We have words for everything under the sun and words for things that are neither under this sun or any other! It beats me hollow! there is political jargon, social jargon, the 'speak' preferred by the cool or is it hot people, and some words that are to be avoided at all costs if u want to be counted among the chosen few in this pure desi land!
The most popular word of this week is 'target killings', what does this exactly mean? The fact that some people are being targeted and killed is quite obvious but the choice of the epithet is gross, insensitive and vulgar. A person has lost his life a family is affected, the whole fabric of society is torn asunder and we minimize it by abbreviations and euphemisms! Target killings sound like a new version of a video game like Modern Warfare or something as inane. Target shooting is a sport as we all know, its practice at the most, and equating senseless murders to this to a sport in any context is not only stupid it shows the apathy of us as people! How can any serious action be taken against these target killings? what defines it? Who has named it thus?
Words are very powerful. I firmly believe how we express ourselves and the words we choose reflect who we are, what we believe and what we value. We certainly do not value human life and referring it as a target whatsoever is demeaning and devaluing the loss involved, and dissolving the significance of what is happening around us. Target killing is a euphemism for ethnic killings, sectarian killings, random senseless killings. It is being killed in cold blood for belonging to a political party, it is killing people for having certain view of religion, it is killing people for settling old scores and it is killing people for reasons that are still inexplicable. We can whitewash with words make the impact soft, cover the dirty and filthy facts with sugar but truth will out, Target killing is a nation at war with itself and nothing else another apt word would be civil war.
Then there is this favorite phrase of our leaders 'foreign hand' What is this? I have always visualized it as a big huge gigantic hand coming over us and then moving things around as in a game of chess, but then I'm quite not there! But, seriously, what the heck is this foreign hand, is it the RAW, failed intelligence agency of India which hasn't a major coup or any covert operation to its name, is it the CIA, but with half of Islamabad and most of our esteemed journalists on its payroll what so hidden about it? Oh I know, we as a nation haven't really grown up from the anal stage and are still terrified of the monster in the closet or under the bed! Really thats what it is. We feel we are being haunted by ghouls and fiends.
Then 'intelligensia' what the bloody heck does this mean in the Pakistani context? the intelligent people? are there any in this country because if there were we certainly wouldn't be using these archaic phrases to refer to them. And the country wouldn't have been going to the dogs as it is now. If we rely on the talk shows on different Tv channels with their parades of experts one would get the impression this country is 19th century Germany with a plethora of thinkers and philosophers who had the courage to challenge what was wrong in their country.
The most popular word of this week is 'target killings', what does this exactly mean? The fact that some people are being targeted and killed is quite obvious but the choice of the epithet is gross, insensitive and vulgar. A person has lost his life a family is affected, the whole fabric of society is torn asunder and we minimize it by abbreviations and euphemisms! Target killings sound like a new version of a video game like Modern Warfare or something as inane. Target shooting is a sport as we all know, its practice at the most, and equating senseless murders to this to a sport in any context is not only stupid it shows the apathy of us as people! How can any serious action be taken against these target killings? what defines it? Who has named it thus?
Words are very powerful. I firmly believe how we express ourselves and the words we choose reflect who we are, what we believe and what we value. We certainly do not value human life and referring it as a target whatsoever is demeaning and devaluing the loss involved, and dissolving the significance of what is happening around us. Target killing is a euphemism for ethnic killings, sectarian killings, random senseless killings. It is being killed in cold blood for belonging to a political party, it is killing people for having certain view of religion, it is killing people for settling old scores and it is killing people for reasons that are still inexplicable. We can whitewash with words make the impact soft, cover the dirty and filthy facts with sugar but truth will out, Target killing is a nation at war with itself and nothing else another apt word would be civil war.
Then there is this favorite phrase of our leaders 'foreign hand' What is this? I have always visualized it as a big huge gigantic hand coming over us and then moving things around as in a game of chess, but then I'm quite not there! But, seriously, what the heck is this foreign hand, is it the RAW, failed intelligence agency of India which hasn't a major coup or any covert operation to its name, is it the CIA, but with half of Islamabad and most of our esteemed journalists on its payroll what so hidden about it? Oh I know, we as a nation haven't really grown up from the anal stage and are still terrified of the monster in the closet or under the bed! Really thats what it is. We feel we are being haunted by ghouls and fiends.
Then 'intelligensia' what the bloody heck does this mean in the Pakistani context? the intelligent people? are there any in this country because if there were we certainly wouldn't be using these archaic phrases to refer to them. And the country wouldn't have been going to the dogs as it is now. If we rely on the talk shows on different Tv channels with their parades of experts one would get the impression this country is 19th century Germany with a plethora of thinkers and philosophers who had the courage to challenge what was wrong in their country.
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