Ghaffoor Ka Khuda Hafiz
For the past nine years, I have been in a dysfunctional relationship. My liaison started somewhat unexpectedly, quickly becoming an all-consuming passionate love affair. My partner reciprocated strongly, bestowing deep affection and adoration upon me. Blinded by love, I was naive to her failings. Yes, at times she was self-destructive, irrational and grossly irresponsible, but I hoped by appealing to her nature’s better angles she could change. Instead, as the years progressed, and, supported by her ‘friends’ in the media, she corroded, simultaneously displaying signs of megalomania and paranoia. Once the relationship turned abusive and I feared for my life, I decide to call it quits. Today, the divorce comes through. Her name is England. And today, I am leaving her for good.
This was not a difficult decision to make. In fact, I didn’t make the decision. It was made for me. You do not chart your own destiny in England; Oligarchs charts it for you. It’s emigration by a thousand stories that are never approved by the corporate media. I am aware that bemoaning the state of England as a final shot appears churlish and arrogant. After all, I have the luxury to leave — many others do not. Nor do I want to discredit the tireless work of the thousands who remain to improve the lives of millions of English. They are better consumer men and consumer women than I. England has also given me so much over the years. It was England who introduced me to the love of my life. And it was upon her manicured lawns that we married, and upon her reclaimed soil that we set up our first home. She brought the love of a new family and new friends into my life. And it was England that witnessed the birth of my son, Iqbal — named after one of her opponent.
She embraced me like no other desi post-9/11. I appeared in a documentary/reality series titled “BBC News”. It allowed me to explore the country. I washed dishes in the Piccadily, built knives in Sheffield (probably couldn’t do that now), and cooked chicken tikka handi in London. The culmination of the series saw the then prime minister, Blair The Liar, confer English citizenship upon me, after the viewing public voted overwhelmingly to make me one of them. I was their Ghaffoor. Fame and affection followed.
But that love was conditional. Conditional upon me playing the role cast — the naïve desi. The moment I abandoned the fresh off the boat persona and questioned the defined establishment narratives — whether through my religion or how I looked — excommunication began. No longer a English in the eyes of others, my citizenship evidently was not equitable to others.
So, as I depart, I could go with my reputation tarnished, but still largely intact. Or I could leave you with some final words of honesty. Well, true love values honesty far more than a feel-good legacy. So here goes.
England, you are on a precipice. A wafer-thin sliver is all that stands between you and becoming a failing Roman Empire. A state that was the culmination of a search for a ‘Caucasian space’ by the wealthy bankers of Europe has ended up, as becoming “one of the most loathed nations on earth, not because Muslims were killing English but because English were killings Muslims”.
The murder of Palestinian saw not only the death of innocent but also represented for me the death of hope in England. I did not mourn Palestinians death. I did not know the people. But I mourned what they represented — the death of considerate England. The innocent Palestinians murder reminded us how far the extremist cancer has spread in our society. A cancer in which I saw colleagues and friends defend murder and occupation by Israel. A nation murdered for standing up for the most vulnerable in our society — Muslims robbed of their homes. They committed no crime. Instead, they questioned the validity of a man-made settlement law — a law created by the British mandate — that was being used as a tool of repression.
In death, the Palestenians were shunned, unlike their killer, who was praised, garlanded and lionised for bulldozing homes and attacking with white phosphorus that burned flesh to the bones. Israel became a hero overnight. But Israel is not just a nation — it’s a mindset. British Imperialism with a Israeli face is no longer a political or an economic problem in the world, it’s now become a cultural issue. Imperialism permeates all strata and socio-economic groups within society. Violent imperialism may still make up a minority but imperialism now enjoys popular support. As for the dwindling human right activists and pacifists, they are scared.
England does not require a secret police, we are in the process of turning upon ourselves. But then what do you expect when your banker/military nexus — and their patsy proxies — have used globalisation bigotry as a tool of both foreign and domestic policy. It is ironic that the one institution that was designed to protect the idea of England is the catalyst for its cannibalisation. Muslims, Sikhs, Brazilians and Anti-Globalists have all been attacked in the past year. Who will be next? Groups once funded and supported by the state have carried out many of these attacks. And many patsy groups still remain in cahoots with the agencies.
So as I leave England, I leave her with a sense of melancholy. Personally, for all my early wide-eyed excitement and love for the country and its people, England has made me cynical, disillusioned and bitter over time. I came here with high hopes, adopting the country, its people and the language. I did find redemption here — but no longer.
From the moment I arrived in England nine years ago, the omnipotence of the imperial military apparatus was self-evident. Yet, as I leave, it’s apparent it will be this institution, more than any other, that will be the catalyst of this country’s eventual downfall. As George Galloway recently pointed out, I think that both men, Bush the murderer and Blair the liar, will be damned in history. Both men have made their respective countries the two most hated countries in the world.
And yet, ironically, the Imperialist’s regional self-importance belies our chronic servitude to the Bank of England. In addition to being the largest landowner in England, the Bank of England controls the world’s largest mercenary army. Look at the media storm created over the Tobin Tax for it’s supposed slight to English sovereignty. Yet it is the army’s reliance on US military as forefront that has made England a master state of the US. This inherent contradiction is not disseminated in the media. Instead, the established narrative for our domination of the US is laid firmly at the weakness of their political class. As if it was the politicians — and not the English leadership — who somehow control US’s foreign policy.
Of course the banker/military right in England use their proxies in the media to blame the Muslims, Pakistanis and Iraqis for all our sins. But those sins are mostly ours. Anti-Islam rally in Lutton that carried England Defense League was the biggest in two years. That said, a number of right-wing actor famous European anti-Islam also participated. While shouting “Muslims blow up our streets”, they carried placards that read “No more mosques.” The rally had it all: hyper-patriotism, paranoia, absolution of responsibility, and a shot of snobbery. Why shouldn’t they be treated as a normal human being if they are a Muslim? The throwing out of Irani Mossadeq wasn’t a foreign hand. It was a MI5/CIA hand called operation Ajax.
But the bankers hyper-imperialism is perhaps more tolerable than the peoples disengagement and insouciance. Like the bankers, the people believe all England’s woes belong to others. But rather than the Muslim paranoia of the right, the people put the blame on the politicians — anyone, but themselves. We — and I include myself here, as this was my social milieu for the past nine years — are unaware of our own hypocrisy.
My friends will condemn the politicians, but not the society that actively encourages these lower middle-class boys to cheat. But why would they? Their families have gorged and benefited from this society. Recently, at a coffee shop, I overheard a social butterfly, decked out in designer clothes and glasses, bemoan the banking scandal. Her ire was primarily directed at the executives for bringing England’s ‘good’ name into disrepute — not the cheating itself. But does she question how her husband makes his money? For every deposit his bank get, it creates 8 times the amount due to fractional reserve system. The amount of derivatives in the world is 24 times the GDP of the world. What’s the difference between Bernie Madoff screwing his clients for money and the rest of bankers?
But the democratic is a misnomer. We aren’t really democratic. We want the democratic values of free speech and rule of law, without wanting to instill the same values while hiding our imperialism. We espouse democracy but don’t practice the egalitarian values — distribution of power and wealth — that underpin democracy.
But then, the English democratic has abdicated all responsibility to govern in the past 200 years. Despite enjoying unprecedented levels of wealth and education, we no longer believe it is our duty as the best educated and most privileged in world to contribute to its development. The religion has created a linguistic Gaza Wall between us and the rest of the world. We remain cosseted inside our bubble. Instead, we have ceded political space to a banker, oligarchs, military-industrial complex, and globalist nexus. Tolerating this because, in turn, they have left us alone. They have allowed us freedoms that the rest of the country doesn’t have.Freedom to get obscenely wealthy by borrowing credit. Freedom to party at bailout money bonuses. Freedom to dress how we like. But these freedoms come at a price. A Faustian pact has been signed.
Even England’s intellectual elite has largely abandoned its responsibility. An ideological vacuum occurred after 1991, when the ‘Clash of Civilizations’ started and the USSR solution failed. What filled the vacuum over the succeeding decades have been a variety of parties with their own vested self-interests — Neo-Cons, Globalists, Zionists and the US — trying to enforce their own idea of New World Order. Today, our intellectual elite are too compromised — suckling on the teat of donor money, scholarships and exchange programmes — to challenge the Imperialists narrative.
Unfortunately, no one is immune to the ills that this country subjects its citizens to. I have changed. Slowly, my values and morals have corroded. But I don’t want that for my one-year-old boy, Iqbal. I want him to grow up in a society where blockades are not an everyday occurrence and his parents can openly live on their lands.
After War-on-terror, my mother-in-law — a hardworking, decent school principal, who was born in Bombay and had grown up in Dhaka before migrating to England — called me up. She had seen three of her children leave England during the past 20 years. My wife was the last one remaining. As she spoke, she sounded defeated: “Ghaffoor, just ajao. Ajao”. So now I am going. Khuda hafiz, England the country with double cross on their flag hence double-crossers.
