Interior Minister Rehman Malik would like to ban the sale and purchase of toy guns. It was a very small and almost casual part of the observations he made last week during his visit to this beleaguered city. He is an advocate of deweaponisation of Karachi, but to ask a little boy not to play with a toy gun and to suggest a ban on toy weapons did seem silly to me, but not to my male siblings who wholeheartedly believe children should not be given toy weapons.
And this from guys who as boys played with Daisy rifles and Swiss army knives. As fathers, however, they have never allowed me to purchase any toy weapon as a gift for my nephews. When I would argue that the toy weapons they had played with could actually hurt and that they used to kill birds and iguanas (girgit) with them, and that the pellets for their Daisy guns had to be purchased from the armaments shop on Abdullah Haroon Road (Victoria Road in those days) and not from any toy shop, their answer was that times had changed.
Had times changed? Have the times really changed? This is something I am unable to sort out, partly because I have so many past times to compare with the present. Soon after the world wars policy makers, child psychologists and sociologists have tried to understand and study the reason for violence and love of warfare in human nature. They wish to control this tendency and if possible eradicate it from the human psyche. Thus, the idea was floated that children should not be given toy weapons. Hence, as fathers my male siblings and people like Rehman Malik actually believe children will be less prone to violence and admiration of gunslingers, thugs and terrorists if they are made to dislike weapons, even toy weapons.
My nephews are young men now and about the same age as the average suicide bomber and jihadist, as well as jobless youth of Karachi who are exploited as hit gangs by various political parties. Toy weapons could not be the culprit in forming the terrorist attitude of young adults who use arson and killing as their way to express their anger or protest about anything and everything from electricity failure to fanaticism.
The real culprits are the men who brainwash the youth to commit atrocities in the name of this or that so-called great cause. It is when adults to whom the youth look up glorify mass killing shooting, looting and targeted killing that fires the violent acts of young men and even some young women.
Such opinions are formed in so many forums, from the mosque to the headquarters of political parties, and now even the electronic media. Perhaps you were as horrified as I was to hear one TV channel anchor advocating the killing of a Christian who allegedly desecrated the Holy Quran, using the shariah phrase "wajib-ul-qatl" (permitted murder). The killer of Punjab Governor Salman Taseer was hailed a hero by people who one would not have thought to be manic.
If the world gives bad press to Islam, calling it a religion of violence, we are guilty of playing into their hands by perpetrating violence in the name of Islam. When Osama bin Laden was killed the mullah in the mosque near my apartment said in his Friday sermon, broadcast over sixteen loudspeakers, that bin Laden was a good man. The goodness he recounted was that bin Laden had prayed five times daily, was a God-fearing man who had been devoted to the protection of and worked for the supremacy of Islam. This particular mullah's way of thinking was not exceptional; all religious persons seemed to think the same way.
In short, there is no absolute social condemnation of violence or terrorism. It is condemned in some case which is dear to your heart and justified in cases you do not support. Our hearts beat selectively, it seems. As long as wrong-doing is condoned on one pretext or other, there will be no end to the horrors that Karachi, and the country as a whole is subjected to.
So then, should children be discouraged from playing with toy guns? Obviously, I do not think so, but as obviously, there are hundreds of people like my brothers and Rehman Malik who think so. I do not agree either that watching violent movies or reading books and magazines about murder will create a violent mindset. But it was pointed out to me that there is a great difference between past movies and murder mystery book and the ones being churned out these days. Movies show such gory details of crime and the authors write such minute details describing the murder victim's fatal wounds. In short, there was no glorification of violence in the past. This is a point to ponder, no doubt.
And despite the fact that I am not in favour of banning toy weapons, there was a moment when my confidence was shaken. In a shop in one of the glittering malls in Karachi there were many swords, guns and other weapons for sale which looked authentic. Especially the handguns. The Shopkeeper said they were imported for the movies and you could not fire real bullets with them. But my hand shook in fear as I handled the toy gun. Thank God it was very expensive and the little boys in the street would never be able to purchase them, unless some adult bought it as a gift. I would not. My brothers would be please. I can hear them saying: we told you so, times have changed.