Living with terrorism and the five stages of grief

We need to fight the cancer of terrorism in Pakistan. We cannot simply resign and accept defeat.

Saad Khan/Saad Khan October 10, 2013
The most dreaded words ever to be uttered by a physician are perhaps,
“You have cancer.”

These three words often mean the death sentence for many; the beginning of the end. Although every physician tries to make this announcement in the most compassionate way, it is also important not to confuse the patient by giving them false hope. This is because the initial step towards the long and arduous road to recovery is first recognizing the severity and nature of the disease. Only after that can possible treatment options be discussed including their risks, benefits and approximate rates of cure.

Although it is never an easy task for anyone to accept such news with a clear and pragmatic mind, surprisingly, many people come to terms with it fairly quickly and start planning their lives accordingly. I have seen patients cry out in agony on hearing those three awful words, but I have also witnessed patients take the news with Zen-like calmness and a new-found strength and resilience.

However, the cancer of terrorism and extremism afflicting the state of Pakistan today was neither diagnosed in a timely manner, nor treated properly. Most of our leadership failed to diagnose the problem early on, which could have given us a much better chance of cure. As we helplessly witnessed the cancer getting metastasised to every part of our country, we buried our heads in the sand; wishing and hoping that by ignoring the parasite eating us from inside for long enough, we could make it go away.

Now that we have finally realised that there is in fact a problem, a lot of dithering and denial is still on display. This denial can be explained by the Five Stages of Grief – a hypothesis introduced by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, which explains how a person, when faced with the reality of impending death, experiences a series of emotional stages. Her hypothesis was inspired by her work with terminally ill patients.  She categorised these stages as denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Our nation's collective psyche seems to be going through the same stages of grief.

As a nation, we have been in the stages of denial and anger for a long time. First we refused to accept the problem of terrorism, and then blamed it on everything under the sun; all the while denying that our own twisted policies led to the breeding and nurturing of extremist groups – groups that had been bred for supposed strategic depth against our traditional enemy. Now finally, we seem to have progressed towards the bargaining stage. The rationale is that if we reason with the extremists and listen to their demands, irrespective of how ridiculous they may be, and accept them, we will be spared from their wrath and somehow everything will go back to normal. However, it is obvious that bargaining with extremists is unlikely to yield any relief, just like prayers alone do not make cancer go away.

The next stage of grief is depression - a stage I see myself and many others going through. I fail to see the light at the end of the tunnel and helplessly watch my country being transformed forever. We have literally been torn away from the path of economic prosperity and relative peace, and been given the worst titles, including: “most dangerous country in the world”, “a hub of terrorism and extremism”.  The final nail in the coffin seems to be our country's links with the recent terror attack on a shopping mall in Kenya.

Now it seems that we are all making our way towards the last stage of grief, that is, acceptance. We are slowly resigning ourselves to the fact that this war is not going anywhere and there are no easy solutions. Our feeble attempts to fight or blurred approaches to talks with militants are unlikely to bring any immediate relief.

Still, we should not lose hope. Just like a break-through in the treatment of cancer have made it possible for people to live longer, our country needs to unite and use all the resources available to fight this menace with full force. Right now the worst thing we can do is continue to confuse the diagnosis and waste precious time debating the various treatment options, while the cancer menacingly spreads in our system to the point of no return.

We will probably go through stages of relative unrest and peace, just like a cancer patient endures stages of relapse and remission. There is a chance that we may never be completely cured of this malignancy; but we might be able to isolate and manage it to a degree where living a relatively healthy and peaceful existence becomes possible.

The one thing we cannot afford to do is resign and accept defeat, as a famous cancer survivor once wrote,
“Pain is temporary. Quitting lasts forever.”
WRITTEN BY:
Saad Khan A physician by profession. Born in Karachi and is currently practicing in Nashville USA. He enjoys blogging on social issues and can be followed on @muziqmonk (twitter.com/muziqmonk)
The views expressed by the writer and the reader comments do not necassarily reflect the views and policies of the Express Tribune.

COMMENTS (2)

siesmann | 10 years ago | Reply Cancer is very apt model for the nation.There is a stage even before cancer manifests,in which we do things to the body that leads to cancer,in this case the hate narrative and education,and policies of the government and clergy.Many Pakistanis seem to be stuck in the denial state ,and get angry with if somebody tells them of their disease and its severity.They resent the targeted medicines aimed at the cancer i.e. drones and army operation, and quote the requisite side effects of collateral damage.Some even go to the pathological mental state wherein they consider the cancer as the cure,and defense against external agents,at the same time blaming the external forces as the culprit for what is happening in their bodies.They don't realize that external agents only harm the body when it is already weakened by the cancer.Others are afraid and learn to live with the disease awaiting death.Some go to charlatans like Zaid Hamid to get assurances,and become too happy after getting dosages of unsubstantiated claims and false medicines. Some keep on raising the voice against surgery or any other treatment offered until it is too late.The body still keeps fighting with its defenses encourages and aided by the normal cells and organs.But delaying the definitive treatment lets the cancer spread and keeps on eating the innocent cells.Will the nation keep waiting on the false hopes of spontaneous cure,and let it die?It might be too late if the nation keeps dithering and claiming the cancer as their brother(cancer cells are the brothers of normal cells gone berserk),even saviors.
Grim analysis | 10 years ago | Reply Author, I feel very bad to read all this. You've been practical & merciless in your analysis. Most people of Denialistan will shower abuses on you in the comment section. I want to add one thing- there is a cure to this cancer..a cancer drug. It's the Pak.army. Let me explain - the army is a well-equipped and high standard,as a result of decades of expenditure of tax money on it. Now ,what most people don't realize is that the pak.army is completely capable of destroying the talibanis,down to the last bearded freak - but the army won't do this,since they're retaining them for use as possible strategic assets in 2014. Pak haz spent a lot of money to equip the army,but they think,it can't flush out these militants,who hide & don't fight like a regular army.All wrong-pakistan has the cancer drug..but they refuse to finish the job for fear of loss if strategic assets. Pak army won't put out the fire in its house & protect the inhabitants that pay tax to equip them;because the army hopes that they can use the fire to burn enemies.
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