Inverse to distance
There will be so much winning that all will get tired of winning and beg, "Stop! We can't take this [the winning] anymore." The heads will spin.
And that is exactly what is happening. The heads ARE spinning with the circus in Washington DC. After waiting seven long years to shoot down Obamacare, the Republicans finally get the chance, only to bail out from voting at the last minute because they were not prepared after having seven years to prepare. Oh Paul Ryan, the new architect of healthcare in America – what will happen to you? Well, President Trump's official tweetedict (edict by way of Twitter) discreetly tells everyone to tune in to watch Justice With Judge Jeanine (no, not Judge Judy, though…) on Fox News (@FoxAndFrineds) where the show host Jeanine Pirro tears up House Speaker Paul Ryan to pieces. So, Trump is now tipping us off and letting Fox do the summary executions. And when the conservative Fox News rips up a Republican, one can imagine the mayhem behind closed doors.
Remember the saying, "Beware of what you want, because it is only a question of time that you WILL get it"? It's like you wait seven years for the love of your life, and when she finally says "Yes, I will marry you", you realise you didn't save enough to even buy a pair of shoes.
"Oh my goodness! What have we done?" Perhaps some Trump supporters/voters are silently saying this as they (still) sport red coloured Make America Great Again caps and flannel check shirts while chewing tobacco and driving pick-up trucks.
Meanwhile, across the pond, Brexit is getting real. But why fret? It's not that this is the first Brexit. In fact, there were exactly 52 well-celebrated, well-accepted, but poorly carved out Brexits which are celebrated in 52 countries across the globe with 52 brand new national anthems. It's called the Commonwealth. It's just that the latest one happened AFTER so many Europeans, as part of the fraternal European Union, came to the shores of the UK. Fear not, beneath the polished Englishman sipping tea with biscuit, there is the Anglicised version of the hillbilly, quietly ignoring the fact that the reverse withdrawal may need to happen for the Brits scattered all over Europe.
The nationalism weighs into The Netherlands too, as Gert Wilders screams. Just curious, do Donald Trump, Boris Johnson and Geert Wilders share the same views due to their similar hairstyle? That explains Obama's crew cut. . .
But why do we in Bangladesh care about all these? We don't – apart from the element of amusement that we are not alone. But that's because our emotions are inversely proportional to distance.
But why do I care? Well, I do for five days, because I am in London and the distance to tragedy is small. I'm at the Westminster less than 48 hours after the attack there. Had it not been for the chopper hovering above, I would never have known that it was not another tourist thronged, business as usual day in London.
The Union Jack is at half mast. There are solemn gatherings in front of the exact locations where the victims were rammed over and police officer Keith Palmer fell. I couldn't help feel the pain, the sorrow. Because I am there. I share my feelings, photos and a short video on social media, only to get flak for not doing the same for all that's happening at home, or Syria, or Iraq, or. .
Again, feelings are inversely proportional to distance. On top of that, TV is sanitised and the horrors of Mosul or Aleppo or Chechnya or Paris or Istanbul or Brussels never quite reach the living room.
Hence, as all hell breaks loose in Sylhet, I am numb in the Sylhet of the West, because I am so far from the real Sylhet despite the magnitude of the tragedy. As I fly home, Azimpur, Sylhet, Sitakunda, the RAB HQ . . . are all starting to get very, very real. What is scarier is that there are dens getting discovered just about every few days.
We celebrate our independence, but I think we have a lot more that we need to be independent of. . .
The writer is an engineer at Ford & Qualcomm USA and CEO of IBM & Nokia Siemens Networks Bangladesh turned comedian (by choice), the host of ATN Bangla's The Naveed Mahbub Show and ABC Radio's Good Morning Bangladesh, the founder of Naveed's Comedy Club.
E-mail: naveed@naveedmahbub.com