Refleksi : Dulu Marie Antionette di Perancis bilang terhadap kaum miskin :
"Bila mereka tidak ada roti, bisa makan kue". NKRI juga punya Marie Antionette,
baru-baru ini beliau katakan kepada ibu-bu miskin: "Tidak seharusnya makan
nasi". Rupanya dunia Marie Antionette tak banyak bedanya dari zaman dulu
sampai sekarang.
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2010\04\04\story_4-4-2010_pg3_5
Sunday, April 04, 2010
ANALYSIS: Qu'ils mangent de la brioche -Mir Mohammad Ali Talpur
In just four months in 2009, senators' foreign trips cost the
exchequer Rs 22 million. Only Rs 180 million would be needed to provide toilets
and water taps for the country's 70,000 schools devoid of these basic facilities
Marie Antoinette was born to Francis I and Empress Maria Theresa of
Austria on November 2, 1755. Her marriage to Dauphin Louis-Auguste on May 16,
1770, was lavishly celebrated in the Chapelle Royale in Versailles. She was
presented with magnificent jewels valued at 2 million livres. The livre at the
time of its replacement by the franc was worth, in today's money, about $ 4 per
livre.
On May 10, 1774, King Louis XV died of smallpox; Louis-Auguste and
Marie Antoinette became the rulers. At the time of King Louis XVI's coronation
at Reims, people were protesting food shortages and Marie Antoinette said,
"S'ils n'ont plus de pain, qu'ils mangent de la brioche" ("If they have no
bread, let them eat cake"). She certainly was not joking and only said what
anyone in her position naturally would, for the simple reason that their lives
are so insulated that they cannot even imagine that the people can go hungry.
Her life had been spent in splendid isolation, insulated from neediness and
poverty, so how was she to know what starvation or penury meant?
On July 14, 1789, a large mob marched upon the symbol of royal
authority in Paris, the Bastille Prison, and seized control of it. Louis XVI
was arrested on August 13, 1792. He was tried for treason on December 11 and
guillotined on January 17, 1793. In August, 1793, Marie Antoinette was
imprisoned. On the morning of October 16, 1793, after trial she was forced into
a tumbrel and paraded through the streets of Paris for over an hour before
reaching the Place de la Révolution where she was executed. Her head was
exhibited to a cheering crowd.
The rulers here do not have Marie Antoinette's pedigree but they
are more pompous and isolated from the people than she ever was. On March 27,
the president and the prime minister appealed for observance of the Earth Hour,
quite oblivious of the fact that people have been observing their government's
enforced unlimited 'Earth Hours' for two years now. Only the Presidency, Prime
Minister House and places exempted from enforced Earth Hours can afford to
observe such niceties.
It was this appeal that reminded me of Marie Antoinette and her
"qu'ils mangent de la brioche". Most cities have at least 8-10 hours or more of
Earth Hour daily; celebrating Earth Hour is an exercise for those countries
that do not suffer power cuts. This is not the only thing that shows their
apathy and disconnect from the people and their miseries. They have paid
lip-service to the problems of missing persons, of persecution of minorities,
of problems of violence against women and children, of food scarcity, clean
drinking water, infant and maternal mortality and energy crisis but have done
precious little to remedy them. Backtracking on promises is their forte.
The rulers and elite live lives completely immune from the
hardships that people endure daily. Some years back when the price of pulses
hit the sky, a local TV channel went around asking the upper strata ladies and
parliamentarians about pulse prices; they either did not know or quoted
ridiculously low prices. How are the elite to know about the hunger pangs of an
empty stomach or the agony of a missing person's family? They lead insulated
lives, not by accident but deliberately. In a Daily Mirror cartoon, the famous
character Andy Capp tells his wife Florrie, who is labouring away, to close the
door as he cannot see her work so hard. They avert their eyes from the
appalling misery and live in denial of the grim reality.
The State Bank has advised a reduction in government size, which is
highly unlikely to be heeded. The expenditure on the staff and household of the
president has risen from Rs 75 million in 1999 to Rs 390 million now, i.e.
three crore rupees monthly. The horde of ministers, advisers and special
assistants who cost the exchequer Rs 24 million then, now cost Rs 3 billion. In
1999, total expenses for the National Assembly were Rs 250 million but now only
the travelling, conveyance and air-ticket allowances are Rs 645 million. The
1999 expenses are for comparison's sake only as they too were very high even
then.
The prime minister was allocated Rs 958 million, or Rs 80 million a
month, for 2008-09's foreign travels alone, but ended up spending Rs 1.2
billion or Rs 10 crore monthly. From September 2008 to March 2009, the
president's travels cost over Rs 230 million. On reinforcing security at the
President House, Rs 200 million were spent and for the personal residence Rs 40
million. In just four months in 2009, senators' foreign trips cost the
exchequer Rs 22 million. Only Rs 180 million would be needed to provide toilets
and water taps for the country's 70,000 schools devoid of these basic
facilities.
The people suffer immeasurably and interminably due to the enforced
Earth Hours. Children and the infirm suffer the most; children's education
suffers irreparably and elderly people's already difficult lives become
agonising. This enforced idleness not only hits the economic health of people
but seriously affects their physical and mental health by triggering
psychiatric problems like depression; little wonder suicide rates have jumped.
The people are permanently in a lose-lose situation while the rulers remain
eternally in a win-win one. Last year, reports stated that Raja Pervaiz Ashraf,
allegedly, bought a London flat for £ 4.3 million. If the rulers were only
corrupt and extravagant but not inept and incompetent too, some progress could
have been made.
In stark contrast to the rulers and elite here, when Che Guevara
left Cuba in April 1965, resigning as minister and commissar to struggle for
the rights of the oppressed people of the world, he wrote to Fidel Castro:
"Wherever I am, I will feel the responsibility of being a Cuban revolutionary,
and as such I shall behave. I am not sorry that I leave my children and my wife
nothing material. I am happy it is that way. I ask nothing for them, as I know
the state will provide enough for their expenses and education." Here even the
nazims, during their tenure, loot to their heart's content. People of Che's
propriety and integrity may demand and get sacrifices from the people, but
those who live in vulgar luxury at the expense of the people can only expect
Marie Antoinette's fate.
Mir Mohammad Ali Talpur has an association with the Baloch rights
movement going back to the early 1970s. He can be contacted at
[email protected]
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