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Hypocrisy, thy name is... -Article
Flt Lt Nasrullah
Just as all
the prices of commodities have skyrocketed in the month of
Ramadan, so has hypocrisy. For instance I find my attendants
secretly eating in a corner, after telling me that they want to go to the
bathroom (I have my way of knowing the late last character select
continued). I have said time and again that we are a despicable lot of
people, and this comes to the fore with a vengeance in the month of Ramadan.
Where
piety should be the order of the day, and Muslims (by name alone) should be
doing their utmost to carve a niche in heaven, hoarding, black-marketing,
lying, cheating and doing all that one is not supposed to do, is instead the
order of the day. It gave me immense joy when yesterday, while watching TV,
I witnessed a crowd pulling down the gates of a flour mill and whisking away
sackfuls of flour. Yes, that is what is just the tip of the iceberg, for if
prices continue to rise as they are, and the poor man goes hungry, he will
snatch what he can. Multiplying like wild jackrabbits that we are, soon the
little food that is available will also disappear. A bloody revolution in
the offing? Possibly. All the signs are there, all it needs is a trigger
action, for the tinder box is dry and volatile, only waiting for the
slightest spark to blow all of us to kingdom come.
The rich
and wealthy will comfortably slide away to
Switzerland
and other nests in
Europe, while the rabble will be throttling the likes of you
and me, the ones who cannot afford a ticket to Switzerland or the
wherewithal to live there. Remember the freezing of the Foreign Currency
Accounts? The big fish withdrew their money a day earlier, while the likes
of me, who had a few pennies invested there, were left to hold the baby and,
to add insult to injury, were paid in pak rupees at the official rate, which
was at least Rs 5 less than the market rate. We then had to buy US $from
the market at the market rate, thus suffering twice over. Before the
accounts were frozen, whenever I used to talk to my banker and voice doubts
about the accounts being frozen, he would brush aside my trepidations and
say that it was an act of Parliament never to freeze the accounts.
Welcome
to the land where acts of
Parliament
are not worth the paper they are written on by the thugs who promulgate
these acts. They are in cahoots, the lot of them -- it is the middle-class
man who is bambood through and through. The Chaudharis, Chathas, Khosas,
Jokhios, Ghumans and other unpronounceable types always sit pretty. I
couldn't believe my eyes when the TV repeatedly showed clips from the
Frontier assembly where voting was in progress for the President. It was
supposed to be a secret ballot but several members of Parliament, including
the
Chief Minister,
blatantly showed their paper, without any fear or hesitation, to the men
sitting in front, to assure them that they had voted for the right man.
Absolutely disgusting, and being shown live all over the world! A fine
spectacle it must have made, showing
Pakistan in
its true colours. To what depths we have fallen, and how much further can
we stoop? Most of the culprits were men with huge turbans and flowing
beards to rival that of Rip Van Winkel, thoroughly Islamic to look at.
Almost all
the women who indulged in this disgusting act were covered from head to toe,
only eyes showing through narrow slits, the very epitome of piety. As
Islamic as you like, and as hypocritical as you wish. In fact hypocrisy
marks every aspect of our religion, most of it being showmanship, and very
little the real stuff, the kind that comes from the bottom of the heart and
has no place for showmanship.
If things don't change, and change quickly,
I dread a French or Irani type revolution where a lot of blood (only yours
and mine, mind you) will flow in the streets and we will be back in the
stone ages -- no need for Mr Armitage to lift a finger. Come to think of
it, we are already there for I read with disbelief the other day that 5
women were buried alive in Baluchistan. My shock changed to disgust when
the acting chairman of the Senate (no less) from the province said that it
was their custom and nobody had the right to interfere with their
traditions, which they had been following for ages. We are still living in
the stone ages, Mr Armitage, no need for you to trouble. I looked closely
but the senator didn't have any strands of steel wool on his face, so now
you know what to expect from the rest. I wish that he and his like had the
courage to show two fingers to Uncle Sam when innocent children are killed
inside Pakistan territory by their missiles every other day, and now they
have found the courage to infiltrate into Pakistani territory in person.
Brace yourself.
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