Pleasures of Wealth and Pains of Poverty
By Amber Ghaffar • Jul 20th, 2008 • Category: Misc • 31 CommentsJust a while before i was watching fondly an interview of Famous event manager Zareen Khalid (famous for her shadi and mehndi managements ) .almost speechless i was imagining how much extra money these UPPER CLASSIAs have for their TASTE and standard maintenance .at the same time glimpse of those news headings of suicides due to economic pressure were running in my frontal cortex.
I was just thinking again and again COULD i ever get a chance to see these UPPER CLASSIAS faces ,how they react after reading the news of suicides due to poverty .do they really read those newspapers who publish such terrible and shameful news. The 3 main reasons for attempted and completed suicides in 2005 were
1) Domestic Problems, 2) Admonishment and 3) Unemployment.
In 2006, however, Unemployment became the second most common reason and Admonishment the third (an extract from Report By Aleyha Ahmed, HRCP Intern 2007 “Trend Analysis of Human Rights Violations- 2005 & 2006″)
www.hrcp-web.org/hrcpDetail_2.cfm?catId=166&catName=Reports it was so emotionally painful to listen all this and at the same time thinking about the people who are dying and killing not only their ownself but also their loved ones just because they dont have a less than 1 percent cost of these SO CALLED EVENTS in their pockets .
Think about it 5 or 6 lacs event management …what would be its 1 percent I am not good at mathematics but i do know that a human (i still consider these poor creatures human) living in some lower class area of Karachi, Lahore , Pindi , gujranwala etc dont even earn this 1 percent. Do they ever feel embarrassment for a single moment for such taste which is infact test for the lower class s courage and patience that how long they could resist this embarrasment of not affording AATA or books or new shoes to their poor kids and when they move to STORES TO BUY rapid and less painful poison. .
Respectful Zareen khalid (amina haq is her niece) and her lot belongs to upper classias.her minimum charges is perhaps in THOUSANDS …(3 lac compare Jugan kazim mentioned imagine 70 thousand as her minimum ).
…..
does this article of mine ,jumbled emotional tone of mine, could have enough strength and stimuli to change their tastes which cost millions .(i belong to middle class family and recently we renovated our kitchen that took more than 50 thousand ) hmmmm around 5 days before i saw a masterpiece of ASHFAQ AHMED “fahmida ki kahani” …
I pray to ALLAH dont send any fahmida near to these tastefull events some one inside me says hey amber dont worry security guards are quite active insSHALLAH there would be no FAHMIDA around …..ha fahmida could see it on t.v read about it in newspapers and think about dying of embarrassment or becoming like them thru any means …. latter option is more common and acceptable in our society of morals…………..
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Hmm final year medical student (its 2008) and its almost like a romance for me to write .so i am here to satisfy my inner expression.though i am not that much of age but my biography is quite long and boring enough to cry .I am a mediocre and sufferer of DREAM WORLD UNLIMITED FANTASIES ,want to serve humanity in true sense not in words but by actions and want to see revolution in my homeland ,my Pakistan.so i need grooming and for which i am here on Pakspectator and lets see where my passion leads me ..........I AM CONFUSED...
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interesting
Welcome on the board dear. Nice addition. Keep writing.
Be consistent with what ever you are trying to share with us. Try to follow grammatical rules and regulations to keep readers attention on the topic. Some time capital font and some time Urdu is not very welcoming from readers. Inshallah, you will learn with time.
O.k i shall try my best .In fact i don’t believe in following rules and regulations when it comes to style .but i could understand that this Urdu usage (which i love using ) might trouble with some one who don’t understand this language.thanks for this positive criticism.
one thing more i want you and all others to comment on this topic which i tried to surface and generate a healthy mind opening debate .
amber ghaffar
If you have face reading ability, then see pictures of every politician on internet search, you will find the answer. They are hellbent to increase their salaries for a slab of another 20% if allowed. Poor got justice through Iftikhar Ch. and they for their survival not letting him into the supreme court.
poor never reach IFTIKHAR chowdery.
Yes Poors never reach CJP Iftikhar Ch but Iftikhar Ch reached them, through reading news papers and watching TV.
One man can not change fate of poors because one day he has to leave his position and who will take care after he will leave his position. We have to change system, people’s attitude, poeple’s perceptions, people’s habits and customs…If we are serious to take our country in right direction. Slogans doesn’t work in real life. Some thing practically is required now.
People don’t have trust on existing system, either it is rich or poor. Rich uses bribe for getting work done but Poor can only cry.
Saleem ,why we do not understand that justice is not by dint of a personality .my point is we have to come out of this dream ..CJ politicized now ,why he is standing with this nawaz sharif .why dont any one consider Naeem Bukhari s comments .its too much
either country will be broken into pieces (I say it with pain ,but this is what is obvious ,MAY ALLAH NEVER LET THIS HAPPEN Secondly i want readers to view NAZEER NAJI s articles in which he constantly highlighting the situation Pak facing esp at borders he is one of most senior lot of Article writers ) OR v have to ultimately stand for our right ,i believe in REVOLUTION and this could save us from further destruction.and for revolution we need education and understanding that what PLAY IS STAGED and FROM WHEN THEY ARE GIVING US SAME MESSAGE AND WHEN THEY ARE GONNA STOP.AND leader ..which WE DONT HAVE . ..and they are not gonna STOP EVER.their Lust for Wealth is not that small that it could be accomodated in SWISS BANKS . their new generation is READY TO RULE US …BILAWAL ,AASFA, SHAHBAZ S SON AND NAWAZ SONS AND DAUGHTERS.
have you ever ponder why on arrival of every MARSHAL LAW or dictator ship people feel good .(atleast where i live people consider it better than these politicians i.e billion million dollars folks ) ..because every time we think that this time SOME THING NEW WOULD HAPPEN.
IN the beginning of MUSH reign especially in 1st 2 or 3 years SAB THEEK HE slogan was running every where .and then on certain bold steps for satisfaction for his lust for wealth and power .people started turning out of him.
Dear Amber,
After reading your reply…. I can reach to conclusion that there is some thing missing, who can control all these rulers (Dictators or Politicans)… and i.e. Pure and Clear System.
If you will ever study subject Total Quality Management…. You will find some new trend i.e. Assurance…. Not control. We can not control things now. We need to ensure that system should work properly.
Anyway due to lack of time, I’m stopping here. See you some other day.
Amber Ghaffar, it is nice to see your post and then on this menace of “POVERTY” and also the menace of “WEALTH” and the adverse outcomes of both. The way I see it is this. We as people are just stuck at that infantile stage and refuse to grow out of our ‘Ids’. And as is usual; ‘Id’ is beyond care for others; this aspect of any personality is entirely unconscious and includes of the instinctive and primitive behaviors(BY GOD WE ARE ANYTHING BUT PRIMITIVE!). We are limited to ourselves and we want to have for ourselves wahtever but we want it now. However, immediately satisfying these needs is not always realistic or even possible. We are ruled entirely by the pleasure principle, we find ourselves grabbing things we want out of other people’s hands to satisfy our own cravings. Such behavior is both disruptive and socially unacceptable(we are not willing to reject it, thus strive for it and suffer or make others suffer!).
Somehow, we have victimised ourselves by the wrong notion that WE ARE WHAT WE HAVE, in other words our possessions have surpassed ourselves / our persons; things are no more a means they have become an end. TO REVERSE THIS DISEASE WE ALL WITHOUT ANY EXCEPTION MUST LEARN TO TELL / CONVINCE OURSELVES THAT - ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!
Feeling nice after reading your comments and thanks for commenting on my request .
i believe in solutions.
we put good taste in shelve of higher standard or etc.and just for satisfying this taste one needs to throw huge sum of money in bags of these creators of TASTES.what is the way out how could we stop this .and this is the real concern.truth is that we are part of this.as i told in my blog that in my own home some one renovated old one into a decor kitchen( i intentionally did not mention real expense due to certain reasons but tried to give an idea) .We all love to live on beautiful place (suffering for PARADISE is more or less same desire) but at the expense of what .i know and i have seen in hospitals where our senior fellows tried to FUND for expensive drugs or other things,for which they had to ask lots of persons cause usually no one is much interested .what would be cost of that medicine but the point is we have very small pocket for poor and a very large pocket when we have to show it to gain profits or in layman language when we have to SHOW OFF.
is fulfilling such taste HALAL in society where people are suiciding cause they don t have any thing to eat except sorrow ,misery and its sorts .
Interesting note amber. However, i just have a question & would love to view your comments
What makes a wealthy man “responsible” for the miseries of a common poor man?
I believe that poverty is not our problem , literacy is. The poor people who’re committing suicides are not because the rich tell’em to. its the kind of destiny they choose for themselves.
I too come from a middleclass background and know too well of the problems of the class you’re throwing light on.
Let’s flash back to 1947, when the father of the nation raised a slogan “Unity, faith & discipline”, tell me honestly if we (the ordinary, poor, common man) have any of the traits? And trust me, had we followed what our father had told us 60 years back, things would’ve been completely different.
Now, take this for an example,
1) it takes a bunch of few to form a labor union, that could result in collapsing the whole system.
2) each one of us looks for short cuts to getting to their destiny (which is impossible) as Mr. Aftab Alam also mentioned.
3) each one of us is an OPPORTUNITist >> i hope you’re getting what i’m trying to say here.
let me elaborate > for a mere 5000, 50000, 500000,5000000 or whatever…. we sell our faiths, beliefs, unity…. we can screw anyone and anybody without even realising the after math / outcome of what our actions would do to another 10, 100, 1000, 10000, 100000 people…. And discussing discipline is more like banging head on a wall, so lets just drop it.
We blow ourselves up for whatever reasons and destroy so many other homes, lives, my god….
In our ignorance or whatever would you try to “justify” it with, its too difficult to buy for me.
We steal electricity (kunda system / altering meter readings), we don’t pay water bills and there are so many other things, which on a macro scale affects the whole economy.
Okay, leave everything, you definitely must’ve heard of the kid killed the other day in lahore, kite case.
people are flying kites without having the slightest of realization that it could take away a child’s life.
who are these people? just common ordinary, senseless people like me & many others like me..
And the kind of people we PRODUCE, are the one’s who’ll be someday, somewhere our leaders (as our current government)
These are just my opinions and what i personally feel on the subject.
pardon me, if i sound like personally attacking someone, i’m not.
Khurram, the point I was trying to make was simply this – as a society we all must come to this realization that life is not all about just having (acquiring) and we humans are much more than what we have. A desire, uncurbed, to possess at any cost results in the rich trampling over the poor and the poor aiming at the rich’s jugular (a condition luckily still not quite there but seems to be reaching us speedily). IT can be prevented only if we all learn to accept the truth that – ENOUGH IS ENOUGH – and learn to share a bit with others.
Let me disagree with you that those economically less fortunate among us are to be blamed for their condition. How is it any of a person’s fault to be born in a poor family? You said you were raised in a “middle class” family – right? Now, were you not blessed with better opportunities than someone whose parents just could not provide anything compareable to what you had? Let’s suppose that circumstances of your birth were swapped with a poor person’s; would you still be as successful as you sound? You will agree, most likely not. Your example is given as a generic case and not to embarrass or insult you; it could be anyone including, perhaps, myself.
Now, a question arises if a wealthy person should be blamed for his wealth and be ashamed of being wealthy? Answer will be perhaps yes, depending upon how the wealth is made. Most of the time rich become rich by benefiting from a favourable economic condition and being in a more (comaprative) advantageous position; which is hardly their own doing. Since, they are beneficiary of circumstances they owe some of it to the society.
Suposing that the wealth made is all made by verifiable fair and legal means. In this case, is it alright for rich to spend their wealth as they like? Perhaps, yes. However, one could still think that for the rich to do things in style (almost vulgar luxury etc.) while many many others in the society die of easily preventable diseases, suffer from hunger, without sustainable access to clean and safe drinking water, extreme poverty, children unable to even take benefit of primary schools. In such situation, yes the wealthy must be blamed for hoarding their wealth inspite of all these societal malaise. After all, it can be argued that most of wealth comes at the expense of the poor.
I chased you as u told the link in our exchange of ideas about Kashmala-Sumera issue. I’ll congratulate u for writing your first post. I appreciate mature comments by Saleem Khan, Aftab S Alam, Khurram and Fareed Masood.
On this topic I will add that ‘Equality’ is not a divine design. Without going deep into philosophical debate on this point, I will mention that Allah has created every human, a unique entity, not only physiologically but with different social and economic situation. Like Bertrand Russell, I will not ask “WHY” is this, as it will lead to atheism, but let us see the reality which is ‘in-equality’ all around.
Since all the wise people in the world have always tried to make this world better for humans, various ideas, concepts and theories were propounded by thinkers. Karl Marx’s theory of ‘equal distribution of wealth’ became very popular. Its strength can be gauged by the fact it governed half of the world for seventy years. U.S.S.R, China and many other socialist, communist countries adopted this theory according to which private ownership was banned. But, we also know this ideology collapsed and the last country which continued to adopt socialist tenets of economy, China, also transformed its system and now its wide open for the rest of the world.
I do not feel any problem in disparity between rich and the poor as it’s a natural phenomenon, but, what is needed? The answer is to have competitive conditions in a state where everybody may have opportunities to rise by utilizing his/her own skills and hard work. There are hundreds of examples in Western world where people hailing from lower strata of society touched skies in material progress.
The problem in less-developed countries like Pakistan is the system, based on exploitation. I find traces of economic woes of the masses in political situation. When I talk about political situation, it does not necessarily mean the politicians but the army which actively played politics in all 60 years of the country’s age.
Instead of despising the ‘haves’, lets not be pessimist. If majority of us are from lower income groups, it should not make us disgruntled. The need of the hour is to strive for transforming our society into egalitarian society where everybody should have fair chance, level playing field to excel by using fair and legal means. If any reader may find any sentence confusing, please let me know. I will elaborate that particular issue.
CONTINUE WRITING AMBER. SHABAASH.
who is fahmida,who is zareen khalid,who is amna haq.who is ashfaq ahmmed.dear do you mind giving bit detail of these chaps,as i want to share my experience on the issue.
I think that equal distribution of wealth is, perhaps, asking for too much and against uhman nature. However, what I consider absolutely workable is what Marx recommends - from everyone according to their ability to everyone according to their needs. This is closest to what Islamic system would expect as well.
When you talk about egalitarianism aren’t you suggesting a willingness on our part, irrespective of our means, to say to ourselves that - ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.
From this basis, the rich can sacrifice a little from their luxuries and the poor can have lesser demands and reduce the chances of eventual clashes between various economic classes.
CORRECTION: PLEASE READ ABOVE - from everyone according to his / her ability to everyone according to his / her needs.
Bill Gates recently gave a speech at a High School about 11 things they did not and will not learn in school. He talks about how feel good, politically correct teachings created a generation of kids with no concept of reality and how this concept set them up for failure in the real world.
Rule 1: Life is not fair - get used to it!
Rule 2: The world won’t care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.
Rule 3: You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won’t be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.
Rule 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.
Rule 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping: they called it opportunity.
Rule 6: If you mess up, it’s not your parents’ fault, so don’t whine about your mistakes, learn from them.
Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren’t as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent’s generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.
Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and they’ll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. This doesn’t bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.
Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don’t get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time.
Rule 10: Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.
Rule 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you’ll end up working for one
Aftab, U r right. There SHOULD be willingness on part of the haves to render some sacrifices for ‘haves-not’
Dr Raza! its good.
Doctor Sahab, isn’t it ironic that we are reminded what Mr. Gates had to tell the American kids in a high school? His statement might be valid for his environment and will hold true for youngsters here too, once that far. We are expecting our graduates (often with Masters, usually with a Bachelors degree) to work as waiters in the fastfood joints and they are gladly doing it. I wonder if they need to be told any more about how cruel and bitter the real life is in Pakistan when no one gives a damn about how hard you worked to earn your degrees.
Lets first make sure that most of our kids here in Pakistan make it to high school and then we will remind them the value of being realistic when starting a working life.
Nice article Amber! You have started quite a discussion here.
Keep up the good work folks!