Ant & Grasshopper

[Arshad Farhad]

Ant & Grasshopper

Traditional Version
The Ant works hard in the withering heat all summer building its house and laying up supplies for the winter. The Grasshopper thinks the Ant is a fool and laughs & dances & plays the summer away.

Come winter, the Ant is warm and well fed. The Grasshopper has no food or shelter so he dies out in the cold.



Modern Version

The Ant works hard in the withering heat all summer building its house and laying up supplies for the winter. The Grasshopper thinks the Ant's a fool and laughs & dances & plays the summer away.

Come winter, the shivering Grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the Ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others are cold and starving.

Geo TV, BBC, ARY, CNN show up to provide pictures of the shivering Grasshopper next to a video of the Ant
in his comfortable home with a table filled with food. The World is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can this be that this poor Grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?

Asma Jahangir stages a demonstration in front of the Ant's house.

Imran Khan goes on a fast along with other Grasshoppers demanding that Grasshoppers be relocated to warmer climates during winter.

Amnesty International and Chief Justice Iftikhar criticizes the Pakistan Government for not upholding the fundamental rights of the Grasshopper.

The Internet is flooded with online petitions seeking support to the Grasshopper (many promising Heaven and
Everlasting Peace for prompt support as against the wrath of God for non-compliance) .

Opposition MPs stage a walkout. Islamic parties call for "Hartal" in Frontier and Baluchistan demanding a Judicial Enquiry.

MQM Coalition in Sindh immediately passes a law preventing Ants from working hard in the heat so as to bring about equality of poverty among Ants and Grasshoppers.

Sheikh Rasheed allocates one free coach to Grasshoppers on all Pakistan Railway Trains, aptly named as the 'Grasshopper Shalimar'.

Finally, the President drafts an ordinance ' Anti State Terrorism Against Grasshoppers Act' [ASTAGA],
with effect from the beginning of the winter. Mobilizes state agencies.

Punjab Govt. makes ' Special Reservation ' for Grasshoppers in Educational Institutions & in Government Services.

The Ant is fined for failing to comply with ASTAGA and having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, it's home is confiscated by the NAB and handed over to the Grasshopper in a ceremony covered by PTV.

Nawaz Sharief calls it ' A Triumph of Justice '.
Benazir calls it ' Democratic Justice '.
MQM calls it the ' Revolutionary Resurgence of the Downtrodden'
Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz invites the Grasshopper to address the National Assembly.

Many years later...

The Ants have since migrated to the US, Canada , UK and Middle East, have worked harder then they did before set up a multi-million dollar business.

1000s of Grasshoppers still die of starvation despite reservation somewhere in Pakistan ..

As a result of loosing lot of hard working Ants and feeding the Grasshoppers, Pakistan is still a developing country!!!

[Babar]

I agree to a certain extent that those who migrated have a bigger percentage of Ants but those who are currently ruling the country are definitely not Ants. This is misconception through which Ants sometimes go, especially the ones living abroad and having a cut off from the day-to-day life. The current rulers are actually the core grasshoppers in disguise of Ants and always sat on top of the Ants accusing them of corruption and then chewing up their resources, or transferring their resources to the institutions they belong (whether army, bureaucracy, or World Bank).

Unfortunately our media has suddenly taken a u-turn and is now trying to bend the thinking pattern of the Ants to the one that media wants to enforce for the reasons and benefits best known to them. The ants are seeing the political scene only through the eyes of the media to form any conclusive opinion. They are unable to understand the shift of the channels where Kamran Khan and Mir Hamid Ali are giving words in the mouth of the rulers as if helping them to come out as Ants. The same team was yesterday (i.e. pre-arrival of Benazir) seen trying to portray the current rulers as Grasshoppers and staging demonstrations. P. J. Mir on ARY is now giving Pervaiz Ilahi (Grasshopper of Nawaz Sharif turned Grasshopper of Musharraf) a chance to clear his point and hurl a volley of accusations without questioning Pervaiz Ilahi that he was pardoned by Musharraf and that too without even passing any ordinance (NRO). All these somersaults have totally confused the genuine Ants and they lost the ability to be analytical and realize the shift of the media.

Media realized it very quickly that they have the independence to show anything under "Enlightenment" (e.g. filmi awards, cat walks, Dubai Show, London Show, Meera Show, Nirma Show, India Show – anything that shows and reveals rather than hides or protect), but they should not try to become a threat to The Grasshopper Family running the show i.e. the ruling janta. Today there are no Ants like Faiz or Faraz to come on 14th August and we are left with only Bollywood and bathroom singers to explain how Pakistan was created.

Very recently media received a severe beating and got the message very loud and clear that media should not consider themselves as the fourth pillar and limit themselves to the Enlightenment Philosophy. Now they are in the bandwagon and have also reached “mafahimat” with The Grasshopper Family to arrange sitcoms and guide (or misguide) to safeguard the interests of The Grasshopper Family.

Let’s discuss the true picture – not just what the media is busy telling.

• Current Ruler: Biggest Grasshopper.
He hopped and grabbed the govt. and gave pardon to the other civilian grasshopper who was convicted by Military Grasshopper's special courts stopping the plane from landing. The beauty of the Military Grasshoppers is that they always bring their own courts to pass their own decisions to grab the Ants, capture their resources, and grab other grasshoppers as well until they join The Military Grasshopper (e.g. a no. of accused under NAB and civil courts such as Rao Sikander, Pervaiz Ilahi, Chaudhry Shujaat, Faisal Sauleh Hayat, Aftab Sherpao, Mushahid Hussain, Shaikh Rasheed, and the list goes on and on)

The independent media did not ask why the pardon was given to the old grasshopper if he was stopping plane’s landing? What about the other Ants who were in the plane and wanted to see justice for endangering their lives? Did the incident happen as it was narrated or it was used by the Military Grasshopper to hop-in? Why the grasshoppers facing the NAB cases became innocent when they joined The Grasshopper? Why that pardon is not being questioned by the media?

• Prime Minister: Again, he is on the payroll of World Bank (WB Grasshopper like Moin Qureshi) and implanted in the country as an Ant. Medical students can relate it to the Test Tube Grasshopper except that it got donors from two constituencies. He got elected from two places which he never saw nor visited in his lifetime or even met the Ants living there.

Media never asked the WB Grasshopper that when his existence is Illegitimate and the democratic DNA already distorted, how can he bring True Democracy and Law & Order for the Ants he doesn’t even belong.

The Magic of the WB Grasshopper is that when the world knows how politically unstable the country is and the level of law & order situation, the stocks in Pakistan are going up. Ants, being more educated and wise, are left wondering as how can the stocks go up with no investment coming in and highly insecure investment environment. Is the Economy going up, or only the Stocks? If only the Stocks are going up, independent of local investments, then is it a Good Economy or "Satta". A big population of Ants had already been ripped off their savings by the policies of WB Grasshopper and the Satta going on. He gave IMF the loans back (so called breaking the beggary pot) and got new loans in a bigger beggary pot - meaning the old debt getting paid with the new debt to make sure that IMF do not lose anything because of old debt turning into bad debt. Now rest of the life Ants will have to pay the money that has been borrowed by the WB Grasshopper on the new credit card at an APR that only the WB Grasshopper knows until the next govt. comes in.

• Today media is questioning why amnesty is being given to the accused (not convicted) but media don't have the courage to ask the Military Grasshopper and the WB Grasshopper as why THEY should not be accused and tried for instituting the charges and, despite spending all the money of the Ants under the banner of investigation, did not prove a single charge. If the charges were fake and politically instituted then why the Ants were ripped-off their hard earned savings? If true, then why the cases could not finalize in the last so many years. Who is more corrupt? The accused who were not convicted, or the Accuser Ruling Grasshoppers who spent more money under the banner of investigation and then finally taking the charges away to legitimize themselves and their acts of the last 5 years. Will it be true to infer that the Accusers placed the charges for political arm twisting and hence the ruling Grasshoppers should be prosecuted?

• One big difference between the civilian Grasshoppers and the Military Grasshoppers is that at least civilian grasshoppers bring people from the population of ants and grasshoppers. Today, Military Grasshopper has other military grasshoppers in top management positions in all the institutions (WAPDA, KESC, PIA, Ministry of Interior, Industries, Real Estate business, Privatization, Construction (FWO, NLC) - even in Federal Public Service Commission) to manage the resources of Ants and bring lions share to only one institution i.e. Army who is already being paid from Ants pockets to serve the nation as well as themselves. Unfortunately, in all Military Grasshoppers' rule nation lost its lands whether lands of West Pakistan in 1965, East PK and West PK lands in 1970-71, Siachin Check Posts, or Kargill adventure. No civilian or political grasshopper was there until the Military Grasshoppers brought them in to clean their mess. The deterrent that army enjoys is again because of the Civilian – call him Ant or Grasshopper but he saved the nation from many threats.

Lesson:
Don't get confused by the media who is showing grasshoppers as ants...all the rulers in general are grasshoppers but a lesser evil would be the one from the people. He/She may have the tendency to become a grasshopper but we need to see that among the population of the ants who does not have a level of grasshopperness whether in Customs, Railway, Media, Press, Police Stations, Post Office, Banks, Hospitals, KESC, Private Jobs, personal lives. Aren't the people working as grasshoppers and getting commissions, bribes, kickbacks etc. If elections happen, are we going to import people or get the leaders from what we have under the banner of Ants. If we are corrupt we will see corruption at the level of rulers as well and have to live with the fact while trying to plug-in the holes by using our vote and not letting the Military or WB Grasshoppers come and accuse us.

[Riaz Haq]

Very creative. I like the modern version. I think the ants send home more than $5 billion a year that makes up about 22% of earnings through export of goods and services.

[Babar]

It is unfortunate that emergency has been imposed in Pakistan by bringing a brand new PCO but at least it will help to identify who the Grasshoppers are, how they were hiding behind the mask of Ants, and how they again imposed themselves on the rights of the Ants and their resources. Actually civilians in Pakistan are the Ants. Civilians are back in the cold storage and now they may even have to go to the military barbar shop to get the haircut which can identify them from far away so that they are treated according to their status....may be they are supposed to get their heads shaved and look like real Ants and hence treated accordingly by teh Grasshoppers.

[Suhaib Jalis Ahmed]

From my perspective, Pakistan's political scene is plagued with grasshoppers. I cant see a single ant in the current scenario. It is time that the silent majority of ants, whether inside or outisde Pakistan, take control.

[Babar]

Even in the strongest and sincerist relationship, when a child cry mother feeds.
Leadership doesn't come on the door step requesting the people to take it. Leaders take the initiative themselves, participate, get vocal, sit with the masses, give personal sacrifices of time/effort/family and then make a difference. A journey is required to taste the appreciation. An audit is required as what the majority is and what it should expect from itself.