A society that turns every crisis into a search for someone to blame will never learn how to confront its real challenges!
When the sky breaks over the Karakoram and glacial lakes breach their banks, a civilisation faces an existential test: to confront physical reality with science and solidarity, or to retreat into scapegoating. Regrettably, whenever a climate calamity strikes our northern frontier from the valleys of Hunza and Nagar to the highlands of Chitral and Gilgit-Baltistan, digital platforms erupt not with calls for disaster response, but with ideological weaponisation. On social media feeds, a vocal wave of self-appointed “moral guardians” routinely attributes catastrophic floods to social misconduct by singling out women dancing or singing at family gatherings, or targeting specific religious sects over theological disputes. Videos are circulated without consent, accompanied by inflammatory rhetoric portraying natural disasters as divine punishment for human behaviour and perceived religious sin. This trend transforms public grief into a moral crusade, replacing meteorological facts with sectarian hostility and gender-targeted harassment.
Nowhere is this irony more glaring than in our northern mountain regions, valleys celebrated for their high literacy rates, cultural vitality, and progressive spirit. When anonymous pages operating under regional and religious labels attack young women for celebrating their heritage, participating in musical traditions, or sharing their perspectives online, they do not defend local culture; they desecrate it. By framing environmental catastrophe as a consequence of human misconduct, these commentators construct a convenient smokescreen for inaction. It allows society to blame a daughter’s joy rather than demanding accountability for fragile infrastructure, missing early warning systems, and global carbon emissions. Instead of engaging with complex geophysics, they peddle petty distractions, ignoring basic civic ethics: the necessity of consent, personal dignity, and society’s duty to act as a shield, not a judge, for its people.
This disaster is driven by high-altitude geophysics, not human misconduct. As part of the “Third Pole,” the Hindu Kush-Himalayan belt is warming far faster than the global average. ICIMOD projects that up to 70 to 80 percent of the region’s glaciers could lose their volume by the end of the century under high-emission scenarios. This rapid melt triggers Glacial Lake Outburst Floods (GLOFs) and causes huge devastation in the region. Attributing this physical reality to a dance video or sectarian dispute is an intellectual failure that distracts from urgent survival priorities: early warning systems, reinforced drainage, and demanding global climate reparations. History shows that choosing superstition over science carries a lethal cost: during the 1883 Krakatoa eruption in Indonesia, populations ignored geological signs in favour of mystical omens, resulting in over 36,000 deaths due to a complete lack of risk planning. As Adam Smith wrote in The Wealth of Nations:
“Science is the great antidote to the poison of enthusiasm and superstition.”
Physical laws govern nature, and clouds do not check dress codes before dropping rain, nor do glacial lakes consider sectarian divides before bursting.
Moreover, true activism requires courage; it requires standing behind one’s words with a face and a name. The proliferation of anonymous pages operating under regional names like Hunza, Chitral, or Gilgit-Baltistan, purporting to guard local honour while spreading slander, is a stain on public discourse. When people claim to possess moral clarity, why do they refuse to show their true identities? If they are genuinely concerned about the social fabric, they should engage in transparent community dialogue, consult civic elders, and mentor youth through legitimate channels rather than resorting to digital vigilantism. Sharing private family moments without consent is not preserving culture; it is digital harassment. District administrations must acknowledge these violations and take strict action under cybercrime and privacy laws against those who orchestrate online smear campaigns.
This pattern of deflection extends seamlessly from environmental crises into severe social breakdowns. When horrific crimes occur, whether acts of violence, molestation, rape, or child abuse, our collective response tragically bypasses the legal system and the protection of the victim. Instead of demanding justice, public discourse devolves into petty, identity-driven squabbles. People obsess over which religious sect the perpetrator or victim belongs to, who the political suppressor is, what language the First Information Report (FIR) was drafted in, or what dress code was worn. By shifting focus onto sectarian rivalries or victim-blaming, society evades structural accountability and shields abusers behind communal walls. This relies on the psychological defence mechanism known as the “Just-World Hypothesis,” where people convince themselves that victims deserve their misfortune to maintain the illusion that bad things only happen to bad people.
Similarly, when a daughter of the northern valleys expresses her views on public platforms, critics rarely engage with the content or merit of her argument. Instead, when she chooses to communicate in English or Urdu to reach a broader audience, self-appointed guards bypass her message entirely to police her choice of language. They dismiss her point of view by berating her for not using her native tongue, whether that be Burushaski, Wakhi, Khowar, Shina, Balti, Gujuri, Damiri, Madaklashti, or Kalasha. While every mother tongue of these mountain valleys carries centuries of rich heritage and deserves preservation, weaponising linguistic purity to silence a woman’s voice is a dishonest tactic. Acting as a tribunal on whether she speaks in a national, international, or local language only distracts from the vital ideas she brings to the table. Fighting over petty linguistic purity or acting as a self-appointed tribunal over behaviours is not the solution to grand societal challenges. As Bertrand Russell observed:
“The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.”
As Carl Sagan also noted:
“We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology.”
Living in one of the world’s most climate-vulnerable zones while confronting deep social crises requires abandoning moral diversions. Today, as our northern valleys are surrounded by immense struggles, ranging from ecological threats to institutional failures in safeguarding our children and women, we must face them through science, the rule of law, and mutual empathy. It is time to unite, pool our intellectual resources, and move ahead. Our mountain communities have the resilience and global voice to lead, but only if we shed the weight of archaic prejudices. Our glaciers are melting, and our social fabric is under test; it is time our public discourse evolved to survive the thaw.
The post The Mud and the Moralists appeared first on Daily Pakistan English News.
