The great euphemisms

Our euphemisms are not just reserved for foreign policy, we have plenty for domestic adventures

Two weeks ago, after months of separation from her family, a friend of mine returned home to Sana, the capita of Yemen. Barely a week later, her neighbourhood was bombed, buildings flattened, and the already dilapidated infrastructure destroyed. The bombs rained non-stop for nearly two days. The latest episode, like the one a month ago, was led by Saudi Arabia and its coalition forces. I reached out to her, to see how she was doing. I am sure my questions about her well-being sounded hollow — as they have for the last several years. She sounded exhausted and unsure of the future. What frustrated her the most was the sheer hypocrisy of governments and their euphemisms about peace and regional security. These words are just lies, she said. What wrong have her kids and other Yemenis done?

The US government continues to sell weapons and call it protection of American jobs. They are supposedly protecting the livelihood of people who work in companies that make bombs that kill and maim the citizens of a country that has not wronged the US.

The US is not the only guilty party here. We, Pakistanis, are also party to this crime. The fact that today Yemen is the worst humanitarian crisis of our time, that nearly the entire country is on the brink of famine, that there are no healthcare facilities capable of stopping Covid-19, that children are dying of hunger — all are connected, directly or indirectly, to the war in Yemen. It is an open secret which side of the conflict we are on. My friend is not just angry at the US, the UK or Saudi Arabia — as she should be, she is also angry at every other country (including Pakistan) that has helped ensure that her kids, and her neighbours live in a constant fear of dying either through a bomb or through cholera. We are responsible for the pain they suffer.

Our official euphemism for taking the side of the aggressor is solidarity of the Ummah. Who among us can go against protection of jobs or solidarity of the Muslim bloc?

I wish we lived not in a world of political spins — a world where the corporate word choice would mask the ugliness of reality. When you fire an employee, the reality doesn’t change if you call it termination or “synergy related headcount reduction” as Siemens did some time ago. Perhaps it would be easy if we lived in a world where we would openly say that not all lives matter. Some matter more, some less, some not at all.

Yemen is not the only place which has been erased from our national discourse and memory. We are quick to point out the aggression against innocent Muslims in the East, while completely ignoring the systematic destruction of culture, heritage and lives in the North. The only thing that is iron clad there is the curtain on our own eyes.

Our euphemisms are not just reserved for foreign policy, we have plenty in our bank for domestic adventures as well. This goes beyond the current circus where job losses in the tourism industry are called restructuring, and chaos in policy against Covid is being rebranded as holistic. When PM ZA Bhutto unveiled the law that created Ahmedis a minority, he called the decision democratic and a victory for democracy. When General Ziaul Haq wanted to imprison leftist intellectuals, he said he was carrying out the great mission of Islam. When General Musharraf wanted to legitimise his coup he called it a mission to fulfil Jinnah’s vision.

The sad reality is that we have boundless creativity with euphemisms and little appetite for honesty and care for the weak, people who are oppressed because we look the other way. I wonder what is “tabdeeli” a euphemism for?

Published in The Express Tribune, July 7^th, 2020.

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