My brother and his wife had gone to Canada to visit their son and daughter-in-law and were stuck under the coronavirus lockdown. After initial irritation due to sudden internment, it became lifelong learning as they witnessed the discipline of Canadians and how the government takes care of its citizens during pandemic distress and shock for those at home and stranded around the globe.
He narrated how Canadians received generous financial assistance from more than one agency. The purpose was simply to retain payment until the state takes a decision after the pandemic is over. The Canadian government sent $5000 for each person to their embassies abroad to help stranded nationals till return home. They were repatriated free of cost as it was a rescue from distress and not a happy homecoming.
The method and thoughtfulness in helping those stuck in lockdown were impressive and touching. The government went to great lengths in facilitating stranded and sick Canadians. It was an objective lesson in compassion, helpfulness and genuine concerns.
Compare this to Pakistan with the bungling, reflex actions and jitters in which everybody in the federal or provincial governments faced the pandemic threat personally and officially. Panic, haze, temporizing and aimless flailing marked the initial reactions topped by all sorts of professional and amateur medical opinions marketed by newly found medical geniuses of all shades.
The state gradually began to sense the scale of the impending epidemic. Except for the likes of Dr Sania Nishtar, everyone who spoke in their official and political wheels began to bend, break or squeak under pressure.
They have built up a hoarse chorus of discordant notes sending waves of confusion all over the country. Hesitation, half-thought and conceptual haze has led to comic confusion like the ludicrous attempts to differentiate between lockdown, partial lockdown, smart lockdown and selected lockdown.
This has been followed by the selected opening of businesses, public transport and the sort, making it a mishmash of mutually defeating and contradictory measures which make no sense to the enforcer and the enforced.
While this royal riot was on, the government decided to repatriate stranded Pakistanis abroad. PIA is charging three times the normal fare, adding insult to injury for evacuated compatriots was quarantine in turgid conditions on their expense.
This is not the time for the photoshoot nor does the pandemic lend itself to gaining political capitals. It is a mounting humanitarian tragedy and once it explodes, there will be massive suffering, pain and death. It takes genuine empathy, concern and an all encompassing benevolent state of mind to deal with this pandemic. We must save lives first, food and poverty come next. Compassion touches hearts, not pockets.
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