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THERE are certain universal truths; that water is wet, fire burns and that all creation needs balance. The concept of balance is one that is emphasised in many disciplines and activities throughout our lives. We are introduced to it as children, when we try and use the seesaw with that ‘healthy’ boy from class three.
Economists, for example, will often talk of a balance of payments and trade (im)balances. Accountants for their part spend much of their dreary careers balancing sheets. Accidental journalists, like myself, are often told to at least pay lip service to the concept of balanced coverage, which largely entails following a quote with ‘yet other analysts disagree’.
When it comes to physical activity, which I personally abhor, balance is also critical. Ask any gymnast what a moment of imbalance will do for them, their career and the integrity of their joints. Even our very diets, they say, should be balanced.
Finally, there is the all-important question of balance of power in international relations, and this is where I have made a deep personal sacrifice. Yes, in order to preserve the delicate relations between Pakistan and its distant colonial cousin of Canada I departed for these distant shores a day before the wonderfully hatted Tahirul Qadri was to arrive in order to make Pakistan a bit more pure.
Canada is truly a nation in need of ‘tabdeeli’.
However, like a true revolutionary I travelled in PIA’s economy class and that too on a direct flight. Real revolutionaries don’t waste time with stopovers and they eschew luxuries like leg room. And while I wasn’t booed at by my fellow passengers for causing flight diversions, I did make a baby cry by making faces at him.
Regardless, Canada is truly a nation in need of tabdeeli of the most revolutionary kind, as even a cursory examination of its headlines and a quick chat with the taxi driver revealed.
For one, it seems that Rob Ford, the portly, cocaine-sniffing, crack-smoking mayor of Toronto is making a bit of a comeback. He is now campaigning for re-election (after a seven-week stint in rehab) on the premise that he’s reformed, found God and ditched the crack pipe.
Shockingly he’s still considered the man to beat in the elections, given his record on boring things like managing the budget and expanding Toronto’s subway system. All of this is a scathing indictment of a failed system that puts issues and development records before personalities. Once the Mounties respond to my call for change and set up a moral police squad, I’m sure all of this will be set straight.
Ford is also guilty, in my book, of not putting family first. After all, his sister was recently charged with stealing a large quantity of toothbrushes from a local store. And yet, no shopkeepers were beaten and no courts were stormed as a protest against this awful breach of privilege.
But the worst is yet to come. Toronto, the Sodom of our times, will also soon host the annual Pride Festival, a display of decadence and deviance unlike any other.
Rainbow flags will festoon the town and same-sex relationships will be openly celebrated in the streets. Not just that, but the asexual community will also be making its presence felt for the first time. In case you didn’t know, these are people who have no interest in the opposite sex, or any sex, at all.
Now, despite the obvious danger posed by these groups to Canada’s moral integrity and birth rates, it pains me to inform you that there will be no lathi charges, no water cannons and no firing on these teeming, and stylishly dressed, crowds.
I bet the TV channels won’t even invite otherwise obscure religious leaders to discuss this shameful and nation-threatening event. This is just more proof of why this country needs help.
There are other inefficiencies in this system as well. In the Mississauga area, where the endangered white minority exists in protected enclaves, an inordinate amount of land that could otherwise be gainfully used for shopping plaza-cum-apartments is dedicated to useless open spaces and large buildings containing books.
In one such building was a printer that printed actual 3-D objects. Despite repeated entreaties, the brown person in charge refused to print out Maria Sharapova. This is possibly because the product of the last such experiment then decided to leave this land of maple syrup and honey to bring about revolution in foreign climes.
And speaking of clime, surely there is no greater sacrifice than leaving Canada in the 2.5 months in which it actually enjoys habitable weather to go to sweltering, load-shedding Pakistan to change the entire rotting and failing system. As for myself I think one trip probably isn’t enough to bring change to Canada. True revolutions need round-trip tickets. I’ll be back, eh?
The writer is a member of staff.
Twitter: @ZarrarKhuhro
Published in Dawn, June 30th, 2014
