Victim Mentality
By Mowahid Hussain Shah
One of the dominant blights that characterize the 21 st century is victim mentality, which has been exponentially amplified and exacerbated by social media. It demoralizes by fostering the sense of being marginalized. It induces in its wake helplessness. It becomes a self-defeating and self-perpetuating trap. It is meek acceptance of lack of control and blaming others for negative circumstances, while exempting oneself from responsibility.
44 years after the Dacca debacle, Bangladesh, which pre-1971 was a province of Pakistan, continues to hang people for being pro-Pakistan then. The flames of rancor and resentment burn bright.
Victim mentality was always there, but often in the background, not at the very center of the stage. Over-emphasis on ethnic and cultural identity is akin to pouring gasoline on embers. Rational logic has very little to do with it.
Ironically, in America today, surveys have revealed that many non-college educated Caucasians see themselves as disempowered victims in the changing demography of America, which, in effect, is a slow-motion glacial browning of society. It is this combination of rage, fear, and frustration that is propelling Trump.
Too many Americans have been brainwashed into believing that the pinprick element of externally inflicted/induced terror is more consequential than the routine carnage at home facilitated by the spinelessness of their own lawmakers to stand up to gun terror.
Elsewhere in other parts of the world, strains of a similar virus are evident. It may come as news to some beleaguered Indian Muslims that a significant swath of the Hindu majority community see Muslims as over-pampered. This sentiment brought Modi to the forefront of Indian public space, with his complicity in the Gujarat massacres burnishing his “strong-man” imagery and escalating his popularity in the so-called largest democracy in the world.
Victim mentality also induces self-pity by side-stepping the necessity of self-scrutiny. Can the evil of injustice be fought by avoiding it? Victim mindset is a corrosive problem in Pakistan, wherein nation-building projects are constantly being subverted by infusing a provincial color. So, instead of cohesion, fault lines along ethnic, tribal, and sectarian fissures are inflamed and sharpened.
There are areas now in Pakistan where the Pakistani flag is scarcely seen. So the dilemma then emerges: how to protect Pakistan from Pakistanis?
Lahore witnessed a surge of food fraud and food crime when donkey meat and pork were peddled to unsuspecting consumers. These were fellow citizens preying on fellow citizens.
The true casualty is that victim mentality self-victimizes by paralyzing self-responsibility. It enfeebles the fighting spirit. Great leaders realize this.
To cite the Quaid: “The weak and the defenseless, in this imperfect world, invite aggression from others. The best way in which we can serve the cause of peace is by removing the temptation from the path of those who think that we are weak and, therefore, they can bully or attack us.”
A victim mentality run amok plays political football with the very fate of a nation. It dilutes one’s confidence and competence to overcome difficulties.
Victim mentality is now virtually a cottage industry, fanning “us” versus “them” conflicts. Its polarizing aftermath fragments state and society.
