Re: Pakistan’s top judge is suspended (Merged)
Great satire.
THE OTHER COLUMN: Confirm’d in full stupidity*** —Ejaz Haider***
If this government wants to survive, even though it has shown itself to be suicidal, someone needs to put a gag order on the Great Leader and two minions of the Realm
This column is never about politics, even though the more finicky would say that everything is political; indeed, that politics, like decrepit age, is tied to us as to a dog’s tail. But while I may eschew politics, stupidity I can’t let slip by without a comment.
Indeed, *rank stupidity *it is that I want to write about because there is no other way to describe the events of the past several days, flout as they do the accepted norms of regular stupidity. A friend once commented that everything, including *ibtizaal *(roughly, vulgarity, obscenity and low-brow behaviour), should have some standards; this is equally true of *himaqat. *
The GOP, not the Grand Old Party but the Government of Pakistan, is traditionally given to shooting itself in the foot; as regularly as that, it also puts the injured foot in its mouth. But the Great Leader has to do something different, more in line with the panache he always displays. So, he seems to have decided to shoot himself in the head.
That definitely is spectacularly stupid; it leaves no room for survival.
In Gujranwala, the other day, the Great Leader thumped his chest and said that no one but he knew the real reasons behind the chief-justice episode: “The issue is sub judice and my lips are sealed. But the day the Supreme Judicial Council gives its verdict, I shall reveal the full details.”
And I thought he would slink away after March 9.
But let’s consider the statement.
First, he seems to be saying that since he is the only one who knows what the suspended CJP might have done, he was right in summoning the judge to the Army House and asking him to resign. There is also an implication here that other people might not have been consulted on this issue. So this is not team stupidity, thank you.
Secondly, the Great Leader has implied that now that the sh** has hit the fan, as it often does when rank stupidity is allowed to run amok, he shall stay quiet.
Thirdly, and this is interesting, he shall unseal his lips only when the Council has passed its verdict. What does that mean? Is the Great Leader implying that the Council may impale the suspended CJP on the reference or is he saying that if the Council does not do that he shall then reveal the true nature of things?
I am confused. Here’s why.
Either way the statement does not correspond with his declared reverence for the matter being sub judice. If the Council is to give a verdict against the CJP (one implication) and the Great Leader already knows about it then the Council is compromised and the Great Leader becomes a contemnor for having referred to such an outcome ex ante.
On the other hand, if he were to reveal the true details ex post — whatever the verdict may be — then it means the Council (second implication) doesn’t have full details on the matter. This again amounts to contempt and raises the question of how the Council can try the respondent judge without having full knowledge of the reference against him — as also the question of why must the Great Leader find it necessary to opine on the issue *after *the Council has adjudged it. Is he saying the Council is irrelevant to this affair?
This is not just being rank stupid, this is rank stupidity at its rankest and most nonsensical.
Meanwhile, we have the Great Leader’s coxcomb-wearing sidekicks kicking high and low and in the process falling all over the place. Two are worth mentioning.
The first is the la-la minister. Were expletives and vulgarity to be given human form, it would come to resemble this gent. He does Punjab proud. The gent is as slow with the use of the head over his shoulders as he is quick with the use of his hands and tongue. That he should formally be the law minister leaves the entire concept up the creek and without a pedal.
That’s exactly the current location of this government.
Which brings me to the other gent, the blah-blah minister. The man, if you ask me, is definitely depriving a village somewhere of an idiot. :hehe: But in the Realm of Rank Stupidity, he is of course a minister and some village shall continue to suffer his absence until rank stupidity can become a thing of the past and he can be sent back to perform his natural function. Incidentally, he also makes the former blah-blah minister look good.
If this government wants to survive, even though it has shown itself to be suicidal, someone needs to put a gag order on the Great Leader and these two minions of the Realm.
While I was sitting in front of the television on Friday shaking my head, some instinct forced me to pick up Dryden’s *Mac Flecknoe. *I wish I could reproduce the entire scene from the Realm of Nonsense, but a few lines may be in order. Shear the poem of its specific context and you shall find, dear reader, much affinity with some living characters. So help us God:
*…pond’ring which of all his sons was fit
To reign, and wage immortal war with wit;
Cry’d, ‘tis resolv’d; for nature pleads that he
Should only rule, who most resembles me:
Shadwell alone my perfect image bears,
Mature in dullness from his tender years.
Shadwell alone, of all my sons, is he
Who stands confirm’d in full stupidity.
The rest to some faint meaning make pretence,
But Shadwell never deviates into sense.
Some beams of wit on other souls may fall,
Strike through and make a lucid interval;
But Shadwell’s genuine night admits no ray,
His rising fogs prevail upon the day…
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007\03\18\story_18-3-2007_pg3_4
