Perspective: Al Bakistanis and the stupid look | Yasser Latif Hamdani

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We are masters at self-flagellation without even knowing it. What can one say about a people who insist on missing the forest for the trees? Optimism has its limits.

Ahmadiyya Times | News Watch | Int'l Desk
Source/Credit: Daily Times | Pakistan
By Yasser Latif Hamdani | December 29, 2014

Many years ago in the US, an Indian friend and I went to play racquetball at our university’s racquetball courts. We chanced upon another pair of desis (South Asians) playing in one of the courts. My friend, not one for political correctness, remarked that they must be Pakistanis because, well, they had what he called the “stupid look”. While the remark stung then being as I was (and still am) a flag waving Pakistani, I am convinced, regrettably now, that it was a most accurate observation, especially since Pakistanis have now morphed into a new people called the al Bakistanis.
Why? The proliferation of al Bakistan license plates should give you an idea. Which self-respecting, intelligent people are going to deliberately make themselves objects of irony? Now take for example the latest manufactured quote ascribed to the father of the nation. It has been on billboards and al Bakistanis have been sharing it mercilessly on social media. The quote is “I do not believe in taking right decisions. I take decisions and make them right.” This is actually a quote by Rattan Tata, the founder of Tata Steel, and while in some context it may have made sense for him, per se, it is a senseless quote. Since when did being trigger happy become a quality? It is shameless bravado without any thought to its implications.

Yet some genius decided to appropriate the quote for Jinnah and now Defence Housing Authority and University of Lahore have, without any fact checking, put this quote on their billboards and other paraphernalia commemorating Jinnah’s birthday. Like the earlier “Pakistan is a laboratory of Islam”, this quote too will now be inflicted upon Jinnah posthumously. The tragic fact in this is that Jinnah was a most careful decision maker. His real quote is that one ought to think 100 times before taking a decision and, once the decision is taken, stick by it like one man. Even the decision to ask for a Muslim majority state in the subcontinent was not made lightly. On every occasion between 1933 and 1940, he refused to ask for a separate homeland, calling it a fool’s paradise and a chimera. He was not an impulsive man given to decisions at a whim. Jinnah was nothing if not a consummate chess player, evaluating his every move and its consequences. He was thus constitutionally incapable of making a statement so alien to his character.

The al Bakistanis, as a nation, are the exact opposite of Jinnah. They are fascinated by statements of bravado and never of substance. Muhammad Hanif, the author, remarked some time ago that Jinnah was no one’s hero in Pakistan. People had misinterpreted it to mean that Hanif was insulting Jinnah. On the contrary, he was arguing that the common sense Jinnah stood for did not appeal to this hapless, witless and wretched nation. We want to make Jinnah into our own image. Therefore, this newly unearthed quote of Jinnah about not thinking before making decisions fits in more nicely with our national psyche than any of his genuine quotes. It is also indicative of a bigger problem because what is at stake is not just the veracity of historical Jinnah but what kind of people we actually are and want to be.

We, as a people, are overly emotional and impulsive, self-included. In very real terms, we make a decision first and then attempt to justify it. The lionising of the Taliban, which ended in Peshawar, is a case in point. The Taliban were seen as hardened warriors fighting against occupation. Imran Khan was the foremost proponent of this misplaced anti-imperialist angst. For the longest time, we refused to accept that the Taliban were behind the attacks on our cities, schools and mosques. Instead, we blamed India, the US and countless other faceless enemies. A more civilised and thinking nation would have corrected their course the day Benazir Bhutto was martyred in Rawalpindi. The massacre of Ahmedis in Lahore would have given them pause. The darkness at high noon that Salmaan Taseer’s assassination was would have called for soul searching. The brutal attack on Malala Yousafzai should have opened our eyes but we decried her as “Malala drama”. An intelligent people would have ensured that their country, their religion, their values and their culture would not become the laughing stock of the world. We are not those people. We are masters at self-flagellation without even knowing it. What can one say about a people who insist on missing the forest for the trees? Optimism has its limits.

Will Pakistan ever become a modern nation one can be proud of? A people that need 130 dead children to even wake up are a people incapable of course correction. As days pass, the greatest fear one has is that this moment of clarity will be a fleeting one. A nation of fools is unlikely to sustain what is, without a doubt, the most important consensus that this country has. One hopes to be wrong but it requires a miracle. That dumb stupid look you have on your face does not inspire confidence.



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Yasser Latif Hamdani is a lawyer based in Lahore and the author of the book Mr Jinnah: Myth and Reality. He can be contacted via twitter @therealylh and through his email address yasser.hamdani@gmail.com

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