though no one is clear just what it is that software engineers do, and it will be a while before anyone does in Pakistan.

. May those families who have lost loved ones find strength to bear their loss. And may the world see fit to implement changes necessary to cope with other pandemics that may arise in future, because there can be little doubt that there will be more.

GRAMMAR vs CONTENT

 https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2021/02/20/grammar-vs-context/

Some examples are called for to illustrate the arguments that follow.

There’s the well-known story of the maulvi who performed a nikah at someone’s house and made things difficult for his hosts by insisting that everyone do things exactly as they were done in the time of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh). So the bride in all her finery and her elderly parents and other relatives and guests were made to sit upon the carpet “because that is how it was done then,” and so on. When it was time for the maulvi to be transported back home, the bride’s father insisted he wait while the camel he had hired arrived to take him back, “because that is how it was done then,” and Maulvi sahib missed out on an airconditioned ride home.

And there is the example of – this time a tweet by Naila Inayat, in which five or six little boys aged about 5 to 7 are seen wielding homemade wooden swords. When asked about them, they said they were doing as done by Ertugrul ghazi, because they were Muslims and had to behead kafirs wherever they found them. Why? So they, the kids, could go to Jannah.

No one explained Ertugrul to these children in the context of the times he lived in, how Ertugrul and his people were surrounded by the Crusaders and the Mongols, who happened to belong to different faiths, who were enemies because they were trying to take over land the Turks considered their own, not by virtue of their faith, and that the survival of the Turkish tribes depended on defeating these enemies.

Ertugrul the television series is an excellent production, but it was best not unleashed on this ignorant country the way it has been, but it was, thanks to our PM whose understanding of things is somewhat limited. So, well done, Imran Khan, for giving rise to a fresh generation of terrorists.

These examples go to show not just that politicians need a brain, but that it requires a basic amount of intelligence to follow religion, and to understand the purpose behind its injunctions. The Prophet of Islam (pbuh) died almost 1400 years ago in a land with its own culture and traditions. Even though the holy book he passed on to all of us is meant for all people in all times, it is nevertheless rooted in that day and age, as were the things he said. When talking about travel he spoke of walking, of horses or camels rather than of flying somewhere or going somewhere in a car. Because of his flawed understanding of the matter our maulvi had to wait for a camel, because he was so mired in the past. He asked for it.

Just like him, we ask for all the brouhaha and confusion twice every year when we insist on seeing the moon with the naked eye before the date for Eid can be announced, even now that telescopes can do the job for us.

Obviously, what we need therefore is a better understanding of the way of life that is Islam. Will we gain that by sitting cross legged on a carpet, riding on camels or learning the language the Arab Prophet (pbuh) spoke?

No. And yet, the Senate in its wisdom has passed a Bill making the teaching of Arabic compulsory in schools in the Federal Capital from classes I to V, at an age when the only thing brains can encompass is the movement of marbles on the floor, the height of a ball when it is kicked, or the path of a kite as it soars over our heads on a summers day.

And then it wants Arabic grammar slung in after, from class V to class XII.

It is very possible that this like most of the government’s other moves, this too will be ignored, but it can’t help making you wonder at the calibre of brains that come up with such ideas.

Many of our school children already learn Urdu and English and in only a handful of schools are these languages well taught. The children who do not learn English find themselves at the other side of a very deep gulf that divides the haves and have-nots, a gulf that is one of the biggest problems this country faces. Add to it another language, badly taught as teaching tends to be in our schools, and it bodes badly for all three languages, not to mention the fact that learning it will not help understand the religion, just as the understanding of conjunctions and adverbs fails to help explain Faiz or Shaw.

What might help– if taught properly and well– is history and the ideas behind religion, which does not mean learning by rote. It means teaching by relating it to events and problems around us and through time, with the students being encouraged to ask questions.

Seeing that none of this is done with other subjects, what makes anyone think that the current injunction to teach Arabic is likely to produce anything other than those children who plan, in their innocence, to kill all kafirs wherever they find them, so that they– the children– can go to heaven? Because that, most emphatically, is not what Islam teaches.

THE AFTERMATH

https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2021/02/14/the-aftermath/

The human race is engaged in a furious battle against covid-19 at present; we hope it will come out victorious. The signs are promising, our sights are set on that welcome time when this entire episode will have become an event in the past. Yet, the aftermath will not be a return to life as it was before. Life after covid-19 will be different in many ways.

After we’ve counted our immense losses, we will– thankfully– be left with the survivors– those who have had the disease and survived to tell the tale. While most of these people will have come through with few or no after-effects, some will bear signs of their battle with the tiny monster that is this virus. These after-effects are likely to last from days to months.

The most common after-effect is persisting tiredness, as with any viral infection. In the case of covid-19 there could also be a cough and shortness of breath, body aches and pain.

Further symptoms which are rare but have been known to occur are some extent of organ damage, such as to the heart, lungs or kidneys. These might take longer to recover from.

There can be other problems, among which could be a struggle to concentrate and depression.

Aside from these larger concerns, there will be a host of small things that might not be painful as the damage to tissue and muscle, but their effects could be stressful. An example is the obsessive compulsive behaviour that many people are likely to be left with such as a fetish for washing much more than necessary, even when normal conditions return.

There is the much larger problem of the setback to schooling, which although remediable, is likely to be a formidable challenge. Schools all over the world have been closed for an extended period, or have faced a succession of on and off periods. It will be hard to get back to regular attendance. And for those children who have had no schooling at all in the off periods, and most children in Pakistan fall into this category because the majority here does not possess the facility to be online, it will be a tough haul to catch up. This will increase the gulf between the haves and the have nots since the haves will be more or less on track with the syllabus, and the have nots will be as usual left far behind.

In households all over the world where parents are simultaneously working from home and looking after children, there will be a battle to wean the children off televisions and phones. Parents have had little choice but to allow children extended screen time while they work. As a result children’s social skills will have taken a hit due to minimal human to human interaction. To give a small example, you do not say ‘please’ to Google or Alexa, but you do say ‘please’ to real people. Go figure.

One of the biggest after-effects of covid-19, and the most distressing, is likely to be depression. Whether or not this is given much attention, and what attention it does receive, is of concern.

It is so everywhere to some extent, but certainly Pakistan’s is a society in which depression is consistently downplayed and even looked upon as a weakness. Because it has no outward symptoms such as a rash or a fever (true of many other diseases), the impression is that depression can be talked or laughed away. Here a person suffering from depression often takes the diagnosis as a hit on his or her courage and ability to cope with the ups and downs of life, or more often as an affront to faith, as if it implies in some way that the person has insufficient faith in God because of which he or she has downed tools and allowed himself to be overcome by depression.

This is as wrong an attitude as can be.

Depression is not a sign of ‘defeat’ or ‘weakness’. It is very real, as much as any illness. And just like any other illness, it needs medical attention, and often medication.

The concerning prospect is that the higher rate of depression will lead to a corresponding rise in visits to spiritual healers, along with a rise in questionable ‘cures’, many of which can be dangerous.

There is such a thing as a placebo effect. Believing that something helps does sometimes cause the problem to recede, but there is a limit to this. Placebos can not replace medication, professional therapy, exercise, or whatever else is prescribed by a medical professional.

In Pakistan it is commonly believed that djinns cause depression. And the treatment, when taken to a ‘spiritual healer’, is very often dangerous.

People are asked to perform strange rituals or drink ‘holy’ waters that may do nothing except put off proper treatment which leads to unwanted consequences and a greater severity of the disease.

There is another example which is a bit not applicable to the above, but it does give an idea of just how misplaced these so called ‘treatments’ can be. Salima, who was suffering from severe depression, was taken for such a treatment by her inlaws. Even though they were Christian, this family lived in Pakistan and the belief in djinns interacting with humans was dinned into them by their surroundings. The girl was prescribed an amulet which she wore around her neck. The amulet came loose one day and fell onto the road, from where it was retrieved by someone who showed it to a mullah. What followed was a nightmare. Salima was accused of blasphemy because the amulet contained the names of Allah written on a scrap of paper. She was lucky that her husband’s employer was a rich man, who in Pakistan can even step in and override charges of blasphemy.

In fact a large segment of the population do not believe in viruses themselves, and are likely as not boosting the practice of shamans and their products all over the country even as we speak.