Quiet erosion of public decency |
THERE was a time in Pakistan when public space carried an unwritten discipline. Streets were not perfect, systems were not efficient, and cities were not immaculate but there was a shared sense of how one ought to behave in front of others. Social boundaries were rarely written, but they were clearly felt. Children absorbed manners not from textbooks but from what they saw adults do every day.
Travel today on Motorway or walk through any busy bazaar, hospital corridor, public office, bus stand, or community park, and a troubling pattern emerges. People throw trash from car windows without hesitation. Plastic bottles, wrappers, leftover food, and tissues scatter across roads that were built with public money. Men can be seen by roadsides, in markets, and on footpaths urinating openly in full public view, while families, women, and children walk past. Walls become spittoons. Corners become toilets. Public spaces, meant to be shared, are treated as if they belong to no one.
What is more disturbing is not the act itself, but the absence of shame. There is no attempt to hide. No discomfort. No apology. No awareness that such behaviour violates the dignity of others who must occupy the same space. This is not a problem of poverty. Nor is it merely a problem of illiteracy.
Pakistan today has more schools, more colleges, more universities, and more degree holders than at any point in its history.........