PAKISTAN TODAY

Dear Brutus Humayun Gauhar There are many ways to skin a cat. You, dear Brutus, always manage to skin yourself by turning the cat into a tiger. Your opponents win and thank you for saving their cat with bombs. You are useless, Brutus. When double murderer and spy Raymond Davis suddenly took a short walk to freedom, it hit you like a thunderbolt. You came face-to-face with the bitter truth that you always sugarcoat with homilies and humbug. You saw an underling in the mirror and didn’t like him. Don’t tell me you didn’t know that Davis would eventually get away. Your justice is for the rich and powerful; the weak and poor are at its receiving end. Stop blaming others for your woes, dear Brutus. Take a good, hard look at yourself. Discover the truth that only you are responsible for your plight and take responsibility for your life. “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves, that we are underlings.” True to type, up went your wails. Who listens to the rants of impotent underlings? They pose no danger to women or men. The truth, Brutus, is that you willingly made yourself an underling by becoming a loan addict to create the illusion of wellbeing. Now you are bound hand and foot. Whose fault is it, the lenders or yours? The truth is that you live beyond your means on borrowed money. Running on empty, you are now on borrowed time as well. The truth is that Davis got away legally using one of your many legal systems, Brutus. America didn’t make you impose it. Raymond Davis got away under qisas and diyat, pardon and consideration provisions of Islamic law. Like a vacillator, you accept Islamic law when it works for you but rant when blood money doesn’t quench your bloodlust. Change it if you have the guts, dear Brutus, or your coliseum remains empty. Your constitution gives Caesar the un-Islamic power to pardon yet you would deny victims’ heirs that Islamic right. What are you? A Believer? Don’t split hairs. In willful murder any amount of blood money may be agreed between heirs and murderer. Davis murdered intentionally and the victims’ heirs pardoned him, reportedly for $23.3 million and Green Cards. Your law allows it. It matters little to them who gave the money. It matters a lot to you if your government did. They haven’t ‘sold’ the honour of Rome for a few pieces of silver. They have exercised their Islamic right. To the contrary, it is your ranting that is disgracing Rome. More humbug. Qisas and diyat don’t apply because Davis’ case falls under Fasad Fil Ardh – spreading discord and disharmony in the land. Thus the victims’ heirs couldn’t pardon him. Where did you buy your education, dear Brutus? Carrying unlicensed, unauthorized arms may be illegal, but it isn’t Fasad Fil Ardh. If it were, virtually every citizen of consequence of Rome would be culpable. Even if Davis was spreading discord and disharmony, it was for your governments to register a case against him. Why didn’t they? Whose fault is it? Americas? After all, it is you who have put these governments in place. Ask them. The hypocritical excuse that but for the NRO corrupt politicians couldn’t have contested elections, is so much poppycock. You wailed for the return of these ‘great’ leaders but when they did, your rants changed to wails against the NRO. Do you really know what you want? How many Romans, dear Brutus, received Benazir Bhutto when she came? How many celebrated Nawaz Sharif’s return, kid brother in tow? How many millions voted for their parties? Wasn’t Gillani your first prime minister to get elected unanimously? Didn’t Zardari become Caesar by the largest vote ever? Didn’t nearly every party vote for them both? NRO or no NRO, you still didn’t have to vote for them. Did anyone force you to? Do you think your hypocritical wailing fools anyone except you? You wanted them; you got them. Now reap the harvest. The heirs were ‘forced’ to pardon Davis and ‘forced’ to accept 23 million dollars and Green Cards. Proof? Only the heirs can say so, in court, you can’t. Show me a Roman who has to be forced to take $23 million for a pardon, knowing that hanging the murderer still won’t bring the murdered back, and I will show you a liar. Show me a Roman who has to be forced to take a Green Card and I will show you a hypocrite. Look at your matrimonial ads longing for Green Card holders. The poor have an obvious reason, but many of your richest willingly face three harsh Canadian winters for passports. Force has to be proved to have been used otherwise it is conjecture, which has no recognition in law. The Americans are not fools. They didn’t cough up just like that. There must be a written agreement. Don’t wail. It is difficult to force 18 people to go to court, stand up before a judge, one by one, and pardon the man. They are under arrest now, you say. Proof? None. Only the word of their lawyer who, like little Bo Peep has lost her sheep and doesn’t know where to find them. Lawyers’ media statements are no proof. The wailings of the impotent hold no place in law; neither do they attract sympathy from cat skinners. Listen Brutus: your own elected government allowed three of your diplomatic missions to issue visas to Americans directly, bypassing your intelligence agencies. Many visas were indeed issued and Davis was one of them. Did America force you to? Even if it asked, did you have to comply? Why do you tolerate groveling bootlickers in the first place? Whose fault is it? Where does the buck stop? It stops with you, dear Brutus, who elects such Caesars. They reflect your hypocritical, wailing, impotent face. Like passengers in a stationary train feel the illusion of movement when another train passes by, you think you are moving forward. No, dear Brutus, you are not. The movement you see is the world passing you by, leaving you behind, stationary. Happy journey to Macondo, the village that Garcia Marquez had in A Hundred Years of Solitude that wallows in decay and disrepair while the rest of the world moves on. Time stands still there. It is a place for which you need neither passport nor visa nor Green Card. Good luck.