We are all dead

But let’s just one-wheel and eve tease into our bright future

No matter how heart wrenching the news might be, let’s just admit for once that we as a nation are all dead inside. Dead rotten. Over the past one month, more than 200 Shia Muslims have been killed in unfortunate sleights of hand that nobody seems to be able to pinpoint.

The government appears to have lost interest in the affairs of the governed and is only bent upon telling coffins lying in streets that it saved democracy and its much touted “beauty”, gave them the 18th amendment, the NFC Award, took up record legislation, promoted politics of reconciliation, strengthened parliament and furthered friendship with China.

And all of this gave us the fairytale life we always wanted.

Tap water became crystal clear, the country started exporting excess electricity, several million jobs were created, commodity prices hit rock bottom; the country truly became the envy of every other country’s citizen and our interior ministry has since been flooded with millions of applications concerning immigration requests to Pakistan.

All because democracy returned. All because we finally got to choose the leaders who truly represented what we wished for deep inside. And the kind of people this nation elects is truly representative of what we as a people actually are. We, morally, should cut the diatribe on what the rulers are up to, when we know ourselves that we are going to vote for the person who has most offences under his belt.

Why? Because he is a “survivor”, a remarkably “shrewd” manipulator, who had a new trick up his sleeve when the going got tough. That is what this nation calls remarkable and that is how it defines achievement.

When Shias were targeted last month on Alamdar Road, the government took out it magician’s hat and out came the governor’s rule, a purported cure-all potion. But as everyone can see that the potion had somehow expired and failed to cure the disease, the rulers have devised another ingenious strategy: restore the Balochistan government. Fool me twice…

The reason cited was that the move was crucial to let the electoral process continue. B******T.

All this was happening while the Hazaras continued their sit-in with bodies of victims in torrential rain. How bloody cold!

The subjects of these contemporary monarchs could not care less. As long as they can watch the genocide of their brethren several hundred kilometres away from the comfort of the sofa in their lounge, all appears to be well, still, a few sad nods of the head won’t cost a fortune. We as a people are only left good for updating statuses on social websites and holding candle light vigils. The anger is apparent, the concern momentary; deep down, we are all heaving sighs of relief that it was not us. And then there are politicians who appease this dead nation by singing praises of how worthy, vibrant and ‘awake’ it is.

The first rule of conditioning a living being is reward on the right thing and the rod on the wrong. Praising a child while he runs a key along somebody’s new car will certainly do no good.

That is what has happened to this nation. Those addressing the youth at massive public rallies are seen extolling the young of this nation. The very young, who on way to the very rally were one-wheeling on roads leading to the venue, making life hell for other commuters and passing sleazy remarks at anyone they could. And they arrive only to be told how they can change the country’s future.

Certainly, we would be one-wheeling and eve teasing our way into the future.

Nobody tells us what morons we have become. How lowlifes we actually are. Of how social media blabber and having the most friends on Facebook does not make us ‘alive’. But then again, we as a nation have ceased to be audience of a higher identity since long. Our loyalties are worth a qeemay wala nan and a juice pack.

Wonder why remarks by a US politician back in the day concerning the sale of our kin stirred up such a storm a long time ago. Commentators on media talk shows repeatedly pinned the blame of Quetta massacre on foreign hands, oblivious to the fact that a local, proscribed, organisation vehemently claims attacks on Shias. And yet the foreign hand does all evil in the land of the pure. Maybe true, but why does the foreign hand need to target just one community in one city of the country. No one probably knows the answer to it.

But one thing is clear and written on the wall. Religion being practised by an individual is solely the prerogative of the practitioner and subject to scrutiny by only God himself. I, you and we are nobody to play authority and judge anyone but ourselves.

Let’s just one-wheel and eve tease into our bright future. At least we’ll only kill our own self.

The writer is a staff member.