When the great earthquake followed by the greater floods hit Pakistan, people naively believed that these two natural catastrophic events would shake up the country’s brain-dead leadership and its armed forces and put the fear of God in them. Many also equally naively believed that the national credo of lying, deceit and fraud practiced fervently by all red-blooded Pakistanis would be eliminated. The leadership would start serving its people and not the other way round and the people would turn a new leaf. Neither happened. Everything did not even remain the same. It just got worse. So much for history teaching lessons.
A small news item the other day revealed that the PM and his fat entourage while taking off from Orly, Paris in their luxury Airbus 310-300, ran into severe turbulence. While the plane pitched and swayed, the inmates sought forgiveness for all their sins and begged the good Lord to show mercy. No such thing happened. Apparently the plane’s autopilot system had failed and the crew was trying their best to take over manual operations to guide the plane to safety. Finally mercy calls were answered, the flight became calm but had to burn fuel so the PM and his sweaty delegation waited for another two hours as the Airbus circled and then finally landed at Orly. The motley party had been given another reprieve but we all know that as soon as they were out of the woods it was back to business as usual and Pakistan’s looting and plundering resumed in great earnest.
Rampant misuse of authority is as old as the country. The only change is that it is far more lethal and widespread than it ever was. Show the current lot a burnt out tree stump and they will find a way to cheat someone out of a small fortune. Absolutely no lesson has ever been learnt although the sanctimonious sermons ring louder and pledges are made non stop to ‘improve the lot’ of the people. It is as much of a charade as the flagrantly abused ‘taking the people into confidence’.
There is enough hot air in the National Assembly to raise a million air balloons over Africa. The army and the air force in the past two weeks have made such a mess of the Bin Laden operation that even children of Kindergarten are holding their sides. What quality of men are these? One day one statement, the next day another with a 360 degree curve thrown in. The air chief says one thing, his organisation another! The GHQ, the ISI, the FO and all those brilliant minds seem unable to walk without tripping over. Give the lot the Rubik Cube and ask them a century later if they have solved it. The answer would be a confused ‘Duh.’
However the good thing is that no one has considered resigning. It is out of the question. It was the ‘Sage of Rawalpindi’ Sh Rasheed who as minister for railways after a horror accident refused to resign saying that since he was not driving the train, why should he. Brilliant man. So here, whether Bin Laden was indeed Bin Laden, whether he was killed or heaved over the Indian Ocean – these are not the real issues. What has come to rest like the albatross over the Ancient Mariner’s cursed neck is the sheer embarrassment that leaves not even a crack for us to bury our heads in. We have already run out of fig leaves. We are sold and were it not for the US would be rioting for a piece of bread, so we should stop attacking them and calling them names.
We should also ban the word sovereignty for the next fifty years. It does not exist and even if it did, no one can pronounce it. We should stop puffing out our chest like vain roosters and understand that with a begging bucket in one hand and honour in another, we look like stooges. In the interest of public sanity, we should also stop moaning about drone attacks and understand that they will continue. The US will stop them if it so chooses, not us. As for the latest thundering from our army chief that a stealth operation like the one that took out Bin Laden will not be tolerated ever again, the US response within 24 hours was another omelette in our egg-laced face. As for Hotel Scherzade, we should resume the cabaret acts there. We actually are but need to spice up the fare. And although this won’t happen in a year of Sundays, can we please bring to an end this Indian-Zionist bogey? They are not interested in what is now an apology of a nation and we are not the prized Queen of Sheba all wish to abduct and enjoy. Take a look at our reality and start making the change. As for our ‘image’, there is no such thing. A great image comes with great performance. Currently we would have a hard time beating Yogi the Bear. Image is not built on thin (and in our case) hot air. If it is, deflation comes quickly. Image is performance.
As for the ‘Escape from Orly’ it is yet another reprieve from a very patient God. This misuse of our aircraft – we have only a few, began long ago. General Zia ul Haq was forever carting away fawning sycophants of his ‘Majlis-e-Shoora’ which I thought was a meat dish with lots of gravy, to the Holy Land where our seasoned criminals wept and prayed and prayed and wept, then returned to their awful ways within days. Many were the junkets he and his merry party makers took, sometimes to Europe, then to the USA, then to the Middle East and then to the Far East. A wish to go to Timbuktu was however pending when he fell out with the mangoes. This foreign travel trend was quickly picked up and given the touch of perfection by people like the Big Commando (I will be returning soon). Ms Bhutto and Mr Sharif also wasted no opportunity to hit foreign shores as did President Leghari, and now President Zardari and his dressy catwalk model prime minister are forever to be found all over the globe. No wonder nothing gets done at home. Stacked with this lot are hordes of ministers, ‘notables’ (another Pakistani disease), self-anointed VIPs and not so VIPs, hangers on, friends, well-wishers, wives, family members and other professionals like cooks. Then there are the security sleuths who crawl all over Pakistan like led by the Man himself.
The list of suspects is long and painful. Enormous amounts of public money which is borrowed from all over the world is wasted on these meaningless trips where the best you get is, ‘bilateral talks were held amidst an atmosphere of great cordiality’, or ‘the discussions ranged over a widespread spectrum of subjects’, or the equally banal, ‘Successful visit concludes with PM Gilani calling for world peace’. Please. Now and then some newspaper will reveal the horrendous amount of money wasted by the rulers and it makes your blood boil but I suppose that will not be a problem soon as we are rapidly losing whatever little blood we had. We are not even a banana republic because bananas have more integrity.
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