Chowrangi

As if we didn’t have enough problems of our own, Senate Chairman Farooq H. Naek wants all Pakistanis to learn Arabic. According to him, learning Arabic will turn Pakistanis into pious, God-fearing Muslims. Nothing of course could be further from the truth (the Arab world is full of crooks!). But, in my opinion, he thinks Saudi Arabia will shower billions of dollars upon Pakistan if every Pakistani suddenly becomes proficient in that language.

Now one thing is clear: the Saudis are not fools that they would give part of their wealth to any Muslim country which has Arabic as its national language. They have enough poor Arab countries in their neighbourhood (Yemen and Sudan, for instance) to think of giving good money to Pakistanis who pretend to be better Muslims than they are. They know that most Pakistanis are the scum of the earth (look at Pakistani politicians if you want confirmation of this). Secondly, I want to ask the good Senate Chairman (who belongs to a political party which has leaders who are accused of having looted the country) whether he has taken the trouble to learn Arabic himself or has made his children learn it. If he has (which I strongly doubt), he’ll know how difficult it is to learn a foreign language. Leave alone Arabic, most Pakistanis in the rural areas can’t even speak Urdu (and this, despite sixty three years as an independent state).

So shouldn’t the Senate Chairman be seriously concerned that more than half of his countrymen can’t even speak the national language?