Caretakers in Pakistan violate my boundaries
South Asian people and Pakistanis, in particular, violate boundaries without batting an eyelid.
Borders, Territory, turf, jurisdiction, domain, personal space, authority, limits, have no meaning in a society like Pakistan’s where individual rights are not protected and no one follows rules.
The powerful rule by decree and not by civilized rules of healthy co-existence.
Social Contract in democratic Pakistan
The social contract between legitimate rulers, family units and individuals, has never been defined because there have hardly been legitimate rulers ever.
This is not how it was supposed to be in Jinnah’s democracy
- “True democracy is sustainable when people are committed to develop themselves intellectually, to expand their scientific knowledge, history and making religious and erroneous beliefs a personal affair”
Healthy boundaries allow individuals and the collective to define their ethical values and build integrity – the cornerstone of ending corruption from society.
- “We can be more ethical by bridging the gap between who we are and who we want to be” but without integrity, we can’t get there.
- “Without integrity, there is no trust. Without trust, there is no leadership, with everyone for himself. Without integrity, there is corruption, no respect for the rule of law, and no true democracy. Unfortunately, once corruption becomes an ingrained and integrated part of society, it takes a miracle to change it”
This is why I advocate immediate privatization of government assets, there is no other quick fix.
Ayn Rand, in “Atlas Shrugged” advocates reason, individualism, capitalism, and end to coercion in developing countries essential for society to flourish
- “When you notice that to produce, you need to obtain authorization of those who produce nothing. When you see that money flows to those who traffic not goods, but favors. When you see that men get rich by graft and pull, rather than by work and your laws do not protect you against them, but protect them against you. When you see that corruption is rewarded and honesty becomes self-sacrifice, then you will be able to claim without fear to be wrong, that your society is doomed”
Does this ring a bell in Pakistan?
Institutions that were to uplift the weak in Pakistan have become instruments of coercion for the masses – and are now beyond recovery.
Individual and physical boundaries in Pakistan
Here, physical boundaries have never been legally defined; linguistic, ethnic, cultural, and religious boundaries are what the most powerful group believes it is.
Do not even get me started on personal boundaries, which the cleric of the local mosques has the inalienable right to define for me.
My mom is a close second, telling me I do not know who I am and what I should be pursuing in life that gives me the most happiness.
Parent’s financial and social standing has been my economic boundary and no higher.
This is because of the trauma society has suffered since its inception.
All barriers to intrusive incursions, whether in intellectual, personal, public, or national space have been violated with reckless abandon.
When it comes to an individual Pakistani, whether man, woman, or child, “no” does not mean no.
The time-tested tribal rule of violating the enemy’s most sacred possession – is an unwritten rule of the powerful elite in Pakistan.
People in Pakistan value dignity the most – and that is denied to them by design.
The Economic Freedom Ranking of Pakistan has been kept the same for two decades now.
Then, the perpetrators tell us that we are imagining things and the assault was all in our minds.
My Pakistani Boundary Violation Trauma Explained with Examples
Original sin was the incorrectly drawn borders by Radcliff, knowing fully well that the Indus Valley civilization goes way deep eastwards into India –this was the first time my people were defiled.
The result was a massacre through hate in 1947.
A therapist would have recommended reconciling to the new reality and heal the wounds – but who wants a shrink right?
While the trauma of being defiled without consent was still fresh, the country’s chief of security took over the reins and told me that we need to jump into our neighbor’s back yard to annex land denied to us by force – and I believed him.
When the neighbor took away more of my existing land and water supply too, my chief of security still did not allow me to heal and imagined more conspiracies.
He also gaslighted me and told me my lost land is not because of his incompetence.
I was still licking my wounds when the next Chief of security convinced me under duress that I have been molested because of my poor religious morals – and I believed him too.
To compensate I studied my scriptures harder and louder in a foreign language – in case God was listening.
However, the closure and healing never came because I was told I cannot talk to Allah directly.
I was trying to make sense of my trauma in useless education system when my security chief defiled me yet again from the Western border, by picking a fight against our neighbor that was not mine.
He told me this assault on my boundaries was in my best interest – and I believed him again – so vulnerable I had become.
This latest assault completely derailed my rehabilitation, my reputation, my sense of self, and my will to continue.
I completely lost my self-esteem to handle my affairs and had developed cognitive dissonance in my orientation by now.
My security chief, sensing my reluctance for any more violence, in cahoots with my mosque’s cleric, kept a gun to my head, telling me what to believe in and what not to.
All the while, this soldier and pastor both were drawing surplus paychecks, amassing perks, assets, and privileges from my kitty – the one I needed for my therapy.
My trusted relationships abused me
The guardians of my physical and moral boundaries abuse me.
By now, I had developed symptoms of Post-Traumatic stress – the kind of soldier in active combat do.
- Also, see Take your personality test here
While I was trying to reconcile with my misfortunes and picking up the broken fragments of my personality, my housekeeper ran away with my savings.
Now, I am suicidal, physically and mentally a Borderline case, and unable to work productively under a dysfunctional household.
- I cannot improve my living conditions as I neither have the resources, the skill, or the mental focus to continue – after this brutal abuse
- Now, my guard keeps using money to build higher walls, although the Devil is inside the premises – not outside.
- My cleric says he knows what is best for my morality and ethics but society is unlivable.
- My housekeeper says everything is fine, but there is no money for the owner’s therapy – me.
- Even my mom tells me, she knows best which line I should choose.
Do I not deserve to heal?
If there is no difference in the proportion of capable people in one population center from another, then, why we cannot find one capable person to run my household affairs while I am incapacitated myself?
These are my simple desires
- I desire my backyard green and laden with fruit.
- I desire my water clean and drinkable.
- I desire my roads to clean.
- I desire to live around educated, clean, and beautiful people.
- I desire my mentor and therapist to listen to what I have to say and not the other way round.
- I desire my physiological needs met such as sex, food, and shelter.
- I desire to exercise my skill set to produce my own imagination and self-actualize.
- I desire to be rich.
- I desire to love and live with whoever I want.
- I desire my atmosphere clean and breathable.
- I desire the sun to shine on me – not burn me.
- I desire my school to teach me life skills, not make me a robotic cog.
- I desire my university to integrate me into the world, not exploit my vulnerability.
- I desire to love my neighbor and be respected by the people in my community.
- I desire to have the power to improve my community.
- I desire not to be judged by my gender, sexual orientation, beliefs, race, color, caste, creed, or religion
- I desire to be free in my own tiny space.
- I desire to uphold my boundaries from any further violations.
- I desire healing and justice to occur here before I pass away to the next life.
- I desire to defeat the oppressors, tyrants, and criminal leaders that are exploiting the weak.
- I desire every individual, family group, society, to work in their predefined bounds but unpoliced by anyone.
This isn’t too much to ask – so why is the elite too insecure about it?
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Conclusion
Pakistan’s population deserves healing from systematic abuse and violation of boundaries of epic proportions by oppressive institutions that are still ongoing. That healing will occur when collaborative Rationality happens through education and healthcare.
