Disclaimer: I am just a dumbass. I am not an expert. I don’t claim to be right on any of this stuff. These are just my opinions, and should be taken as such.
Another horrible news, yet another poor soul rendered victim to an acid attack.
Acid attack: The act of throwing acid at someone (primarily face) with the intent of harming/disfiguring the person.
Acid attacks are probably one of the most horrendous crimes that are quite common in our (South Asian) societies. Yeah, for me personally, it’s one of the worst things you could do to a person primarily due to the lifelong ramifications for the victim.
Say, if you rob someone. The victim can still recover from that incident (be it a difficult journey). But acid attack? No, the story is very different and dark. The victim has to live with the scars for the rest of her life (and yes, the majority of victims are women). They are looked down upon by the society (whether intentionally or not) and their life become a struggle. It becomes almost impossible to find a partner and get married (because aesthetics is aesthetics) and they live their lives hiding from the stares and pitiful remarks of strangers.
What a painful existence?
All because of a single incident.
Yeah, so for me, acid attacks rank high up in my list of horrible crimes. It’s even worse than rape.
Yet it is so common in our societies.
I mean, we are living in 2020, shouldn’t we as human beings move past such barbarism? But still, there are people who do these absolutely disgusting acts, and there are those who suffer from them.
And the media, as always, plays its role of blaming the wrongdoer and forgets about the incident until…… another tragedy happens.
But think about it for a moment. What do acid attacks tell us about us?
It tells us that we as a society, have FAILED ourselves.
Yes, as much as the wrongdoer might be a “bad” person, the existence of acid attacks in today’s day and age indicates as clear failure of us as a society in a number of areas. After all, had we been proactive and successful as a society, tragedies like these would have never happened in the first place.
See, I’m not saying the person who threw the acid is not responsible for his actions. NO, he is absolutely responsible for it, and as such, should be punished by the rule of law. There is no exception to it.
However, what I am saying is, there is more to acid attacks that just blaming the wrongdoer and brushing it off like just another bad incident. Most people don’t look past blaming the criminal and sympathizing with the victim… and that’s the reason why it happens again and again.
People simply don’t look for the root cause of the issue.
Hence, the problem persists, adding more victims to its list.
Getting to the roots.
The root cause of acid attacks is not external but: Internal.
What do I mean by that?
The number one reason why acid attacks happens (in our South Asian societies) is when a guy fails in love (in other words, gets rejected by the girl). It’s like the person can’t handle rejection and does something as stupid and horrible as throwing acid at another person’s face.
But think about it for a second.
Rejection.
Hmmm… does it seem like a rare event?
Hell no! There are 7 billion people in the world, I would imagine hundreds experience it every single day. But are there hundreds of acid attacks daily? No.
Why?
Because, most people are emotionally equipped to handle rejection in life.
Hence, acid attackers are mostly those people who are emotionally weak/ lack emotional intelligence. They do not know how to deal with rejection in life, hence they act in irrational ways when they encounter an incident that challenges their ego.
So, acid attack is not only a result of the person being “bad” but more so of the person lacking the right emotional tools to handle situations in life.
Makes sense?
Let’s talk about emotions.
Life is complicated. Things are not as simple as we think they are. People act in unexpected ways.
Moreover, we don’t get everything we want in our lives.
Yes, as much as it sounds unappealing it’s true. There are certain things in life that we simple can’t control: the weather, the economy and of course other people.
Yes, we can’t control other people. It’s a simple lesson, yet most people spend their whole lives never really understanding it. And that causes a whole lot of emotional pain.
And when people don’t understand this simple fact, they act in irrational ways. This is more common in young people I would image, as I experienced it myself.
Say if you like someone, but he/she doesn’t have the same feelings for you. Now, you can look at it in two different ways, you can either get angry at that person because they don’t like you back (because you don’t have basic emotional intelligence, and your ego gets hurt) or you could look at it in a rational way and accept the fact you can’t control the other person, and you are not entitled to their feelings (because you have adequate emotional skills to handle life).
Is it going to be fun?
No, rejection is never a good feeling lol. But, it’s a part of life. You need to learn to deal with it.
And that’s the problem.
Those who throw acid onto peoples’ faces have never learnt this.
These people, I would imagine, are relatively young (although, emotional maturity is not determined by age) and have very intense emotions. Look at all the strange stuff such as anorexia (girls starving themselves to death) or depression, it’s increasingly common in young people. Hence, rejection is a huge deal in a teenager/young person’s life. And, if they don’t know how to handle it then it leads to some very dark places such as acid attacks.
Most of these acid attackers simply have not experienced enough life to develop their emotional maturity. And no, it’s not because of age. It’s because they live life in their little bubbles. They do not have many women in their lives (apart from their mother and sisters) and they mostly hang out with members of same sex.
They have no experience whatsoever in talking to and making connections with the opposite sex. Their friend circles, I would imagine would only contain guys. And they are probably too insecure to ask someone out.
A common scenario in South Asian society.
Hence, when they finally muster up the courage to ask someone out and get rejected, it’s the end of the world for them. They simple don’t have enough self-worth to accept and move on. Instead, they base their whole self-worth onto this person (whom they can’t control lol) and when they get rejected, it gets shattered.
When one’s ego gets hurt, they will do unspeakable/irrational things to cope with it. They want to regain their self-worth. They want to take revenge (because they irrationally believe that they are entitled to the other person’s feelings). So, in their moment of shame, anger and sadness, they garb the bottle and…
Hence, acid attacks.
What can be done?
So, since we have established the root cause of acid attacks: Lack of emotional intelligence. We can take steps to curb this issue.
Here are the things that can be done:
- Make it normal to talk about emotional issues. People (specially guys) feel a sense of shame in taking about their emotions in their friend circles. Talking about emotional issues is regarded as feminine in our society, hence most guys do not talk about it, and they never get help. Hence, we must make it acceptable and mainstream to discuss about topics such as rejections, family issues and general emotional problems in the popular media and out social circles.
- Encourage people to experience new things. More often than not, most people spend their whole lives in the same social circle, with same beliefs and with the same emotional maturity. They never grow that way. Hence, we must encourage people to do new things, meet new people, go to new places and that way, learn new things. Hence, they can grow emotionally.
- Teach people about Movies. Bollywood moves, yuck! Not all of them, but most of it is not good (neither cinematically nor for your emotional health). People grow up watching movies where the guy is madly in love with the girl and will do ANYTHING for her. And if the gets rejected, he immediately goes to the roof to jump off, and seeing that the girl finally loves him. WTF? Life doesn’t work like that lol. But still, many people learn from these movies, hence, we must teach people to separate real life from fiction. (It might seem obvious, but you would be surprised how many people are influenced by dumb movies like these).
- Teach about emotions in schools. Schools, they might a good place to learn about algebra but regarding important stuff like emotional intelligence, THEY SUCK! I was never taught to deal with rejection, how to talk to strangers, or how to deal with family issues. NOPE! You have to figure that out yourself! Sure, some of us do, but many people could really use some help. Hence, teach this stuff in schools so people learn emotional maturity besides geometry.
Hence, these are my thoughts on this very serious and relevant topic. And I hope, horrible incidents like acid attacks do not happen (or at least happen less) in the future.
Cheers!
= )
Honestblogs 