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MY favourite Dubya photograph is on a birthday card that my American cousin (white, RC, mark) sent me this year.
It shows Dubya holding his right temple and grimacing, eyes closed and mouth open, as if trying to understand a simple sentence just spoken by somebody not shown in the picture.
My other favourite, but heart-rending this time around, is a photograph that appeared on the front page of one of our local newspapers. It shows a 10-year-old Iraqi boy, tears streaming down his face, kissing his grey-haired father who is weeping too, as they meet in one of the infamous prisons run by the Iraqi interior ministry. I have both these pictures pasted above my writing desk and whilst I can`t help bursting out in laughter at the first one, it is difficult to control my tears when I see the second.
Which immediately leads me to ask the question whether, a few hours after you read this, America the Beautiful will have turned the corner, and its back, on the unthinking, extreme-right, xenophobic and jingoistic Republicans and their neocon keepers and handlers.
Will America, the Land of the Free, have elected the bright and thoughtful and well read and organised and wise Barack Obama as its president or will it have instead sent the old and tired and angry John McCain to the White House, Sarah `The Barracuda` Palin riding his coat-tails to wait out her turn to fight “God`s war” as she has characterised the ongoing massacres in Iraq and Afghanistan?
I think the former, Insha`allah, for every poll, every comment on TV, and by golly am I glued to CNN watching every move of the candidates and listening to everything the various pundits are saying, suggests so. Sinner that I am, I have scarcely prayed for anything as hard as I have prayed for Obama`s election.
For so much rides on his election. Most Pakistani pundits and commentators are saying his election will make no difference because America`s imperatives of state will remain the same. That is true, but surely Obama will bring more sense to it all? Surely he will reflect and consult a damn sight more than Dubya and Dick `The Sneer` Cheney.
More than that everything one notes about Obama, his sincere smile, his intelligent and caring and compassionate reactions, his resolve to make America a respected nation, all points to the fact that his will be a healing presidency.
Note too, that despite the fact he was always being targeted by the Republican dirty-tricks brigade as a Muslim and a terrorist (I ask you!) he has always had the courage to say he will speak to ALL of America`s `enemies`, including Iran and Cuba. In the close-minded country that Dubya and Cheney Inc. have made of America it takes guts indeed to say what Obama said.
Here`s wishing him victory. And to America, the great country that it is, felicitations from the bottom of my heart for making it possible for a black man to reach for the stars. For it is generally a compassionate and a fair country.
A little anecdote here to bring out the compassionate nature of most Americans. It has to do with my old buddy Arif Aziz who and I could be seen on his NSU Quickly auto-cycle (yes it had pedals, and I swear it was called `Quickly`), I all of five foot six on the carrier (I did not say pillion seat the carrier was a full 12 inches below the seat on which the driver sat!), all six feet two inches of Arif driving, all over Lahore in 1961/62. We were at FC College, two years after the Commando went there, and I have to report immediately that no one taught us how to make time bombs there!
Anyway, I went to the army and Arif went off to a college somewhere in a mid-western state and once happened to chance upon a house with an almost brand-new looking 1957 Chevy coupe parked in the driveway, a `For Sale` sign on the car. Whilst he had not enough money to dare ring the bell, he used to walk past the house every day ogling the car.
One day, the porch door opened and a lady beckoned Arif over to ask him why he walked past every day looking at the car. When she saw that he was a foreign student she said that while it was priced at $1,800, Arif could have it for 1,600 if he wanted.
“I don`t have the money,” Arif stammered, “and even if I did I could not put 1,600 together.” The lady went into the house and came out with her husband — they were senior citizens.
The gentleman said to Arif, “Take the car son, it`s yours for 1,200, and you can pay us whatever you can afford every month.” And so saying he gave Arif a letter saying he had sold the car to him. Arif drove off in a beautiful `57 Chevy with 12,000 miles on the milometer and in the event paid off in a couple of months after convincing his parents he needed a car.
Is this the America of Dubya and `The Sneer` and `The Barracuda`? Hopefully Obama will bring some of it back.
Now then, gents, what is this about `temporarily` suspending work on the new GHQ in Islamabad the Beautiful? Why is the utterly wasteful, completely extravagant project not cancelled completely? Why is the land taken over from the CDA at a pittance not being returned to the CDA to auction off and the money deposited with the Ministry of Finance for use, say, to provide clean drinking water to most of the country?
GHQ has plush quarters in Rawalpindi already, built to order over the years, even luxurious as luxurious can be. Also, will the government stop pussyfooting and tell the army once and for all that there are NO `lands of the army` as the Commando was fond of saying. These are the lands that the army would sell to the highest bidder, give one-fourth to the federal government (Oh thank you, kind sirs) and use the rest for building the new GHQ! There are no `lands of the army` just as there are no `lands of the customs service`. Come down to earth, gentlemen.
All lands in the use of government departments belong to the Government of Pakistan and the provinces and are leased to the departments concerned.Talking of luxury, what in the world were the Pakistan and presidential standards doing behind the ornate presidency sofa upon which sat the bride and groom at a recent VVVVVIP wedding held at the presidency? The president can hold any party/wedding/what he wishes in his private quarters, but why the national and presidential standards so prominent please?
Asif Zardari has the most media spin doctors in history, so why the faux pas? Or is it the case that no one simply gives a damn?n
