In Pakistan some citizens regularly kill themselves because of extreme poverty. Internationally, we are condemned as regularly as the self-killings occur regularly. The regularity of the condemnations has rendered us shame-proof on a permanent basis.
As the power-wielding Pakistanis learn about the self-killings of their compatriots, they keep publicly mum about it. But in their washrooms they keep humming: “The more the self-killings, the less the burden on the economy. The less the burden on the economy, the greater its growth. The greater its growth, the greater our personal prosperity.”
What the souls of the self-killed must be thinking about our rulers is a mystery that shall never be known. And what the would-be self-killers are thinking about the rulers is a greater mystery than the mystery of the universe’s birth.
Poverty is a horrific national ordeal. Luckily, a remedy is available. So far, the poor citizens have been killing themselves in small numbers all over the country. Unfortunately, these killings have been ineffective. They must be abandoned. In their place, all the would-be self-killers from all over the country should form one single brigade.
The brigade should kill itself as a totality in some public square. If the first brigade level self-killings fail to achieve the purpose, let them be followed by other similar killings. Just a few such mass self-killings must solve the problem forever.
History guarantees the success of such self-killings. In France, the masses kept dying of starvation individually. Destiny’s heart melted. It blessed the masses with a few revolutionaries. The revolutionaries commanded the masses: “Stop dying individually in your bedrooms. Start dying on wholesale in the public squares.” The masses obeyed. The Starvation fled the country forever.
Our masses keep complaining that the rulers are indifferent to their misery. If starvation keeps killings the masses, the rulers can’t do anything about it. The rulers spend huge sums of money for maintaining the country’s armed forces.
These forces are maintained for providing life-security to the masses against the foreign invaders. If starvation kills the masses, starvation is an indigenous invader. The rulers know how to protect the starving masses against the foreign invaders but they don’t know how to protect them against starvation.
The masses must be grateful to the rulers for protecting them against the foreign invaders. When they demand security against the internal enemy i.e., starvation as well, they demand too much from the rulers.
Pakistan is a land of extremism. There are extremely rich and extremely poor Pakistanis. A single meal of a rich Pakistani is worth more than whole tons of flour. If a rich Pakistani were to donate the price of his single meal to some starving Pakistanis, the starvers’ problem would be solved for numerous months. But the rich Pakistanis hate depriving the starving Pakistanis of their starvation.
The poor Pakistanis are extremely curious to know what the rich Pakistanis eat. Let the poor Pakistanis be assured that their rich compatriots do not eat flour. If they were to eat flour, it would destroy their entire physiological system. They eat only ambrosia – the food of the gods. Can an ambrosia eater ever have the foggiest idea of the misery of a human being who cannot afford to buy even a piece of bread? Never! Never! Never!
The rich and the poor Pakistanis live in two radically different worlds. The gap between the rich and the poor Pakistanis is larger than the gap between two planets. The gap is bridgeable. But the rich Pakistanis wouldn’t allow the gap to be reduced even by as much as the thickness of a hair. Rather they keep ordering the gap to grow wider and wider. The gap obeys them like a domestic servant. Since the gap has been regularly widening, the misery of the masses has been correspondingly increasing.
There is virtually no gap between the life-style of the American President and the life-style of the common American. Both move about in cars. Both sleep in carpeted and curtained bedrooms. Both use washrooms fitted with the latest gadgets. Both are well fed. Medical care is available to both.
Our masses don’t have a life-style at all. They only have a death-style.
The death-style of our masses is identical with the death-style of animals. If you don’t want to scorch your eyes, never have a look at the death-style of a poor Pakistani.
The writer is an academic.