A few years ago my neighbours had some plumbing problem; one of their water pipes developed a small leak and it started dripping slowly. The leak was directly overhead a shed that they had built, which housed their water-pumping motor and other gardening equipment.
Instead of getting the pipe fixed – because that would have meant changing the big pipe that ran from the ground to the roof – they simply placed a plastic sheet over the shed so that the water would not get onto and into the equipment.
As the days went by, the leak got bigger and so did the pile of plastic sheets on the shed. At one point, the leak became a steady stream, which is when my neighbours decided to built a slanted fibre glass ledge over the shed so that the water would splash over it, protecting the shed.
Finally, the pipe burst completely, flooding the shed, shorting out the water pump and ruining all the equipment that was inside.
Whenever I tell this story, people always say that my neighbours were stupid. They should have fixed the pipe as soon as the leak had developed. Instead of trying to protect the stuff from being water damaged, they should have addressed the problem at the root and stopped the water from leaking.
Yet, when I talk to the same people about Pakistan’s rising terrorism situation, they all feel that the solution is to provide more security to people.
This is the guard delusion that we are all living in. After the attack on Sindh High Court (SHC) Judge Maqbool Baqar last week, lawyers boycotted the courts, and more security was ordered for the judges. It is important to note that in the bomb blast that targeted Judge Baqar, eight of the nine people killed were security personnel.
Is providing more security to judges and politicians the solution to terrorism? What would 16 security personnel do that eight couldn’t? Die is one answer. If you increase the security of VIPs, it only means that the next time the terrorists attack, more security personnel are going to die or get injured. This is no solution. It is just reacting – and that too in a very erratic way.
It is like treating an infected wound with bandages without giving the patient antibiotics. Sure, the bandages will stop the bleeding, but the infection is likely to continue and eventually kill the patient.
And providing more guards to the VIPs might save their lives at the cost of security personnel but what about you? Even those of you who carry around armed guards are only fooling yourselves. Your guards can act as deterrents at best – and that too only for hit men who are afraid for their lives. The guards have no chance in hell deterring a suicide bomber who is on a one-way mission to heaven.
If you are a target, and many people today are because they have failed to pay extortion to the gangsters or they have angered the wrong people – target killers are are for hire – and the terrorists want to blow you up, how are your guards going to save you?
In most of these target killings that we hear of, gunmen on motorcycles open indiscriminate fire on cars and all of this happens in the blink of an eye. Your guards might be able to shoot the culprits after they’ve shot you, killing some or even all of them, but again, that won’t save your life.
What about those of you who can’t afford to keep guards but can afford to keep guns? Can guns protect you if you are the target? Highly unlikely. You’d be dead before you got a chance to take out your own gun.
Even if you are able to pull out your gun in time, would you be able to shoot as precisely and as quickly as those trained, ruthless and hardened killers?
And what if you are a target and one of those who can’t afford to keep guns or who is simply passive and nonviolent enough to not keep guns at all? Who is going to protect you?
The writer is an independent penman and managing editor of Papercuts magazine.
Email: omer@desiwriterslounge.net
Twitter: @omerwahaj
http://e.thenews.com.pk/7-4-2013/page6.asp#;