‘No Action Talk Only’ is the new ‘NATO’ that has infected the UN
Suddenly, I heard my wife’s cousin Ishrat’s scream from her bedroom upstairs that adjoins our terrace. I ran up to see my friend Maverick the Monkey sitting on Atiqa Odho’s sofa, chin in his palm, staring in the distance in deep thought. “A penny for your thoughts, Maverick. What’s on your mind?”
“Penny forsooth. What’s coming of us? Where are we headed? When the chief executive of a country, in our case the prime minister, can be absent from the front for two weeks on the excuse that he has to make a traditional half-hour speech in the UN General Assembly that few will hear and none will listen to, when he attends ‘NATO’ meetings that are ‘No Action Talk Only’ it can mean only one of two things.
1. He is cocooned in a mental and political bunker, not in full command and control of his government and its policies. His catharsis is to escape on unnecessarily long jaunts with an embarrassingly large entourage at the cost of a bankrupt treasury comprising family, friends and official stooges. The wasted money could have been better spent on our champion Special Olympians who get little or no support from their government.
2. He is in full command and control, fighting for his country on all fronts. Such a chief executive has the confidence to be absent, but still with justifiable reason only for he has a healthy sense of responsibility.”
“Look Maverick,” I explained. “A chief executive is in command and control because his country is financially and politically independent and sovereign. He improves the human condition significantly by providing welfare and basic needs to his people. If his country is a hegemon he shamelessly goes along with depriving citizens of other countries of their fundamental rights to enrich and empower his country and extend its power beyond its borders while pretending to be an angel.”
“You always go on and on about hegemons like a broken record,” said Maverick irritated. “Look, hegemony is as old a man and animals. It’s inherent. I know that respect for hegemons is slightly divided at home but much more abroad, but does he care as long as he is achieving his objectives for his country even at the cost of others? Not a jot. If he is not a hegemon he has virtually undivided respect, but such people are heard only, not listened to, ignored after the applause dies down. Both hegemons and non-hegemons are comparatively stable. Their countries achieve enough economic growth to enable the majority to earn the levels of livelihood required for a dignified life that is the fundamental right of everyone, where few are jobless, hungry, homeless, near-naked, none is malnourished, every child goes to school, where medical care is available to all, trains, planes and public transport are affordable and run smoothly, where everyone has gas, electricity, potable drinking water and physical and financial security, society is balanced and egalitarian and the judiciary is functioning and justice is affordable, where citizens have real democratic representation, where there are opportunities for upward mobility, where there is no discrimination of any kind, where the environment is respected…”
A chief executive is in command and control because his country is financially and politically independent and sovereign. He improves the human condition significantly by providing welfare and basic needs to his people
“Maverick, this is the bare minimum, a list incomplete. Such a chief executive does not need to behave like an escapist by unnecessarily travelling at the drop of a hat for he has a proven track record and thus no need to hide from reality.”
“Look chief,” said Maverick teasing me. “Chief executives not in control of their governments and its policies become an irrelevance and their absences, though noticed, don’t make a difference except in providing mirth. They lose much of their power, respect and utility because of inability and mental confusion.”
“Yes Maverick,” I explained further. “But since countries have to survive irrelevant chief executives have to per force lose control of issues they are unable to handle, like security, foreign affairs, justice and accountability. Since they are beyond his ken he reduces himself to a mannequin in a show window of sham democracy. But still he is happy because he has all the trappings of high office and the pomp and panoply that a mental pygmy needs to feed his giant-sized ego.”
“Spot on,” said Maverick warming up. “Such pygmies surround themselves with midgets who make him feel tall by always agreeing with him to feed his ego and reinforce his mistakes because they too are part of the trappings. Such a chief executive has to accept that some other institution that is able, in Pakistan’s instance the army, not only does its own job but much of his job as well. It damages the preparedness of the army no end, you know. Such a prime minister goes overseas on every available pretext with official stooges and family in tow convinced that the world is waiting breathlessly to hear his every word delivered in a monotone of obvious mental haze. Do they realise that no one takes notice, not even their own people? Of course they do not because the midgets around them do their job well by singing his praises and lionising his performance by telling him how he has left the world agog.”
“Agreed Maverick, and very well put. Such prime ministers have a bunker mentality and sleep in a fragile cocoon of their own making. They are false prophets who have recklessly promised their people the moon but delivered only an eclipse. They live in the denial that a mental bunker provides, shamelessly spewing forth falsehoods of imaginary achievements not realising that everyone who knows better is laughing inside.”
“In our case I would say that we are crying inside,” said Maverick screwing up his nose.
“Okay Maverick. Chief executives in command are the best for they have no need to speak lies or present false pictures unless they are hegemons who tell lies to brainwash their people and the world. Non-hegemons in control don’t need to speak falsehoods about their performance. Hegemons don’t speak falsehoods at home for an alert media finds them out, but they do lie shamelessly to justify their meddling and perfidy abroad and most of their media go along with it. They live not in a bunker but on the frontline.”
“Someone told me,” said Maverick slightly changing the subject somewhat, “that while he was in self-exile in Jeddah after getting a pardon from President Pervez Musharraf that only a guilty man accepts, Nawaz Sharif used to pray to God that he should be able to spend every Eid with his people in his country. But since he has become prime minister for a third time as God’s punishment on us for our stupidity and ‘shirk’, he has not spent a single Eid at home. He celebrated the recent Eid on this UN jaunt where he was jeered by other worshipers in a mosque with slogans of ‘Go Nawaz Go’. His finance minister was in another mosque and police had to escort him out to safety before he could offer prayers, with cries of ‘Go Nawaz Go’ ringing in his ears. What is the need to go to New York via London on a private visit to make a speech that goes unheeded? Why should anyone heed it when you give only a list of four wishes and forget some of the most important issues like India’s water terrorism? The only thing right about Nawaz’s speech is that there was nothing wrong in it.”
“It’s a ritual, Maverick, a very expensive ritual, but no need to get so worked up over,” I told him. “The Pope stole some of the limelight, but his fantastic speeches too were heard only, not listened to except by the US House Speaker who, after wiping away a tear, resigned from his post because he could no longer work with “false prophets” in the Republican Party. Be of good cheer, Sir, there are as many false prophets in the other party too, you know the one with a donkey as its mascot. Truth to tell, most world leaders are false prophets who promise a lot during election campaigns but deliver little or nothing in office. It’s only a matter of degree of falsehood that differentiates them. Remember Obama promised during his first election campaign to close down the Guantanamo concentration camps and solve the Kashmir dispute but has yet to deliver. Nawaz Sharif promised to end Pakistan’s electricity crisis within months but now it is worse. Neither is there adequate gas, clean water, education, jobs, no nothing and he and his mostly Kashmiri cronies are not even ashamed of it. Yes, we do hear stories about corruption galore and no credible explanation of how our once down-in-the-mouth ‘leaders’ made it from rags to riches. If they had one we would give them the Nobel Prize for Entrepreneurship. What can I say? All political systems have degraded and are not delivering good governments and good leadership, even less moral, financial and intellectual honesty.”
Ishrat, who unknown to me had been listening to us, said in disbelief, not as a question but a bald statement, “You talk to monkeys. Who has my poor cousin married? What has my poor cousin married?”
Maverick ignored her and forgetting that he had just chided me for going on about hegemons said, “Hegemons create refugee crises Humayun but feel no responsibility for it, not even shame over what they have caused. “Instead, they go into more war mode, as with ISIS, or charity mode to hide their criminality while all the while they are busy thinking up more militant and refugee crises in the future.”
The only institution more toothless than the UN is the OIC. China and Russia are becoming the real movers and shakers now
“Look Maverick,” I informed him, “the biggest refugee crisis will soon be upon us, caused by man’s damage to the climate, the ozone layer, degradation of land and the waters that hegemons and other powerful countries criminally create in their unquenchable thirst for power and wealth. Climate change has acquired great urgency as summers get hotter and winters get colder, as polar icecaps melt, as the Gulf Stream is in danger of stopping, as verdant fields become deserts, as water diminishes, as pollution makes the air un-breathable and spreads cancers while they keep diverting our attention to cigarettes. There is food change and change in cropping patterns due to change in rainfall patterns because of climate change. Life is being adversely affected because of unnatural, unhealthy foods through genetic modification and hybridisation of seeds, poultry and other animals for more grain yields, meat, milk and eggs. Monsanto has become a food monster. Other multinationals in their quest for profits break laws, as Volkswagen just did by cheating on emissions regulations. There are many more. The hegemon would have us believe that this is progress and leaders of poor countries would have us believe that this is the objective we must strive for. What a mess, all of man’s making. They have brought civilisation to its knees. There will be a reaction, a horrendous reaction that will sweep away every last vestige of man’s satanic systems and methods driven by greed.”
“You telling me?” said Maverick. “Our homes and habitats are being destroyed by you humans, by guys like Donald Trump who just don’t stop building where we live. But what of our own pope who, after he was criticised by Pakistani media for dining at a Pakistani restaurant with his family while the Indian PM was meeting American CEOs, had his stooges trot out Bill Gates as usual that Pakistani officialdom and state media made a big deal of. It was Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping who stole the show though. Putin has trashed Obama’s Middle East strategy while America has suggested to Xi Jinping to involve himself in Afghanistan. Obama beat his drum getting hollow and more hollow. The only institution more toothless than the UN is the OIC. China and Russia are becoming the real movers and shakers now. God, I fear that their hegemony will be worse than America’s and Europe’s. At least the Brits had some subtlety. We must knock some sense into America before it’s too late.”
“Knock some sense into America?” I asked mockingly. “First we have to knock some sense into ourselves. We don’t even know what sense looks like. Most of us that think sense wears a long beard that smells of biryani, has a false mark of piety on its forehead, pulls up what passes for trousers six inches above its ankles, makes its wives and daughters dress like ninjas or ghosts and cannot live without a loudspeaker. Have some sense yourself Maverick.”
As Maverick made to leave I heard Ishrat turn to her cousin and say in disbelief, “Your husband talks to monkeys.”
I laughed, “Would you rather that I talked to the world’s criminal ‘leaders’ who are leading humanity down a cliff like the Pied Piper?”