In the holiday spirit

Published July 26, 2014
The writer is a former editor of Dawn.
The writer is a former editor of Dawn.

MUCH has been said about the exodus of major leaders from Pakistan at the start of the holiday season but does their choice of destination tell us anything about our leaders’ thinking?

Let’s get to that in a minute and look at a few examples of where other countries’ elected leaders have holidayed. In recent years, US presidents George Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama have chosen different holiday venues.

While Bush Sr headed out mostly to Kennebunkport, Maine, the small New England town on the Atlantic and was often seen holding a fishing tackle in a windbreaker on a motorboat, his son headed out to Craw­ford, Texas, where his ranch was his holiday refuge.

The Clintons headed to the beautiful Martha’s Vineyard, the Massachusetts’ island not far from Cape Cod, when they spent leisure time as a family. More recently, the Obamas chose Hawaii as their preferred leisure destination.


Where the Saudi royals are concerned, the best and finest destinations in the sand and sun category are for them.


The holiday destinations of the US leaders clearly suggests they are self-contained, that is, happy to holiday in their own country. They appear self-assured with rest and recreation foremost on their minds. They almost never look abroad.

Point-to-prove Russian President Putin may mostly holiday on the Black Sea but has also been photographed elsewhere (probably in the Ural mountains) riding a horse, not bareback but bare-chested, perhaps in an attempt to assert to the world via his pronounced pectorals that he is a force to reckon with.

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, though a Labour leader, always gave the impression of someone who liked the good life. Although he was criticised for accepting the then Italian prime minister, billionaire Silvio Berlusconi’s invitation to holiday on his sprawling Sardinian estate, he took up the offer more than once.

Mr Blair, who was said to be a working lawyer, as was his wife, recently told a gathering he is worth “no more than £20 million”. His current wealth includes advisory ‘fee’ received from Central Asian dictators. Yes, he owns a consultancy now and is not very choosy about his clients. Clearly, his days of (tyrannical) regime changes are over.

Closer to home, I vividly recall a story in a Western newspaper where a reporter counted dozens of Boeing 747 jumbos, bearing the Saudi Royal crest, landing at Malaga airport carrying the Saudi monarch, his wives, children, staff, limousines and other elements of the retinue to his grand summer palace in the nearby resort town of Marbella.

Clearly, the Saudi-backed ideology is for those enjoying lesser station, while for the Saudi royals, the best and finest in the sand and sun category is for them. And no, I will restrict myself to the sun and sand and dare not mention sangria.

The mention of Saudis must inevitably bring the focus to our own leaders the first and foremost among them the prime minister who took off for Saudi Arabia rather bravely (given his erstwhile mentor’s experience) with not one but 200 crates of deliciously docile (as it turns out) mangoes.

Mr Sharif believes in the power of prayer as he does in his friendship with the influential Saudi royals. Whether it was the lure of the mangoes or his friend’s magnetism Deputy Crown Prince Muqrin bin Abdel Aziz al-Saud went rushing to the Pakistani leader’s ‘villa’ in Jeddah to meet him. My objectivity will not allow me to call it his palace.

Surely, the loss of royal Saudi face is now a distant, forgotten memory when Prince Muqrin stood in Gen Musharraf-ruled Islamabad asking his friend Nawaz Sharif in vain to honour the deal he signed pledging to remain away from Pakistan for 10 years and not return in five as the latter was poised to and did.

The prime minister has chosen his destination well. Given the shambles his energy policy is turning out to be, his governance failures and the charges of cronyism he is facing, he’ll need more than prayers to see him through these trying times. Every which way he looks the route to his continued well-being in Islamabad lies through the Kingdom.

The shortest holiday of our leaders was taken by Imran Khan. As he prepares to unseat his rival PML-N in a matter of weeks, Imran Khan reverted to recharge his batteries doing what he does best. He took off for the UK for fund-raising for his education project.

He had his photographs released on social media, alongside his sons, watching visiting India playing England at the cricketing mecca, Lords. Whether this was a conscious move or ‘just so happened’, it was brilliant.

As we speak, some of Imran Khan’s finest moments have come on the cricketing field and here he was rallying supporters from afar, promising political glory with a reminder of the one he brought us in such abundance in cricket. And from Lords!

With this backdrop, it wasn’t out of place that PPP leaders Asif Zardari and Bilawal Bhutto Zardari were on a ‘working’ holiday in … no, not at their chalet in France, but in Washington DC, pumping an array of hands from the vice presidential to the congressional.

The PPP’s governance now points to a major change in the party’s ideology: it seems to have given up on ‘people’ altogether and now must firmly believe that for it all paths to power in Pakistan start in DC.

Journalists seldom allow time for introspection. So this is an exception. What, for example, does my holiday tell you about me? Well, we are also managing a week in the sun-drenched Costa Blanca. Yes, on a columnist’s income. Would you call that audacious, ruinous or suicidal? Take your pick. For now it’s great fun; consequences later.

The writer is a former editor of Dawn.

abbas.nasir@hotmail.com

Published in Dawn, July 26th, 2014

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