My Twitter feed is literally littered with self-help articles and feel-good blogs, such as 20 Things That Prove You Grew Up In The 90s, 19 Feel Good Photos That Will Reaffirm Your Faith In Humanity and 60 Islamic Guaranteed Ways For Real Couples Making Love. That last one I did not make up, it actually showed up in my Facebook feed moments before I began writing this article. Of course, I did what any self-respecting outraged individual would: I re-shared the post and made sarcastic jibes about it all evening. Of course, I never read the article, because who has time for that nowadays.
This week has brought us plenty of things to be outraged about. In Karachi, one of the country’s top cops was killed in a cowardly bombing, reminiscent of Wile E. Coyote’s antics. But the Looney Toons that were behind this ghastly act are obviously card carrying members of the Kaptaan’s party. Either that, or they are Taliban, which is the next best thing for the PTI really. I heard somewhere on Facebook that Immy K had put off his Hajj plans for this year, because negotiations with Satan were not part of the agenda at Mina. I think it’s time we promulgate a “Taliban Denial” law along the lines of Austria’s “Holocaust Denial” regulations. The punishment for people who refuse to believe in the scourge of the Taliban should be straightforward; an all-expenses paid trip to North Waziristan, without an escort.
Schizophrenia has become standard fare for us in Pakistan. Rather than mourning the death of a hero, we have to bring him or her down to our level and hit them where it really hurts; their motives. Aitzaz Hassan has, thankfully, been spared this treatment so far. That is mostly because the PTI social media team thinks it’s still too soon to launch their “How-dare-you-call-Aitzaz-a-hero-when-innocent-children-are-dying-in-drone-strikes-every-day” campaign. But this has not stopped TV’s favourite foot-in-mouth pundit Talat Hussain from going on a tirade. He figures that this is as good a time as any to cash in his right-wing appeasement chips and call a spade a spade. The erstwhile Mr “I’m the only clean guy on TV” is showing his stripes again, in a manner reminiscent of his “Even that Angelina Jolie thinks Pakistan is screwed” tirade some years ago. That he chose to compare and contrast the martyr Aitzaz with “Malala and her sidekicks” should prove to you impressionable readers just how big an ass he is.
Then there is the question of #NoToApartheid. La Maison, the swanky French restaurant in Islamabad that doesn’t allow Pakistanis on its premises, was shut down ostensibly because the man running it was a known bootlegger. The restaurant’s closure has been hailed by many as the greatest achievement in the name of Pakistani sovereignty since Jinnah addressed the constituent assembly in 1947. Of course, it is safe to assume that none of these people were being supplied liquor by the venerable Philippe Lafforgue. Of course, the Twittersphere exploded with enough outrage to make any cheese-eating surrender monkey (read dubious Frenchman) wet themselves. But not Mr Lafforgue. Taking a cue from the beghairat brigade of Maya Khan, Meher Bukhari and Mubasher Lucman, Mr Lafforgue has vowed to turn his establishment into a private club. He is on the record as having said, “I would have gotten away with it, if it weren’t for you meddling kids,” obviously a jibe against the brave Cyril Almeida.
But now, others are subverting the #NoToAparthied message for their own means. Left-wingers and commies are asking for a boycott of establishments that do not allow nannies, servants and drivers to enter. After nationality, it seems social class is the next big no-no in terms of things to discriminate on the basis of. The surkhas are up in arms about how newspapers only reflect the ideas of the educated and how the uneducated deserve a voice and how literacy should not be a criteria for employment. Animal rights activists are making similar arguments about chimpanzees and how their IQs are at par with 5-year-olds. Intelligence should not, they say, dictate the way we treat each other and human rights should be extended to all primates, irrespective of race, caste, colour, breed or propensity to transmit the HIV virus. Viva la resistance.
The Selection Commission has also been playing it fast and loose with the hopes and dreams of Pakistan’s future leaders. The local government elections, which were hurried through in the case of Balochistan, have now become the metaphorical albatross around the mariner’s neck, with both Punjab and Sindh trying to belay and delay the democratic process to the best of their abilities. But there is a marked difference in the styles of this evasion. While the Sindh government kept everyone on board and it was public knowledge that polls would not be held anytime soon, the Punjab government had the misfortune of forgetting to tell it’s councillors that polls were being postponed. As a result, electioneering had already begun and turf wars were well under way when chief mischief monger Rana Sanaullah convinced the highest court of Lahore to postpone the democratic process in his province. Obviously, Rana Saheb is scared that the PPP will exact its best revenge through the upcoming polls and it will take more than just stuffed ballot boxes to claim victory in this election.
And of course, to round off a perfect week, we have the timely passing of Ariel Sharon, no relation to a detergent of the same name. Sharon’s demise has unified the nation in expressing anti-Semetic sentiment and bemoaning the life of a butcher. But on the face of it, what he did was no different from what Hakeemullah Mehsud stands accused of doing. But we canonize one and defile the other? Kya yeh khula tezad nahin?

The writer is a former journalist currently working in the development sector.

Tweets at:@mightyobvious_