Nahin chalay gi nahin chalay gi
Police ki haram khori nahin chalay gi!

Chor ko pakro chor ko laaao
Police walo haram na khhhao!

It was a busy afternoon of Monday 27, 2014 when I heard these beautifully rhymed slogans, on my way back home after a long tiring day at University.

No matter how brilliant these lines were, an hour of hearing your professor talk about Literary Criticism can rob you of your appreciation for art and impair your hearing to melodious shrieks and shouts. I wasn’t apathetic, mind you, I was numb.

Traffic was jammed and I wasn’t sure why, every kind of material present in my car was buzzing, almost humming along the high notes of this slogan which was being repeatedly raised by a crazy congregation of some hard rock band’s retired vocalists. Far away, I was sure as hell able to see some people burning tires and a few actively using brute force to push people, who were trying to cross the square, off their motor vehicles.

Nope, it wasn’t a riot.

It was a protest.

The tale behind the protest was that some property dealer’s home was robbed a night ago, and they were now blocking all the traffic and burning tires because the head of that household had given the police inspector an ultimatum to find the culprit within 12 hours.

And Police had failed.

Science is mischievous, totally unpredictable, utterly confusing and way too much dependent on the variables. Personally I don’t blame it for any of that and that is the only reason I am going to excuse Mr. Darwin who believed that human race evolved from monkeys. Well, it may have been evolved from monkeys in other parts of the world, but in Pakistan, majority of citizens evolved into monkeys from human beings. In Pakistan we are all victim of evolution through negative selection, with each new generation more monkey-ish in nature and more retarded than predecessor, and thanks to extreme social apathy, illiteracy, lack of common sense and strong sense of selfishness the process will continue.

Protest is the primary expression of masses to show objection, refusal, to show that they want a reform, a change. Nations have achieved so much through protests; entire human history is filled with silent non-violent examples like The Salt March, Suffrage Parade, March on Washington; all of which achieved so much and left prosperity in their wake not burning tires, injured people, and a string of verbal curses for the protesters.

We get inspiration from west, in just about every aspect of our life. We like to dress like them, eat like them, speak like them, develop tastes like them, yet we never try to get inspired from their sense of selflessness, their sensitivity to other people’s problems, their desire to improve individually as well as nationally and their empathy, but it is high time we did that.

It’s time we stop forcing people off their bikes and let them pass, it’s time we stop burning tires and learn to hold placards, It’s time we stop blocking the squares, and let people drive while letting them have a look at the silent protesters standing on the sides of the roads holding placards for the injustice that has been done to them.

Fire has never put out the fire; neither disrupting law and order in response to disruption in law and order will do any good. What we need to realize is that the most effective protests are those which don’t disrupt the flow of life, the purpose of the protest is to show the world that you were mistreated, not to cause similar feelings of hurt and anger in other people’s heart.