RANDOM NUMBNESS – May 2021
Happy late Labor Day! Nothing to be happy about being labor or the day. It is what it is. A holiday for the bourgeoisie.
Maulana Tariq Jameel has joined the business and is celebrating labor day too. Now he will be selling what he never brought. It happens in business and business is not the issue. The issue is the discretion you allow yourself when you want to make some bucks.
The world, which was a useless place a while back, with lust of money and graveyard of sins; is suddenly a market now. Not a dead cow anymore. A cash cow.
Anyway. He has always been a Maulana of the bourgeoisie. Not the proletariats. Maulanas have markets too. Some have a niche and a unique selling point. Some have nothing but hate and discrimination. Whatever sells. Whatever makes you sit and listen to them.
The other day, NA-249 happened. Like shit happens. Vawda left the seat for his post as Senator, because he was unqualified to be an MNA. Strange. But his legacy was simply unmatched. The winner of 2018’s PTI was not even in the race this time. Ugly Vawda. Ugly legacy. But who cares.
Iremember his one big demo where he brought a boot in a TV show to present the complete political history and present of Pakistan. Rightly so. For that, he deserves to be a Senator. An untouchable senator, nonetheless. His service – of that TV show – will always be remembered.
But the ugliest part was a banned outfit contesting the elections. The state banned it. The state let it have a re-run. How a state can be so dumb and dummy is beyond comprehension. The whole episode of banning it and letting it contest in the by-polls happened in a mere couple of weeks.
No wonder that GSP+ status granted to Pakistan is in question. It was always in question due to blasphemy cases and attacks on journalists; but this banned TLP’s contest in by-polls must have been a trigger.
But thank goodness we have a PM who understands the West.
His boasting of knowing the West in every single presentation is becoming a nuisance. Same speech. Be it any city. Be it any issue. He has the same stance. In a single speech, he goes from Riyasat-e-Madina to Chinese Model to Scandinavian Welfare System to a mixture of everything and a final touch of religion.
A little Nawaz. A little Bhutto. A little past. A little religion. Then boasting. A lot of boasting. Then some more religion. Then more Nawaz. Then the West. Then filtering of the West. Adding the East with patriarchy. A little salt of the latest debacle – which can be blasphemy, rape, sugar crisis, corruption, inflation, something, anything – and then again some Nawaz and then some religion. The dish is ready to be served.
However, the dish is not selling anymore. It didn’t sell in Daska. It didn’t sell in Karachi.
The fall is evident but it doesn’t matter. The selectors will have the final say and it can be anything. It can be the PM again. And again. And again. Because he’s so good.
In other news, Chief Justice of Lahore Higher Court, Mohammed Qasim Khan took the stage to be the new voice in town against the fascist. He took the actual land mafia by the collar and dragged it for a whole day in his courtroom. He called DHA as illegal and tagged them as the biggest land mafia. He was so furious that he mentioned that even 50-kanal of land of Lahore High Court has also been grabbed by the boys.
Boy on boys. Wow!
Dr. Israr Ahmad once mentioned Punjab and its army as a British stooge. He was elaborating the difference between Sindhis and Punjabis and lambasted Punjabis for always siding with the one in power. He said Sindhis must be proud of their history as they took brave stands and were never in service of serving the masters. He praised G. M. Syed and Bacha in the lecture.
Rightly so. Punjab must admit. Like Habib Jalib did. Punjab needs to rise above its selfish interests to become a voice of the weak people. It must. It must nurture brave warriors like Asma Jahangir.
Oh! An Asma Jahangir from the other side of the border – Arundhati Roy – has just jolted the whole system with her article in The Guardian. She took the Modi Sarkar by the collar and reminded her government that not long ago, Modi was running an election campaign with “Shamshan! Shamshan!” just to oppose “Kabristan”.
And, here is India: a giant Shamshan because the government was shamelessly unprepared.
I will share fragments from that long article of Roy in a day or two. But don’t get goosebumps just yet. We have our own Sarkar with similar stupidities and blunders. We have our Modi. We have our Amit Shah. And we have our Yogi Adityanath.
The only difference is of spectrum. And that they have an original cast while we have mannequins.
Pardon me, but we don’t matter. In South Asia, the general public doesn’t matter. We hate each other because this is what our TV screens tell us to do, but we are genuinely living in the exact same shithole. Be it that side of the border or this.
They have public crisis. So do we.
They have drought. So do we.
Their farmer is looted. So as ours.
They have Dalits. We have minorities.
They have business mafia. We have land mafia.
They have blasphemy charges. We have blasphemy laws.
They have hunger, thirst, illiteracy… and we have exactly the same problems.
Yet, the poor classes hate each other just because they are on the other side of the border. Equally poor. Equally illiterate. Equally extremist. Equally misinformed. Equally malnourished.
Equally unequal.
Hush, His Highness!
Back to Islamabad.
Qazi Faez Isa won by 6-4. 6 were traitors. 4 were lickers. Depends on your side of bias. The thing is, the President Alvi – being a puppet – made a mockery of himself and his government. There was absolutely no need to file a reference.
Faez Isa gave a verdict. A very significant and far sighted one. But as he hurt the boys – one boy actually – so he was dragged and insulted. Only if we would have taken Faez’s verdict with some sense, TLP’s recent episode could have been avoided.
But no.
We play politics with religion, blasphemy, fire and the mob. Because the proxy version of politics is the key version to have power in Pindi and not in Islamabad.
Well, what else do you want?
His Highness will have His Sehri now.
