Confusion Galore

NOVEMBER 2002 - While the non-musical chairs show continues ad nauseum in Islamabad, where obviously two people cannot agree on any one thing, a confused nation watches the antics of the circus gathered there, with growing contempt bordering on disbelief. Most people, the average bloke being a little more perceptive than given credit for, are not surprised at the lack of anything vaguely resembling consensus. The reason is obvious. When people and political parties – and they too are people, get together with no other agenda than to agree on grabbing power by whatever means are available, there can only be disagreements. Politics may make for strange bedfellows but when you have the same old mutants thrown up by the same old rotten system, then do not be surprised by the sight of the same old faces, now heavier but still just as droll. As these worthies strut about, gobbling iftaris and issuing contradictory statements every three minutes, we can only gnash our teeth and wonder why we are witnesses to another great parody. The general’s promise of having brand new faces is a joke, which has no mirth in it. In spite of the BA degree cast iron rule and all the machinations of the now forgotten, Lt.Gen. Naqvi, the end result is more of the same. Horseshit or horse manure if you are the sensitive type.

Whatever will be cobbled and glued together in the end – calling it a coalition will be also a bit of a joke, will not work for the simple reason that by tying four wheels to a few rods and plonking an engine on it will not necessarily result in a car that zips from 0 to 60 in 5.6 seconds. The false cobbling will last just as long as false cobbling lasts, which is not very long. At the first sign of trouble, the whole crumbly, creaky structure will take a nose dive into oblivion, beards, lard and hubble bubbles all rolled into one unmentionable mud pie. To expect this rag tag, insecure, ill-qualified mob to provide good governance is akin to asking the Pakistan hockey team to score a goal or a general to resign. It simply won’t happen. So, there may be a government one of these days in Islamabad, but what will it do that will start to help the people of Pakistan in whose sullied name, they have stepped into power in the first place? The answer is precisely nothing. Almost all their energy will be diverted towards staying glued together and scraping the bottom for any crumbs still lying about. They will also in no time at all, develop striking similarities to a school of starving Piranha fish and will begin the task of devouring each other at speeds faster than Lt.Gen. Tauqir Zia changes cricket teams.

I think the first task the worthies will assign themselves will be to secure as many privileges as they can count on their pudgy fingers. These will include happily, many perks that they will award themselves. Even as we speak, handsome new pay scales have been announced which is something of a feat considering that the government, when not exhaling hot air is out begging from every country including Rwanda. Now Chief Ministers, Speakers, Ministers and all the other Tom, Dick and Harrys that hold office here (or if you are not inclined to western names – Iqbal, Aslam and Ditta), will have larger take home packages and undoubtedly, supporting perks. This will be very welcome and why not? Whoever has stepped into power in Islamabad, has made sure that there is no end to the perks they can assign themselves. Of course, Mr. Waseem Sajjad, the light of lights and our former many-things, has taken a holier-than-thou attitude to a few slanderous things mentioned here last week and made a case for his innocence. It is not difficult to do it in a country where the only standards that are operational throughout the year, are double ones and sometimes even more than double ones. What cannot cease to amaze yobs like yours truly is why the country’s VIPs who outnumber the cockroaches ten to one cannot be satisfied with what they have but keep hankering for more and more, in the process destroying whatever little is left of our pathetic stock of checks and balances. To run up a bill on a mobile phone that amounts to Rs 200,000 and more, is to imply that the user has precious little time for any other matter since an enormous amount of time would be required to run up Rs 200,000 bills. This sort of national pride of performance is even more impressive when you consider that the gentleman had four other phones at his residence not to mention the equally large number of phones that must have graced his excellency’s working areas. What good governance can flow from people who have no respect for the country’s battered laws and while supposedly being the guardians of the country’s principles, are its worst marauders.

This is why citizens of this apology of a country should expect nothing but disappointment from whoever gets into power and is able to lower his considerable backside into seats they certainly do not deserve. The crying issues of this land – the squalor, the poverty, the illiteracy, the disease, the lawlessness all these and dozens more will simply not be in the reckoning. The MMA who have a habit of falling apart every few hours, have sent a wave of unease amongst the country’s rank and file – well mostly it is rank; there are few who are lucky to have a file to carry. The MMA’s vision of life is just as cheerful as a night in a cave with millions of blood sucking vampire bats. While the heavy weights of the MMA roll about like Sumo wrestlers (what do these boys eat for breakfast?), the last thing on their minds is the welfare of the people, particularly the disadvantaged and poverty-laden millions who have virtually no existence. Their entire agenda seems to revolve around women. What is this mad compulsion? Why are they so obsessed with women? They can’t seem to think of anything else. Have they no idea that we have far more serious problems than what women are wearing? What progress can the people of the NWFP and Balochistan, where the bearded ones are in some command, expect? Cable TV is banned putting out of work thousands of people and depriving millions of a fundamental right. What for? Obscenity? Have they never heard of parental control? Are all cable channels obscene? What’s happening in every city, town, tehsil and village, day and night? What is obscenity? Isn’t what’s happening to the poor, obscene? But they are so hung up on sex that all they can think of is sex and if you are determined to see obscenity in everything, you will see it everywhere. A tree is obscene. A tower is obscene. Rockets are obscene. A football is obscene. A cricket ball is obscene. A hole in the ground is obscene. There is no end to it.

It is the same vision that will guide the MMA and its companions to declare Friday as a holiday. It may ruin the country’s business but it means brownie points in the get to heaven steeplechase that they play. Religion will be used and misused again and again and because these men wear the robes and preach the word, opposing them is opposing the faith and that’s what prevents most people in taking them on. Instead, their silly and backward notions drive us deeper into the abyss but then who in the world will rescue us? No one actually. That’s about it as confusion reigns supreme.