Daily Times

How to define a patriotic Pakistani. How do you distinguish one from an enemy agent? Across the world, these questions do not demand too much scrutiny since people define their patriotism based on their faith in the constitution. But as the constitution in Pakistan has been swept aside both by its politicians and its military establishment, the simple looks like a mystery leading to allegations, confusion and unfounded suspicions.

After pondering for years, I can now claim that I have solved the mystery. How? By developing a simple questionnaire, a dynamic formula through which you can diagnose the level of patriotism, or lack thereof, in any person claiming to be a Pakistani. Not only that, you can also grade his potential for being a traitor, an agent or the enemy.

Each question of the survey carries both positive and negative markings. After all questions have been answered you get an aggregate score, which in turn exposes the enemy hidden even from the cleverest agent, while at the same time it identifies the true patriots.

The first question deals with the faith. If you are a Sunni Muslim you bag one point. A Shia scores minus one, a Hindu or a Christian minus two, and an Ahmedi minus four. However, if you are a Sunni Muslim but you do not absolutely detest Ahmedis and would like them to have some basic human rights, then again you are smacked with a minus one point. So be careful and remember: human rights are reserved for people with the correct faith.

The second question is regarding your trust in the Pakistani establishment, in its potential, training and strength to beat the enemies, all at once. So if you believe that Pakistan has won all the wars including the Kargil conflict, that all martial laws are justified as a reaction to the unstable political situation created by the good-for-nothing civilians, and that the military is tracking down every terrorist with utmost sincerity including the not-so-hidden banned sectarian organisations, you chalk up one point. However, if you agree with some of these statements but not all, you get zero or minus one, depending on your level of scepticism, and if you do not believe in any one of them, then to be truthful, we thwack you with minus two points.

The third question corresponds to the corruption of politicians. If you strongly believe that most if not all politicians are corrupt, liars and con artists, you net one brownie point. However, if you believe these issues have to be individually proved in the court of law and not on television screens, you deserve minus one. Making matters worse, if you want uniformed officers to be held accountable the same way as politicians, you must get smacked with minus two points. You get zero if you are a total loser who does not believe in corruption as being the only cause holding us back from taking off.

The last question entails your belief in conspiracy theories. If you think all the world powers because of our geostrategic location are conspiring to destabilise Pakistan you bag one point. But if you want to wait for the evidence to emerge you are slapped with minus one, and if you are sceptical about the whole concept you are punished with minus two points.

I understand you are wondering why the negative points dip as low as minus 10 while the positive points hit the ceiling at four. Simple: because a country with a potential like ours has more chances to attract enemies than to lure friends. Can you disagree with the fact that most people around the world are either jealous or afraid of us, and the talent that we possess?

Now it is time to interpret the data. With the highest scorer you have got a true patriot, a person that you can trust, a soldier who will risk his life for the country. No, real military soldiers are not included in this system. Why? It is way above our pay grade to evaluate or question their intentions.

Then who among civilians falls in this category? I would include the honourable members of the Ahle Sunnat Wal Jammat (ASWJ) and the Sipah-e-Sahaba (SSP) in the group, the two organisations whose faith credentials set them apart from anyone else. They are protected and safeguarded from Karachi to Islamabad even when there is a grand military operation going on in the former, and a police search is carried out in the latter for political workers. In fact, I think the faith of the ASWJ and SSP has given them some supernatural powers of staying invisible to law enforcement agencies while they are caught by television cameras holding large rallies across the country.

The minus-10 group includes those intellectuals who want to think outside the box, people who believe that the solution to our problems lies in our ability to open the debate, not in our stubbornness to shut it down at every stage. Pakistan needs to send all of them into exile!

The enemy agents would score between minus two to minus seven. They will always stay negative but will take care of themselves by saying a word of appreciation here and there.

Worst are those who do not score any point balking at zero plus/minus one. For them, Dante Alighieri said quite rightly: “Darkest places of hell are reserved for those who kept their neutrality at the time of moral crisis.” Note: This is a work of satire and this formula must not be used officially.

The writer is a US-based freelance columnist. He tweets at @KaamranHashmi and can be reached at skamranhashmi@gmail.com