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Of cowboys, horses, stakeholders and steak

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  • Of cowboys, horses, stakeholders and steak

    Monday, April 24, 2006 E-Mail this article to a friend Printer Friendly Version

    VIEW: Of cowboys, horses, stakeholders and steak — Syed Mansoor Hussain

    What could make our Islamabad cowboy end his days in the saddle? The most obvious way, of course, would be for his horse to refuse to let him ride on it any longer. This is unlikely because his horse is well taken care of, well fed, reasonably disciplined and seemingly quite loyal to him

    Listening to country western music is the best antidote to feeling down in the dumps. It makes you realise that however bad things look somebody out there has had it worse. So, whenever I start feeling as if Pakistan is not going to get better I put on a collection of country western tunes and suddenly the woes of some Texas cowboy (no, not that one!) and his problems with his gal, his hoss and his boss make things around me seem a lot better.

    Though the troubles of ‘that’ Texas cowboy, once riding high on his horse, might be instructive too. After all his fortunes are indeed intertwined with the fortunes of our local version of the Texas cowboy. No, not quite like that in the movie about the two cowboys that did not win an Oscar but rather like two cowpokes herding a cattle drive through wild country. Hoss thieves, rustlers, Taliban, Al Qaeda and other assorted baddies that need to be faced and cattle to be saved from them, whatever the cattle might think about it all – if cattle could think.

    In every cattle drive, there is always collateral damage; many head of cattle lost on the way, some dispensable sidekicks left behind too shot up to save and a lot of baddies dead and gone. Do the ‘cattle’ really want to be herded down those dangerous trails; after all it is the cattle that suffer most of the damage. And, at the end of the trail the best any of the cattle can expect is to be sold off to the highest bidder and have parts of them end up as fillet mignon. But then for most cowboys, cattle are nothing but steak to be.

    As one of the cattle – or better yet, as Habib Jalib once put it, one of the hundred million donkeys called the people – I do wonder who it is that cares about me. The cowboy from Islamabad or the cowboy from Crawford Texas? Unfortunately I do have to worry about both of them. Fortunately the cowboy from Texas will definitely have to end his cow-poking days a couple of years from now and leave us cattle alone. The one in Islamabad just might want to stay around for a lot longer.

    That brings up the question about what could make our Islamabad cowboy end his days in the saddle. The most obvious way, of course, would be for his horse to refuse to let him ride on it any longer. This is unlikely because his horse is well taken care of, well fed, reasonably disciplined and seemingly quite loyal to him. As long as he keeps lavishing on it the sort of love and affection he is doing right now, the horse I think is going to let him ride for a while. Unless, of course, a darting animal across the trail spooks the horse and it throws him off in a panic.

    Then there is what the press calls the ‘stakeholders’ around him who help him stay in the saddle. I suppose what they mean by stakeholders are all the important people that are forever trying to help the ‘common man’, – enriching themselves in the process. Unfortunately, the term ‘stakeholders’ reminds me of vampire movies in which, groups of people are always lurking around holding stakes and hoping to catch the vampires asleep so they can drive the stakes through their hearts.

    So, whenever I come across the phrase ‘stake olders’ in the context of Pakistani politics, I always imagine a bunch of these ‘important’ people walking around with stakes and looking for a chance to catch the man on top unawares and drive a stake through his heart – metaphorically of course. And, all this in the interests of the common man for after all it is the interest of the common man that motivates them.

    Finally, there are the cattle, better known as the common man. Cattle, as everybody knows, are much too busy grazing and procreating to think about things like the cowboy and how long he is going to be herding them along. However, being cattle after all, they are given to stampeding once in a while. A sudden thunderstorm, a flash flood, hunger, a few bearded baddies shooting at them or worse some of the ‘stakeholders’ poking them in the ribs with those stakes; almost anything – even something very trivial – could start a stampede.

    Therefore the danger to our cowboy, in my opinion, comes from the stakeholders around him more than anybody else. However, once the cowboy from Texas is no longer looking after his back, even his horse could possibly turn on him and accept a new rider that promises to feed it even choicer morsels than what it is being fed right now. Or he just might get saddle sores and need to come off his horse, in which case the horse might bolt and leave him high and dry. It is for this reason perhaps that he is unwilling – saddle sores or not – to get off his horse.

    Now, I would not be so presumptuous as to give anybody advice in matters as important as these. But I would hope that our cowboy pays a little bit more attention to the cattle for after all if there were no cattle, there would be no cattle drives and no cowboys needed to drive them around. And, he must always keep an eye on the stake holders. Also, on his horse once his friend from Texas has hung up his boots and gone off to write his memoirs.

    As all this becomes much too much complicated to think about, I decide to put on a Nusrat Fateh qawwali. The refrain Allah hoo, Allah hoo helps calm me down a bit.

    Syed Mansoor Hussain has practised and taught medicine in the US. He can be reached at [email protected]
    http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default...4-4-2006_pg3_2


    This guy has a real sense of humour and so deftly he covers the issues!


    "Some have learnt many Tricks of sly Evasion, Instead of Truth they use Equivocation, And eke it out with mental Reservation, Which is to good Men an Abomination."

    I don't have to attend every argument I'm invited to.

    HAKUNA MATATA
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