By Sonya Rehman
I feel helpless and angered looking at photos of the elephant, Noor Jehan, that have been circulating around Twitter since she fell in a pond in her Karachi Zoo enclosure.
Her ‘fall’ is symbolic – in fact, Noor’s entire life is a symbolic representation of the failure of the system in this country.
For years we saw her hunched over in absolute pain – it took conscientious Pakistani citizens who took to social media and who repeatedly went to the zoo to make a ruckus about Noor’s plight. The same with Kaavan the elephant in the infamous Islamabad Zoo, who was neglected for years — but who is now thankfully out of that prison-pit.
But so many animals – from those imprisoned in our ramshackle zoos to the strays on the streets – suffer quietly without our knowledge under the canopy of changing seasons, year after year. Year after year.
Look at the cases highlighted by animal rescue organizations like The Ayesha Chundrigar Foundation (ACF), the Lucky Animal Protection Shelter (LAPS), Todd’s Welfare Society, and so many others – I would urge you to follow those pages and see the cruelty inflicted by society on the beizaban, the voiceless, the innocent. Acid thrown on dogs as a “joke,” abused donkeys left for dead on main roads, pedigree cats and dogs thrown out of homes because the owners couldn’t ‘handle’ taking care of the animals anymore, the countless cases that never stop.
Look into an animal’s eyes and you’ll see yourself reflected back. The beizaban are mirrors of the society you dwell in. Writing this post, I can’t stop thinking about Noor Jehan’s eyes, fallen over in her dried pond – still fighting to stay alive, a majestic beast, struggling to stay alive in a system which abused, exploited and neglected her for 17 years.
But I reason with myself and tell myself this: we must never stop talking about animal welfare in Pakistan.
We must educate our children about the beauty of animals and how they too deserve to inhabit this planet, how otherworldy and majestic every animal, every insect on this planet is…how each encompasses a heart, how each dwells in a system within a system, how each must be allowed freedom, empathy and kindness…be it a fly, or an Orca. A sparrow or an elephant. Each has a place in this space, in this pattern of God’s intricate web. Each is a cooperative component of this reality that we’re experiencing, that we’re half-awake to.
I understand we as Pakistanis are conditioned to live and breathe in survival mode, our hearts have been broken constantly by the system, by those in authority, I understand the deep-rooted cynicism that inhabits us, it is a rough cloak adorned by us because we’re wrung out from being disappointed – time and time again…and I understand the excuses, again, another cloak we wear because we’re afraid of shaking up the system, we’re afraid of embodying our spirit, our power and our essence because who will stand with us?
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