The Spinning Head » Mirror Mirror On The Wall, Who Is The Most Vacuous Of Them All?
Mirror Mirror On The Wall, Who Is The Most Vacuous Of Them All?
A friend sent the above to me this earlier today. Oddly, the list reminded me of Hassan Nasir.
I know most don't know him. He was once a beautiful Pakistani man, but died after beatings and torture by the Pakistani state during the decades of anti-Communist and anti-progressive pogroms that not only destroyed any hope of an egalitarian and democratic Pakistan, but also opened the door to religio-political shennanigans meant to distract the people from their hunger, their cold, and their slow deaths. Faiz Ahmed Faiz wrote of him. Our 22 boy-toys can't quite live up to that achievement.
As pointed out, the child of the rich chose not to play with the rich, or wallow in the tribial pursuits of entertainment and consumption, but instead, seeing the massive inequalities upon which the privileges if his class depended, he chose to change them.
We need a new list of 22 Pakistani men where the criteria of critical thought, moral courage, moral outrage, indifference to power, and an undying belief on a more equal, humane, and inclusive Pakistan remains. And that they are beautiful to look at. We need a list worthy of the struggles that Pakistan's people are involved in every day – against their dispossession, against their marginalisation, against the erasure of their histories and dreams, against the denigration of their values and hopes. We need to pretty men to look at, but men (and women) who are beautiful because of their conscience, their sacrifices, their voices and their works. We need a perfect cocktail of critical engagement and public service.
22 beautiful men. All subsumed into the consumer marketplace, producers of playthings for the rich, and products of the class that never fails to spit down on the very people it lives off.
Published on April 19, 2015 4:20 pm.