Zen Pakistanis

You know your country needs some help when a new airplane being added to the national airline’s fleet is a cause for joyous celebration throughout the nation. PIA has purchased a Boeing 777 and it made its maiden flight from the UK to Pakistan today. This momentous event was marked by huge one-page ads in all the major newspapers; an extra day was added to the Eid-ul-Azha holidays, and rumor has it that two special camels imported from Saudi Arabia (traveling in the cargo hold of the 777) were to be sacrificed on the tarmac as the plane taxied in to the terminal.

Unfortunately for the passengers on the plane, who thought that they were going to land in Karachi, the plane was diverted to Islamabad so that President Musharraf could inspect the plane. PIA officials did not comment on whether or not the plane would then make its way to Karachi after the tour of inspection. Nor would they confirm the rumors that PIA passengers would be charged extra for the honor of having their plane inspected by the nation’s top leader. An angry passenger from Karachi showed his displeasure at the change in schedule: “The rest of PIA is falling apart but they bought one new plane and they’re acting like they put a mullah on the moon!”

No doubt Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan wishes he were that mullah on the moon, as he has been dismissed from his post and put under house arrest for his role in spreading nuclear technology to other nations for monetary gain. The “Father of the Bomb” is undoubtedly realizing that from now on when they call him “Father of the Bum” it won’t merely be a mistake in pronunciation. Pretty soon people are going to start getting the message that it’s a dangerous thing to be on top in Pakistan because inevitably your fortunes will be reversed and you will find yourself taking it up the “bum” by the person who is going to supercede you. Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif can attest to this fact, although the ultimate “bum-takers” such as Zulfiqar Bhutto and Zia-ul-Haq have already gone to meet their makers and cannot add their voices to the growing multitudes in this category.

Perhaps the national animal of Pakistan should be changed from the markhor to the Trojan horse, because it seems that every gift coming our way, on a national, provincial, or personal level, carries with it some kind of jinx or whammy effect. The United States wanted to finance and train a group of elite warriors called Mujahideen in order to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan, using Pakistan as the place to transfer the funds and the training. Australia wanted to send us sheep which are found to be unfit for human consumption. The Tasman Spirit brought us oil enough to ruin our beaches for five generations. Christian missionaries want to take care of our lepers but only if enough of us accept the Gospel to impress the Bible thumpers back in the Midwest. Anyone heard anything about those F-16s we bought back in the seventeenth century? We even thought at one point that George Bush’s election was a good omen for Pakistan.

There are those who find a reason to be permanently depressed about everything in Pakistan; talk to one of these types and you’ll want to take the next plane out of the city for good. According to these folk, any meal you eat can be hiding a treasure trove of E.coli, guaranteeing you a weeklong appointment with the nearest emergency center and several glucose drips. The beautifully built metal paved road out by the Creek can be your doom as the motorist next to you thinks he’s driving the last stage of the Grand Prix on a cocktail of scotch and charas. The lovely new cook she hired last week had such a keen eye for details, he figured out where she kept all her jewelry and got a few of his buddies to save her the bother of paying zakat on it this year. His neighbor thought he’d cut down those bothersome trees on the street that were blocking the view and oops, he managed to knock down the power lines for the whole street (and the KESC didn’t come for two weeks, by which time everyone had to eat their own dogs to survive).

But if the presidential candidates for the 2004 elections want to learn anything about spin, they need to come to Pakistan and learn a few tips from the masters. I’m not talking about the permanent depressives, I’m talking about those lunatics who, when you tell them about the decrepit state of PIA, will say, “But that proves how good our pilots are that they are flying such old planes and haven’t yet had a major accident!” Say that you think nuclear proliferation is a dangerous thing and you’ll hear “We need deterrence otherwise those Indians would have gotten us long ago.” Talk about the sad fact that three million chickens have already died of the bird flu and you’ll get a lecture on the health benefits of chota gosht. These people are experts in the field of optimistic denial, and they make you want to give them a dose of arsenic in their evening drink and a good strangling to boot.

Whether you want to see the glass as half full or half empty, Pakistan is the perfect place for both. Either things can be in the direst of straits and we’re headed for nuclear fallout, Islamic revolution, or a massive tidal wave that will obliterate all of Karachi – or else everything is going to be all right, the blessings of Allah are upon us, and Sting will come and hold a concert at the Bahria Auditorium next year. The only thing missing from Pakistan is a good dose of moderation: those who follow the middle of the road, can see situations and circumstances with a clear, realistic eye, and can appraise it all logically and rationally.

Instead of reacting emotionally to everything that happens here, good or bad, we need to become Zen Pakistanis and detach, not being too impressed or depressed by the extremes that this country throws up at us at every turn. Perhaps the government can hire the Dalai Llama in place of Dr. A.Q. Khan to teach us how to do that. But then again, with a population that thinks it’s the cleverest in the world but acts so stupidly that it makes Big Brother contestants look like Mensa members, perhaps Pakistan is not a nation of moderates. The pessmists will say that’s because we’re immature and uneducated, the optimists will say that our emotionality is our greatest strength. In either case, if that’s the way we are, it’s going to take a lot more than Zen to save us from ourselves.