LAHORE: I write this with reference to Anum Fatima’s article of September 26 titled “Hypocrisy”. The writer provides examples of religious hypocrisy and although I do not totally agree with all of them, in principle I would agree that we are a nation of hypocrites. However, this is not limited to matters relating to religion.
Our bureaucracy, politicians, military, media, corporations, civil society and sports bodies all engage in hypocrisy. Every Friday when I go to the mosque and listen to the sermon, 70 per cent of the time the imam will somehow or the other bring in the morality of women and link it to the country’s deterioration. If I sit with my friends who are somehow related to a political party and come from a feudal background, they will blame everything on either Punjab or the army.
The enlightened moderates who live on the ‘other side of the bridge’ will blame everything on General Ziaul Haq and the religious parties. The corporations will blame the bureaucracy, forgetting that it is they who pay the bribes to them. The bureaucracy will blame the politicians and the military blames just about everyone else — except itself, of course.
The aforementioned groups above make up less than a tenth of the country’s population but control most of its resources and power. Pakistan’s not-so-powerful population includes soldiers, clerks, office staff, maids, servants, peasants and so on, who are controlled by this tenth of the population. Because of the nature of their lifestyle, which depends primarily on making enough money to feed themselves and their families, they cannot afford to be hypocrites at all.
Omair Saeed
Published in The Express Tribune, October 1st, 2012.
