Wajeeha Bilal

The devil has been present throughout history and literary evolution. Stories about the hostility between good and evil have existed since the beginning of mankind. The devil is one of the most frequently appearing character in Old English poetry, and literature, with his attempts to deceive others. Satan and his demons can take many human forms which defies the typical pitchfork carrying dude in red. Through centuries, people have tried to predict what devil must look like; standing red with two horns and a tail, but the truth is that his actions are not limited to any form or appearance. Whether it is Dante’s depiction of Hell and its ruler who is a monstrous devil, or Milton’s rebellious Satan who is banished from Hell, Marlowe’s Dr Faustus – the ultimate mankind’s pact with the devil, or Mark Twain’s Mysterious Stranger that has an ultimate dark side; the devil appears in a huge variety of books and plays, going by different shapes and forms, but he still exists to affirm our belief in evil alongside good. The devil later on became more abstruce in stories and was seen as something that was within the humans and represented their dark sides. “…the greatest trick the devil pulled was convincing the world there was only one of him.”

As long as there are threats and fear of the devil lurking in our society, a human’s desire to live with peace can never be achieved. One thing that every human wants is to live with freedom and happiness. Desire for freedom is overshadowed by our fears; whether it’s the freedom to be able to go out or exist in a neighbourhood or the freedom to live during a pandemic. The courage and fortitude of our wish to be free makes it essential to be vigilant of all the dangers and menace that threaten our existence or those of our loved ones. The threat of danger is forged upon every individual who dares to live in our society. Because of these threats, people struggle in the daily battle of interacting with strangers or raising their children in such a society.

The world that is getting scarier with the spread of a pandemic where it can be impossible to distinguish the victims from the ordinary; the fear of the unknown recurs to haunt the hopes of the survivors. On top of that the horrifying acts of violence rendered by devils in the form of humans exist to haunt those who had experienced death of their happiness in one form or another. The rise of another variant of the pandemic has made it more difficult to find peace in solitude but the fear of evil hiding under deceptive forms threatens our souls and makes life much more miserable. It is also more confusing and spirit-thumping, as the enemy could be anywhere or could be anyone at any time. The devil it is clear can undertake the human form when he wants to deceive others.

Everyone is shaken by the heinous crimes and their brutal effects that burden our minds with images of horror and sympathy for the victims. Noor murder case among other horrifying stories of brutal atrocities and harassment have left the public with emotional wounds that are deep and intimate and trying to be comfortable again with others can spark the hidden gashes and the trapped doors in the consciousness. The souls that suffer and depart the world in pain, leave behind a tragic burden for those who witness their news. There are injuries to the mind and heart that are unseen and unaddressed. Whether we like it or not, good exists alongside evil and it is limited in some way or another. This life and every battle that we fight is a journey of accepting good and discarding evil. It is a journey to overcoming disillusionment and restoring our sense of good versus evil. The reality of the forces of evil lies in their existence and complexity of how they can be defined. This daily war with the uncertainty of living in fear is bound to change our focus from form to actions. Lives will transform if people are held accountable for their actions that are ignored otherwise for their physical forms do not fit the devil’s outlook.

Amid these scary stories it’s worth remembering that, while we may not have a better understanding of the devil’s appearance, we can always do and say things to discard evil. Just like a disease, terror itself is a killer; fearing every moment and hiding out of fear can never be as satisfying as the feeling of standing above and against the evil. No one is here to live forever; all we can do is support virtue through our thoughts and actions. And with the evil taking the human form, the task of standing up against the devil might seem difficult and scary but it is not impossible. Fear is natural, we are all scared of the horrifying news and the evil lurking around but when we stand together in awareness against the felonious acts, then virtue and human kindness would surely triumph over evil and crime. A tyrant is a tyrant, a crime is a crime and abuse is an abuse whether physical or verbal, there is no how and why to it, and we stand against it.

(Wajeeha is author of two books. She tweets @WajehaBilal)

Wajeeha Bilal

Our historical timeline seems to suggest that colonial and empirical wars might be a thing of the past. While the human population has improved with an inclination towards democracy and a better civilization, we tend to believe more in peace and diplomacy. But with all the ongoing conflicts, it is hard to imagine that we have achieved peace. Most of these conflicts are mostly civil wars as a result of cold wars or political instability. We may be directed towards peace with the establishment of peace-oriented organizations and defined international borders, but we are a long way from achieving true peace. Apparently free from colonialism or communist dictatorship nowadays, civil and local wars are the primary cause of global conflicts.

In his book, “The Anarchy”, a notable British historian William Dalrymple had examined East India Company’s contribution to the decline and crippling of the Mughal Empire between 1756 and 1803, as “the supreme act of corporate violence in world history”. “Anarchy” is related to the subcontinent’s condition following the death of the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb in 1707. The company’s story that left a permanent mark in the history of the subcontinent, is a dreadful warning about the possibility for the abuse of corporate power and the corruption by which the influence of the investors is manifested. “… if history shows anything, it is that in the intimate dance between the power of the state and that of the corporation, while the latter can be regulated, the corporation will use all the resources in its power to resist.” The corporate rule could be the main demon, but the fact is that violence, exploitation, and corruption were not merely corporate’s debt but continue to mark the timeline of human existence. The influence of multinational corporations or foreign takeovers in the third world countries could be as harmful as colonialism. Violence and exploitation, the absurd atrocities still continue, which only makes us more depressed. In the recent decades, American invasions of Afghanistan or Iraq have revealed that our world is far from being free of colonialism or powerful manipulation.  The superpowers or empires act as global powers that use marketing strategies, multinational and global campaigns with the accumulation of new surveillance-capitalism. The corporate influence is enhanced with military conquests and economic sovereignty. The use of force and economic power are the main manipulating weapons in this war of exploitation, hiding behind the curtains of diplomacy. Though the means and tools might seem different, yet manipulation of the masses continues both at the national and the international level.

With the ongoing electoral battles in our local politics as well, the manipulation of the public continues in a spiteful manner through mendacious propaganda. At a time when the powerful campaigns need to justify the standing of the high commands, a dirty game of mud splashing continues. Amidst the chaos and corruption, a superior exploitation once again takes advantage of weak and poor.  It was heart wrenching to see the major stress of the electoral campaigns being shifted from a platform of democracy to one of manipulation and anarchy. There was more focus on aggressive attacks than on the issues faced by the public or the land itself.

Though the election commission had given directives to ensure decency in their conversations and avoid use of improper language, as the campaign for elections in Azad Kashmir warmed up, political rivals fired all kinds of accusations at each other that proved to be a mere insult to the right cause. Electoral campaigns needed to align with the just cause of the Kashmir issue rather than based on shameful allegations that could adversely affect Pakistan’s stance on the Kashmir Dispute in the international community. And the elections that came after weeks of heated and disruptive campaigns, from the three mainstream parties — the PTI, PPP and PML-N throwing spiteful allegations at each other, were bound to be chaotic in practice. According to reports, this year the pre-poll campaign had surpassed the previous records of hostility towards their rivals and as a consequence of the violence, voting in some polling stations was temporarily suspended; several people were reportedly injured, and a number of political activists were also detained.

People may buy into the malicious propagandas for peace but only because the powerful have been trained to believe that they have an advantage. But when the means and campaigns are anarchic, so will be the results. Chaos and anarchy will only follow when the focus of peaceful solutions for a dispute are undermined by spitting poison at the opposite parties. Democratization and globalization may have helped humans understand the idea, but true peace can never be attained unless the powerful learn to embody the true spirit of these words. When the technical tools and means of marketing campaigns are used to value the people they tend to serve, only then can humanity progress on a massive scale.

(Wajeeha is the author of “The Conscious Ego”, “The Beautiful Present”)