Alice in wonderland

Fools speak when they have to say something, the wise speak when they have something to say. Scratch that. Wisdom only listens. It seldom speaks.

But amongst the debate between wisdom and knowledge, common sense suffers wounds.

Gullible people blindly follow what everyone else is doing without inquiring into the details themselves.

Unfortunately, we do not encourage questioning, researching or forming our own opinions. Rather, our opinions are mere reproductions of those around us. No matter how wrong they may be.

For us, we tend to blindly follow views, ideologies and opinions which have been fed to us, without giving a second thought as to their veracity.

Think, research and debate. Conference makes a complete man, reading, a full man.

What I am getting to are the atrocities being committed in Palestine. Thousands of people are being killed and crushed by the Israeli Defense Force (IDF). The IDF is doing so with complete impunity and no fear of repercussions.

It is staggering that the entire lot of Islamic countries is doing nothing about it and will be doing nothing about it. It is not their war to be fought because their livelihood depends upon foreign funding, ours included. No Muslim country can dare jump into Palestine and stop the genocide because if they do, they risk losing big bucks.

All Muslim countries, as we’ve seen, have been issuing condemnation letters against what has been happening and have been expressing their unity with Palestine. That is all they can do. If only our economy was not dependent on external foreign funding. Dream on.

So, what can the citizens do about it? Boycott Israeli products. Sounds just about right. But if you put more thought into it, you realise it doesn’t stop the bombs.

Replacing a burger with a paratha doesn’t halt the bombing and killing of children. But such views do not go down well with the masses. They advocate for outright boycott of products and chains that support a genocide. I assure you, downing a cold drink made by a local manufacturer, based on the same formula, as a coca cola, does not do much. But if we’re boycotting, let’s do it with full rigour and not hypocritically.

Let’s get rid of all the life-saving drugs in our hospitals and replace them with our own medicines (no, not the fake ones being produced in factories and godowns). Let’s rid ourselves of our iPhones, our Samsungs, our HP printers, our ballpoint pens, our MacBooks, our internet search engines, our cars; and let’s stop using social media websites, the same ones that we use to create awareness against the atrocities being committed in Gaza.

Instead, we can make our own social media websites and our own electronics. Tim Cook, eat your heart out.

Boycotts shouldn’t be limited to food products. They should be widespread. We should be boycotting just about everything.

Let’s be real, keep our emotions aside for a minute and accept the glaring reality. We cannot survive without the inventions of the perpetrators. Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat, WhatsApp are just some to name a few.

But we’re using these platforms to create awareness. No, that’s hypocritical. That argument is invalid.

Such boycotts are counterproductive. Instead, it would be wiser if we could invest in our education system as well as our Research and Development sector; produce brighter, more academically sound minds; and improve our economy so that Pakistan does not need to rely on international brands. We could be producing our own products which adhere to international standards. We wouldn’t need to rely on external sources for funding.

Don’t mind me, I like to provoke people so that they think. Maybe one day we will all start thinking.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 28^th, 2024.

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