The Oasis of Democracy

When it comes to undeserving flattery, our bureaucrats and diplomats do it with the utter stupidity of a court jester without realizing the kind of embarrassing position that their naïve attempts to secure their seats are putting Pakistan in. After all their appointment letters did not designate them national clowns. The latest example of such epic foolishness comes from our High Commissioner to UK, Wajid Shamsul Hassan, and his interview with CNN correspondent under the shadow of yet another national embarrassment – death of 24 soldiers by the NATO forces and Pakistan’s helplessness in its face.

During the interview when asked to comment on NATO attack on Pakistani outposts, Mr. Hassan found it important for “broader national interest” to kiss the stinky behinds of the rulers of the ruling party. Instead of highlighting grave diplomatic and military implications of such open aggression and its effects on Pakistan’s ever so fragile democracy, which is already crippled by perpetual corruption, he went on to call Pakistan “the Oasis of Democracy in the region”. The utter shock and disgust mixed with disbelief on the face and in the voice of the interviewer is impossible to describe in words. In a typical sarcastic tone, which can be observed in a western born female only, she queried, “Pakistan is the Oasis of Democracy in the region?”

Despite living in the UK and supposedly working as Pakistan’s diplomat over there, Mr. Hassan seemed unaware of vocal and tonal expressions of the locals as he looked completely unaffected by the obvious and razor sharp sarcasm in the voice and the words of the interviewer. He kept on talking, shamelessly. This whole part of his mindless rambling can only be translated as following: “Pakistan is the Oasis of Democracy in the region because Mr. Zardari is in charge of this democracy.” I have never seen such poor choice of words even by the world famous lingual disaster former president of US George W. Bush. Pakistani politicians are famous for losing wars in table talks. Now you know why. Diplomacy is a war of words and with such commanders at the helms of our frigates we are doomed to failure.