The time of the year has come round again for this annual ritual column. The idea is to regale you by remembering some of the more absurd reported inanities of the human species that tickled my fancy in the preceding 12 months.
Given that this year also marks the end of the first decade of the 21st century, I toyed briefly with the thought of expanding the horizon to the whole decade. But that would have presented too broad a canvas. Besides, the outstanding absurdity of the decade — the election of George W Bush and the catastrophically misguided adventurism of his cohorts — would obviously have dominated such a column. And that is a painful rather than a smiling matter.
But where, for Chrissake, is Osama? And why, with the world looking for him, can he not be found?
I think I have found the answer to this other outstanding absurdity of the decade. For, I am as sure as our celebrity media pundits who believe the days of our president are numbered that, Osama, suitably disguised, is actually currently holed up in the room next door to me in the hotel George V in Paris. Is it not well known that the last place anyone bothers to look is right under his nose?
And why am I so sure he is holed up in the room? Because, silly, it is snowing and cold outside, and which sane Arab will leave the comfort of his warm room to venture out in such weather?
Now maybe you are impressed by my logic, and maybe you are not. Never mind. Improbable though it may be, you cannot deny my scenario is a possibility. And you certainly cannot prove that I am wrong, can you?
But forget the type of logic favoured by our pundits. Let me get back on track. As I sit in my hotel room struggling with this column, I cannot help but ponder another absurdity: the arrival, as a reality, of the $ 1,000+ a night basic rate (before taxes, etc.) hotel room.
Admittedly, I am talking about a hotel that chooses to call itself the best in the world, located in an expensive city. But was this not the favourite (and affordable) haunt, within living memory, of many a well-known writer, and where, even just a decade ago, I could get a room for no more than a few hundred dollars?
The absurd point is — as further evidenced by $ 15,000 Louis Vuitton handbags and $ 10,000 bottles of champagne — there is now a well established international culture of extravagant and conspicuous consumption that separates the super-rich from, even, normal well-off people, let alone us ordinary mortals. Clearly, the task of calculating how many columns I would have to write for Daily Times to pay my bills for a day now was not worth contemplating. But before NAB uses this as evidence to catch me for living beyond my known means, I should add that the current damage was not being billed to my personal account.
But there are billionaires and billionaires. For example, every Zimbabwe citizen is easily one in his local currency (and Mugabe himself probably the world’s leading trillionaire by that reckoning). The problem is, the new world record beating Z $ 500 million note his government introduced in May this year (improving on its own previous record) is worth just US $ 2, enough to barely buy two loaves of bread. Sort of makes you grateful for our own inflation rate. But is there is a lesson here for those of us who always urge we defy the international community to stubbornly follow our own dreams, and home grown economic recipes?
No annual review in the Islamic world can be complete without a mention of the latest dirty trick Mossad is reportedly up to. I am not referring here to the fantasies of General Gul and others of his ilk about how that dreaded agency is conspiring with the Indians and Americans to promote terrorism in our cities, unrest in Balochistan, and plotting to sabotage our nuclear assets. No. Apparently, their latest trick is more subtle: it is to corrupt the chaste morals of Islamic youth by secretly supplying ‘sex stimulants’ in the form of drops and chewing gum to the unwary Palestinians in the Gaza strip.
The report had me puzzled for many reasons. For a start, stimulants that potentially boost the sex drive are a need only for old fogies like me. The young do not need, and have never needed, such drugs. Anyway, how will increasing the sexual activity of the population of Gaza help Israel achieve its political or military goals?
Also, is there any significance to be attached to the fact that Mossad has not seen fit to extend this particular experiment to Pakistan? Perhaps it concluded that — as evidenced by our birth rate — that would be merely gilding the lily, and a superfluous exercise. A pity that. Notwithstanding our Zionist bashers, I (and I am sure many other Pakistanis), would have welcomed such an Israeli initiative, seeing how expensive and hard to obtain Viagra is in the local market.
Talking about sex, and how the rest of the world now views the subject, it is a sign of the times that, along with banks, car manufacturers and others, the sex-industry too (for that is what it is now in many parts of the world) sought government help and support in the economic slump.
Mindful that sex is a taboo subject in our highly moral society, I therefore turn quickly and finally to the subject dearest to our heart: our religion. And here there is good news to end this report on 2009. For the first time, for as long as I can remember, the whole nation celebrated Eid ul Adha this year on the same day. But the jury is still out whether that was a triumph for common sense or merely a fortuitous or contrived accident. For, the true test of whether we really have put this particular annual absurdity behind us, once and for all, must await the occasion of the next Eid ul Fitr. As a nation, we remain professionally top class when it comes to doing everything that is not worth doing.
Whether that last observation also extends to my writing such a column as this for the Op-Ed pages of a serious newspaper, I will leave for you to judge. In self-defence, I will only say there is a certain method in my madness. I may be a little mad but I am certainly not stupid. Meanwhile, here is hoping for a better forthcoming year for each one of you (including those who fervently disagree with me), and for us collectively as a nation. Whether we deserve it I cannot say. But we all certainly need it.
The writer is a businessman. A selection of his columns is now available in book form. Visit munirattaullah.com