Infidelity like most other traits, essentially, belongs to the moral domain and is invariably used in the comparative form of speech and reference. As soon as one imagines infidelity the mind begins a comparison with different levels of related conduct.It seems quite a comprehensive term that is ordinarily used to denote a roving eye in a particular social sense. But that may be a rather restricted application of this very expressive but intimate notion.
If we look around there are innumerable situations and spheres of engagement, or shall we say, disengagement where one can conveniently use infidelity to briefly comment upon the prevailing state of affairs. It is a state of mind that permits an infringement of an unmonitored moral norm, trust or propriety that genuinely belongs solely to someone else. Intellectual infidelity can be a synonym for dishonesty of intention but is more harmful than dishonesty in action. A devious mind can have a dishonest intention but be perfectly honest in implementing the same.
To elucidate our claim let’s pick up a few everyday characters like a lover,a politician,a street vendor, a writer/journalist and a lawman and see how their natural deviousness or, in other words, how their infidelity plays out and what harm it could inflict.
A lover is the one with whom infidelity was originally ascribed; the cheating lover became notorious in the folklore,poetry and literature. The ‘lover’ lost a lot of esteem in the public view for the fault of an errant character looking for some fun at the wrong time in history. His poor intelligence and carelessness have become a lasting badge of suspicion and dishonour for those genuinely in love, quite undeservingly, one must say. Therefore, it is prudent that one should choose a lover or opt to fall in love after a DNA scan of the possible candidate for sufficient sense of the moment, proper timings and desirable fleet footedness should the occasion demand escape or for an honourable withdrawal rather than a misplaced chivalry.
Apologies,explanations and excuses can be manufactured later but physical safety must be the first priority. We can momentarily agree that a lover’s infidelity is a malfunction of the heart and not the mind and could possibly be clinically viewed. Imagine had he not been in love already the attempt in question could be considered perfectly genuine and bonafide. See the difference between carrying an emotional obligation and free surfing?
Pakistan is generously bestowed with two species of wildlife: politicians and leeches. Which one sucks more of our blood has not yet been quantified. Leeches, thankfully, cannot speak but each of our politicians has a minimum of a mile-long tongue fitted into a loudmouth under a Jurassic brain. Most of these men can easily be cited as the prototypes of various shades of political infidelity. As a rule, they do not say what they mean and do not mean what they say. The more courteously they hug the opposing interlocutor the more vigorously they hate him. Their smiles are that of hyenas and tongues split like reptiles. Historic evidence and practitioners of political science warn that never believe what they commit in writing but feel under their tongue for the black pearl.
Cart-pushing street vendors are a common convenience and nuisance packed in one. They help reduce your forced trek to the neighbourhood grocery store and provide an illusion of getting more for less. However, what most of us face when confronted by this tenacious salesman is a contest of will,skills and sight. He is an expert in not packing for you what he displays so attractively. Your indignant will and untrained sight can force him to pack a few good apples, but the rest of defective bunch would be a result of his skill and tenacious cheating. His trickery is part of his trade craft, a sort of business infidelity of the lower order . You must grant him the expertise to be able to manipulate your senses and wallet both, and that too with his rudimentary cunning.
Old-fashioned values of truthfulness, moral integrity and material honesty work well and have an everlasting value
Of all the major and minor predators discussed above, writers and journalists, if not decontaminated,are the most scheming and infectious lot ever to inhabit this dusty planet. There are many other injurious sub-species like mullahs,property dealers, income tax inspectors and herbal medicine practitioners, but in the size and scale of damage to our society,nobody can match journalists who are fairly vicious carnivores. This loud branch of street criers includes as weird a variety as newspapers,TV and social media.
These fellows can destroy your faith in goodness, courtesy and truth with lightning speed and quite comprehensively. They also specialise in giving a twist to any news and mutilate the same beyond recognition. By the time you recover from their perfidy the damage is done or the opportunity is lost. Their expertise lay in manufacturing facts and making news out of nothing and they are the perfect ally of autocratic, phony and lying regimes, fraudulent business houses and speculative interest groups.
In this circus of the rabid and the ridiculous the latest admission has been that of a black-robed locust that merited to be listed on top of the list, but his clout was daunting, and the lofty institution was not so vulgarised as it has been now. You guessed it right;it is the big black herd of wild lawmen-lawyers and all of their discordant orchestra. They have been at it since long but mostly out of the public view. However, during the reign of the ‘Grand Master’, the then Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry,the judicial ‘Free Masonry’ came into its own and quite dreadfully at that.
Capable serving judges from the lower courts were wilfully passed over for promotion to high courts to make way for the favourites. Chaudhry had enormous powers, privileges and unprecedented autonomy to select, appoint and remove judgesal most unopposed. He practically became a judicial potentate and a whip of law for a very large but questionable number of suo moto notices that he became sarcastically known for, turning into something like a judicial Desmund Tutu of the Supreme Court,for want of a better example.
One can go on and on discussing the fickle mindedness of these men of straw, which is not the purpose. The aim was to give a flavour of the scale of damage that moral dishonesty, in other words, intellectual infidelity, can do to society, in most cases, irreversible in nature. Old-fashioned values of truthfulness, moral integrity and material honesty work well and have an everlasting value. The rest is merely an illusion.
The writer is a retired brigadier of the Pakistan army