MicroPakistan

On my first meeting with Ardeshir Cowasjee I was introduced to his dogs. Upon noticing my visible uneasiness he asked me whether I liked dogs. I replied that I wasn’t a big fan of dogs. He asked, ‘So which animals do you like? Humans?’. I replied, ‘I guess’. So he laughed and said, ‘They are the worst animals!’. Later on I laughed at the old, supposedly wise man’s corny joke. However, I am realizing that as corny as it seemed back then there might be a lot of truth in what he said.

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I am sure a lot of you have already seen this picture that appeared on the front page of Dawn (29 December, 2006) and many other national newspapers. I also put up a link to a video about it in my previous post. Shameful, pathetic, sad, embarrassing and a lot of other words are appropriate to describe this picture. The young man shown in this picture, Mohammad Bin Masood, was protesting against the disappearance of his father.

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I met a cousin of mine recently who lives and works in Manhattan, New York. We spoke about her dog. She got him enrolled into a daycare for the time that she was away at work. Over there the dog took the surname of her father as he was referred to as the dogs ‘grandfather’. Apparently, the dog goes for $2,000 vacations to summer camps. He has a professional dogwalker who comes and takes him out for walks twice everyday. She told me how she couldn’t leave him alone for more than a few hours because he gets depressed. I couldn’t help but laugh at how silly it sounded to me. She couldn’t understand the reason behind my sense of amusement as this is all very normal in New York. It definitely is a city of dog lovers.

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Cutural superiority. While growing up in Pakistan I have seen a rapid growth of Western influences on society in general. Not that our society did not always have certain elements influenced by the West, but in recent times the change can be seen amongst all classes. It does affect our culture, but I am not sure if its necesarily a bad thing. Those who are trying to protect our culture talk about our cultural superiority. They claim that in our culture, relationships of blood and friendship are given precedence over everything. Even though its a huge generalisation, it might be generally true. They claim that in the West parents are sent to elderly homes and people lose sight of relationships in a world fostering selfish desires. Once again that is a huge generelisation and I have seen and met a lot of people living in the West who value bonds of love and friendship as much as anywhere else in the world. But this may also be generally true. They claim this makes us morally superior people (so what if they are superior to us in most other thing known to man).

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The compassionate Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi said:

The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way in which its animals are treated.

I hold that the more helpless a creature, the more entitled it is to protection by man from the cruelty of man.

I feel that spiritual progress does demand at some stage that we should cease to kill our fellow creatures for the satisfaction of our bodily wants.

I do not regard flesh-food as necessary for us at any stage and under any clime in which it is possible for human beings ordinarily to live. I hold flesh-food to be unsuited to our species.

I didn’t highlight the second part of the quote as I love all kinds of meat and don’t agree with Mr Gandhi that meat is not necessary for human beings to live. It is not necessary for human beings to survive, but to live you need meat!

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By now you may have forgotten how this post started. So let me try to summarise all that I have said till now, or tried to say.

Basically, people in New York are crazy because they treat their animals as if they are kings. After all a dog is a dog and he must be treated like a dog(basically, like shit). We have understood this philosophy and acted upon it to such an extent that now anyone who is not related or known to us is an animal, synonymous for ‘dogs’. Such human beings should be treated like dogs because they will never know their auqat(limits) otherwise. Mr Mohammad Bin Masood had it coming when he thought that he could take the streets to protest against the law enforcement agencies (LEAs)(also, sometimes synonymous for ‘dogs’). Oh, and I have decided that Cowasjee was right and Gandhi (with all due respect) was wrong. Indeed, humans are the worst animals and animals are there to be slaughtered. Thank God that we don’t apply this last ’slaughtered’ bit to our fellow Pakistanis that frequently (they just conveniently disappear).

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P.S. Cowasjee Corner; December 17 2006:

According to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (press report December 12), a total of 242 persons remain on the disappeared list, of which 170 are from the unhappy province of Balochistan now almost under siege by the army and law enforcement agencies. Neighbouring Sindh has lost 70, Punjab 42 and the NWFP 22 — this last may be highly inaccurate, the number may be much higher, as no one knows what is what in Waziristan and other border areas.

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P.P.S Since I started writing this post there have been two bomb blasts in as many days in Pakistan.