The Fault Dear Brutus…

Been meaning to start writing again and putting it off till I have sorted out my website and all. But I seem to now have some material that might be of interest—or at least, might generate some discussion that might lead to organizing my own thoughts. I seem to do some of my best ranting in conversation with friends, Romans, and countrymen (and not a few wimin; and in my case from at least three or four countries) and in reaction to things I hear, see, and read. And, of late, that has increasingly been through discussions on Facebook statuses.

So. Here is a piece that brings together reactions to two pieces, both of a kind that I keep running into quite often nowadays. It has to do with Pakistanis (and my fellow naijaborn, or Nigerian folks) expressing either cynicism or sarcasm (as in the first case below), or depression (as in the second case) at various things "back home". I know some of my reaction might sound a bit idealistic; and let's talk about if you do.

Here goes:

"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings."
Cassius, in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar Act I Scene II, 140-141

And, if I remember right, Cassius, too, was at least obliquely referring to authoritarian tendencies in government. [See notes at http://bit.ly/faultdearBrutus ]

And to your last point, Ariel, not just that we're responsible, but that it is our responsibility to change it rather than just whine and moan. And this is not to pick on Ali; he, after all, started this discussion and is in there mixing it all up. And, if I may say so, so are the Islamists and the Zaid Hamidists, and the Marxists. At least they are engaging with the problem and and trying to make things move they way they think they should be going. It is the petit bourgeous, latte liberal whining that pisses ME off. Ask how many of them have ever considered joining a political party or a social movement, or a citizen's movement?

The old saying of "Every people get the government they deserve" comes to mind; we Pakistanis deserve the horse-thief-from-a-line-of-horse-thieves we have in every station of our establishment and government.

Here's a something else I wrote in response to another friend's Facebook status:

We used to say our fathers' generation did not do the job right; but they were in survival mode as immigrants or people trying to get a country going that had little in the way of societal and govermental structures. This might sound cliched, bit it was, IS, our job to consolidate and build—and sometimes I think the ten years when the rest of the world ignored and/or sanctioned our asses was the time we could have really built up. And those were the very years I and my crop of upstarts came of age—the 90s—and voted with our feet. And yes, maybe we were too young and, for a lot of us from that Mian Bhai/petit bourgeous class, not plugged in enough to know how. So, having said that, maybe now is the time?