The Immoral Family

Attar Shiraz,
Now you`re nitpicking. If we go by your election criterion, then family businesses everywhere (most US small businesses with less than 100 employees are family-owned and passed down from one generation to the next) are guilty of nepotism and no public business either in the US or in Italy or India or Pak practices nepotism. That`s because an elected board of directors runs the business and appionts the chairman & CEO.
Would Benazir have become the prime minister had her father been an ordinary pakistani? Similarly we can say with a lot of certainty that GW Bush would not have been the republican party candidate if he had not been a Bush. There`s a recent book by Kevin Philips on the Bush dynasty. Check it out.
On Disney, Roy Disney, who supposedly resembles Walt Disney, has a loyal following among a large number of shareholders because he is a Disney. He has engendered basically a coup within the company. Why is he so powerful in a publicly owned company?
Give me some examples of why you say nepotism is strong in ``primitive`` Italy. Make sure no counter examples exist in the ``advanced`` societies.

Re # 28

ZahraJ:

I like to be direct and dont hedge myself under generalized phrases. You commented `there ought to be success stories along with failure stories.` Understanding and rationalizing your life`s successes and failures and putting failures in name of logical lessons (read irrational lessons) are two different things. The facts stands that you cant undermine the importance of issues through telling that you have failed while practicing. That is pretty individualistic and imposition like this may just give us myopic imagery of wannabes.

About all the examples quoted in article of bribery, nepotism, family clashes can easily be compared with those `traditional incidents` in west as well. One just has to come out of the white skin for that.

Ahsan

Dude,

You don`t wanna send money home, don`t. Stop whining.

post#8- satyamvada-
Great stuff. Please don`t waste your time with this illiterate bunch.

Solitude #26 - Ok, I think I need to jump in here. You claim that Bush`s presidency is not a case of nepotism. I would argue that it is, but at a different level. Let me explain -

He got into Harvard because of his daddy
He got into Yale because of his daddy
He did a half-ass job with his daddy`s money and business in his early years
He bought a baseball team with his daddy`s money
Everything he did until he became texas governer has daddy`s shadow

All of his resume leading upto his presidential election reeks of daddy. Big deal that he won the elections on his own. If it weren`t for his daddy, he would not have the resume to show something to american people. And by the way, these days he is running into some trouble, BECAUSE OF HIS DADDY. Why? well, because of his daddy, he was able to skip his service during vietnam.

Now as to your claim that nepotism does not exist in US, lets look at some ``coincidences``:

- Secretary of State Collin Powel`s son is FCC`s Chairman. coincidence?
- Ex-Senator Dole`s wife was the president of American Red Corss. coincidence?
- V.P. Cheney`s wife Lynn sits on the board of a major defense company. coincidence?
- Ex Governor of NY Mario Cuomo`s son became the housing secratary. coincidence?
- Bush`s brother Neil won a muli-million dollar contract telecommunications contract in Korea. Coincidence?
- Kennedy family`s history is that of nepotism. JFK makes his brother attorney general; JFK`s son who was only known for his looks and not for brains becomes the district attorney of the coveted lower manhattan district; their other cousins and sons are running public service firms with nothing more than their last name to their resume.
- President Bush`s daughters get caught for underage drinking. In normal circumstances they would have to spend a night in jail, and the bar owner who sold them drinks would have his license revoked. Nothing like that happens in this case. And they go off to Yale and Ut Austin respectively, in which they got admissions based because of nepotism.
- Ex President Gore`s father Senator Gore ensures a decent resume for his son to someday run for president.
- Ex White House Chief of Staff, John Sununu manages to give his son enough influential posts back in early 90s that he manages to run for senate`s seat in New Hampshire.
- There are hundreds of cases i can point out where powerful actors and actresses sons and daughters get a shot at acting careers BECAUSE of nepotism.
- Finally, if i were to start pointing out the cases of nepotism in the corporate world in US, I will end-up spending my whole evening writing about it and would still not be done. Just to put a case in point, Rupert Murdoch (the biggest media tycoon in the world) has his 22 year old son running a major section of his empire.

I can assure you that nepotism is alive in well in US. However, just like everything else, its done in a more refined way and with much more impact. In other words, unlike in pakistan, there is no pettiness about nepotism in US.

Before we point figures at anyone we must realize that this board belongs to Shiraz. It`s his article that has provoked us all to come here and exchange our perspectives. Someone commented that this article is capturing the crux of the writer`s own experiences. The fact that the said writer is able to narrate a personal experience in such a fashion that he is able to come up with some lessons learned and suggest others to look into it, is commendable. Also, in life there ought to be success stories along with failure stories. Any fool who comes forth considering all his life stories are full of success stories needs to head out to a shrink. This is because all of us may have different interpretation of success and failure. Lastly, the failure of one person can also be his success.

[#20 by soysauce on March 3, 2004 6:19pm PT]``Just about everyone - including the most diehard Bush supporter - would agree that GW is president because his daddy was too. ``- soysauce


I am not a Bush supporter (leave alone a ``diehard`` Bush supporter) and I can tell you that GW Bush Jr. did not become president because of his ``daddy``. Would GW Bush Jr. have become President if his father had not been involved in politics? Its possible. Just like Abe Lincoln, a simple man from Illinois became president, so too can any American born. How is it possible? You stand in front of the American people and you ask them to elect you.

Look up the definition of Nepotism ``favoritism (as in appointment to a job) based on kinship`` (Etymology: French népotisme, from Italian nepotismo, from nepote nephew, from Latin nepot-, nepos grandson, nephew)

Now to your example. Bush Jr`s Presidency is not a case of Bush Sr. going to the white house and saying, I used to work here now its my son`s turn. Bush Jr. was elected because he ran for office and won fair and square (ultra -left wing socialists liberals and the sore Islamists will disagree).

Bush`s election is different from Nawaz Sharif giving his brothers government contracts. This is different from making your 12 year old son become head of a the Baata Shoe Store because he is your son and needs experience.

Did Bush Jr. learn how to become a successful politician and President and speaker from his father? Yes. Did Bush Jr. benefit from the political environment that was created in his house because his father was President. Yes he did. Did Bush Jr. know many influential people before he became President. Yes he did. But those influential people did not elect him to the Presidency it was the people of America. They may have advised him, coached him, tutored him but when it came to the acing the test he went there and won the hearts of the American people on his own.

Is this much clearer to you ? Nepotism vs. election to presidency? or do I have to elaborate? Do you still think that Pakistanis should engage in nepotism and corruption because Bush Jr.`s father was a President? Do you still think that America is as primitive as Pakistan? Hope this is logical enough - now take some milk with that sauce and neutralize that acidity.

As for your example on Disney etc. I hope you read the news and know what you are talking about because I don`t know what it is you are trying to say. Would you like to read the news and give me a proper example? Perhaps you may want to retract it or give me more information (that perhaps only you are privy to). Maybe you thought that you could do well to squeeze in another pseudo-understood example to support your argument in favor of primitive and traditional family structures?

Do you feel guilty that you were elected to a position because of family ties? Maybe you wish you had? Does your family make you feel good about yourself? Do they make you feel like you are 2nd class or not worthy of your fairer skinned cousins? Maybe they pay extra attention to you because they feel you will have an inferiority? complex ? Our traditional families have a lot to learn about fairness and justice and living by merit.

Our feudalistic pre capitalistic society must evolve or it will perish.

p.s. Thanks Zahra for your kind words. Ignorance is no excuse for tyranny.

#23 zahraj
I think you should direct your advice at Shiraz first.

With no intents to molest anyone, I feel people here are flaying their own failure stories in the holy name of logic.

Ahsan

[Dear fellow Pakistanis, take your money and invest in your IRA accounts and your mutual funds and your assets. ENSURE your future first , then get ready to produce children. Plan for the children you will have (don`t just keep producing children one by one every year till the woman who bears them has to walk with her legs apart). BEFORE you have these children start college funds for them and start ensuring THEIR future.
That is how parents in civilized societies work. ]

I completely agree with your above suggestions. But we need to keep in mind that not everyone is into financial planning and not everyone has the desire to look into 401k, 529, or any IRAs. To top it all, in Pakistani Societies since most of the times the sons live with their parents therefore it`s also the parents who get a hit.

Soysauce:

Please avoid personal attacks on the writer.

He is very good at sharing his perspectives when he is in his flow.

By attacking him personally, you disrupt that flow.

It`s just that certain unique writers have to be read and handled in a unique manner.

Just my two heavenly cents.

Note: It`s certainly your prerogative to proceed how you want to.

Dear Shiraz,

Thank you for an interesting read. Your articles always bring up interesting and unique perspectives. Your articles are mostly engaging reads (whether I agree with them or not is another thing) It`s just like the reader and writer are in a conversational mode. This was some feedback on the overall ambience that you have successfully created by publishing this piece.

Your response to Farhan was hilarious. As I sat down to collect my thoughts for an online class, I just stumbled on your sweetly composed response to Farhan. It was very well written and was quite amusing. It seemed that you are trying to wake up the sleepy ones. By the way, it will be real nice to hear from those on Chowk who have grown up kids. As a writer, probably you should ask them to come forward. You see leadery has its own demands :)

Farhan,

Thank you for providing the reader with a very well composed post. It was an engaging post and had valid points.

Shiraz,
You`re being obstinate like a mule, defensive and plain silly.
You claimed that nepotism exists only in ``primitive`` societies. Just about everyone - including the most diehard Bush supporter - would agree that GW is president because his daddy was too. His daddy`s connections are the ones that have seen him through every stage of his life from his business ventures to running for governor of texas to the president. I also cited the case of CEOs making their children & relatives bigwigs in companies. There`s a Disney fighting to take back Walt Disney Co even as we speak.
For your theory to be right, america must be a primitive society.
Can you argue without making wild accusations? I think you`re a good writer but a bad logician who writes wild and silly things. Why don`t you stick to writing stories? Flailing at your past isn`t going to help you in the present unless it is some sort of therapy for you..

I take such great pride in Pakistanis!

Whenever I try to say something and others feel that I have not done an adequate job I always have someone come back with examples to help the argument I am trying to make. Sometimes they come up with counter arguments or their feelings are hurt which makes me realize that I ought to do a better job of explaining myself. I love you all so much!

All of you guys are awesome! Thanks Nazeer for your examples about music and the strong desire amongst Pakistanis to be obedient and to please our elders. It is very human to want to please your parents. I am not advocating hating your parents or your family. I am advocating that all of us grow on our own & ask our families to allow us to be free of the straight jacket that they impose on our personal growth. The most efficient method of control is financial control. If you take money away from a woman you take her ability to function in society independently.

If families and parents try to limit your mobility and your power by draining your money supply or by making demands on it then you have every right to speak up and ask them to have some self-pride,

``Dear parents, you always asked me to stand up on my own two feet, but why can`t you stand up on your two feet?``

At this point parents might go into ``Oh we sold our jewelry to get you educated`` or ``Oh we had to eat onions so you can go to college``. At this point you must ask them, why? Why did you suffer ? So you can finally leach on me ? So you can drain my blood in the prime of my youth ? I am NOT a savings account! I am not some IRA ! I am not some investment. I am a human being! right?

Imagine if a stranger came to you and said, ``Look I will feed you and put cloths on your back but when you grow up you must feed me and put cloths on my back in turn``. So this stranger feeds you for 18 years or so and then when you go to college, you got an RA-ship, you work 2 jobs and you graduate early. Then you start earning and you see that without getting married you already have a child to take care of. You start paying for this stranger for the next 40-50 years until their death! Is this fair ?

NO!!

It should be doubly unfair if your parents strike such a deal with you. Why? Because you didn`t ask to be brought into this world, your parents helped bring you into this world. It is their responsibility to feed you and clothe you and give you the best they can give. They are not doing you a ``favor`` by clothing you and feeding you. After all the harm Muslim parents do to children by mutilating genitals without adult consent, by brainwashing children in the ways and religions of the third world and then feeding and clothing the child in their own 3rd world way they OWE it to you to ATLEAST give you the basic necessities of life.

I know some of you are afraid. Some of you think ``I would have been nothing if my parents had not educated me or fed me I would have died on the streets, so I better make this deal with them because I will be a better person``. I assure you are wrong if you think this way. This is what our oppressive society has brainwashed you with (and some parents engage in saying this as well). You would have been MORE than what you are now IF your parents or society make you feel this way. Have you heard of the orphans who work hard and make it on their own in this world? They become great successes like the hero of Great Expectations or any of the other poor lost souls of Charles Dickens` novels. You say, but this is only in novels, I say have FAITH in yourselves!

My grandfather retired at the age of 47 because my father was supporting the ENTIRE family (his father`s 9-10 children AND the children of his brothers). Only I and my mother know the stress and the pains and pressure my father was always under. He always used to say ``If I didn`t have so many balls and chains pulling at me I would have been something!``.

Dear fellow Pakistanis, take your money and invest in your IRA accounts and your mutual funds and your assets. ENSURE your future first , then get ready to produce children. Plan for the children you will have (don`t just keep producing children one by one every year till the woman who bears them has to walk with her legs apart). BEFORE you have these children start college funds for them and start ensuring THEIR future.

That is how parents in civilized societies work.

In Pakistan you are always under pressure from the poverty you see around you. Then you get cable or tv and you see how people really live and desire spreads its wings in your heart (unless some Mullah wishes to censor your tv set).

Your parents seeing your ambitions say ``study hard`` or ``join my Paan shop!`` and we will be ok- family is good! The moment you are seen as growing in strength or financial power they marry your sheltered-arse to some cousin and you start breeding children. You are always under pressure with NO time to think! no time to think about your future and how life can be better than the way it is!

Take a stand, take your time! work hard and study hard and do it for yourself and more importantly take time to think about your betterment! surround yourself with people who love you unconditionally and who encourage you unconditionally.

Only when one gets rewards for one`s actions does the desire to succeed prosper. If you tax the person or levy fines then the desire to work harder and be more productive lessens. Until you become a hollow of a man without any hope and you become cynical and sarcastic and fatalistic! That is no life. Break the fetters of the sib! Break these chains! Break them so you can realize YOUR dreams not the dreams of some cult or some family or some country or some religious party or some leader.

``Please stay out of enforcing your point with statistically flawed analogies `` #17 by FarhanNazeer on March 3, 2004 1:55pm PT

Thanks Nazeer for your kind comments. What statistically flawed analogies are you referring to? Everything mentioned in the article can be checked and rechecked against reliable and published sources! Can you please be more specific? I didn`t include references because I didn`t want to make the article inaccessible or too academic.

``It shouldn`t be a restriction to growing yourself and becoming an individual. That results from an overbearing family, not necessarily a close knit one. `` #15 by experienceitall on March 3, 2004 8:46am PT

Look at the proponents of close families:
- Mexicans
- Italians (southern Italy, the most impoverished, mafia ridden, drug ridden, desolate mud hut populated area of Europe)
- Albanians/ Montengro (known as Mogadishu of Europe, the most lawless, downtrodden backwater where people still don`t use toothpaste or toothbrushes)
- Muslims (from the worst most impoverished / orthodox backgrounds - MAYBE the newly
rich Saudis who still have memories of eating banana peels thrown by pilgrims to Mecca).
- Primitive , traumatized , insecure societies facing extinction like the Greeks (anyone remember seeing My big fat greek wedding? does anyone want to be like the Greeks? I didn`t think so) other insecure societies facing extinction are the zoroastrians (parsis), memons, some jewish groups (these are the orthodox jews who live on state subsidies and have 15 children in tow, you might see them in the ghettos of America) etc.
- Black Americans (the minority that is the defacto bottom of it all!)
- Primitive African societies


Look at those who are not so incestuous about families:
- Northern Europe (England, Scandinavia, Dutch, Northern Germany etc.)
- Protestant America (the wealthiest most educated most mobile population).

Look at the societies in transition where individuality is slowly taking hold :
- the four asian tigers (thai, taiwan, hong kong, japan)

Think about this, which company would you prefer?

It all begins from the individual.

Dear Shiraz:

The first step towards change is to accept that our current system is flawed. Muslims in general, and Pakistanis in particular, have a hard time accepting their mistakes and admitting their flaws. That is why they are so rigid against change. We have closed our eyes to the deep darkness of our current status on the global platform, and have resorted to conveniently assigning blame on the zionists and non-believers. We can not move forward by even an inch unless we first don`t honestly admit to ourselves that our own lack of strategic thinking, flawed and abusive societal approach, missing productive action element, and in many cases, ignorance and silence is the true reason for the destruction of our society.

I commend you for bringing up a very sensitive topic that is bound to get you some criticism from the apostles of morality. While your weak attempts to develop some econmoic relationships to your point were uncomfortably illiogical and statistically flawed, the basic point that you have raised is striking. I find it hard to believe that even the intelligensia in Pakistan, and some extremely bright Pakistanis living outside of Pakistan, dismiss the whole open issue of the organized abuse of the elders in our society, using power as their weapon when the kids are dependent, and guilt as their weapon when we are independent and in a position to bring change. You hit it right on the head that with such an approach, we can never develop, and only survive (at best). Youth is our biggest asset, and a good part of that already deprived youth ends up burning its energies and resources in pleasing the older generation.

The brain-wash is far more deep-rooted than the mafia psyche. Look at all our movies. There is always a daadi-amman in the family who noboby listens to, but she is always right. The ending always shows that the daadi-amman was right in everything she said from the very beginning. Even our advertisements often show an older character being worshipped and pleased by the young ones. Like a teenage girl trying to prove to her naani amman how she can cook perfect parathas like she used to. I personally know some quite intelligent young friends, who during their senstive early teens, got into Saigal and Bade Ghulam Ali to please their parents and get their attention, and are still listening to those songs, completely missing out on the ``feel`` of their time. A guy who listens to Mukesh is by default considered to have a superior character than the one who listens to Sting. We all have our own identities that we can associate ourselves with. The Pakistani identity, the Indian identity, the Chinese identity, the American identity and so on. But there is one common identity that we share globally. It`s the identity of our time. The 80s, the 90s, the 2000s. The Pakistani youth, through years of brain-wash, has lost that identity, and is lost in the world of missing the good old days of Amanat Ali Khan`s Insha-Jee Utho, and the culture and tehzeeb of the 50s and 60s.

Parents are considered to be great because of their unconditional love. Unconditional? Look around and you`ll see for yourself. Their expectations much higher than the just expectations of a newly wed bride! This ``return-on-investment`` thinking of theirs is natural for humans, and that is why, they should not be considered as Gods. Neither should they be treated as Gods. They make mistakes and poor decisions like all of us do, and they should deal with the consequences of their decisions. I could ramble on and on on the need to change this abuse in our society, but the bottom line is that we all have to collectively just admit that the abuse exists and that this ``return-of-favor`` approach needs to come to an end.

Thanks for bringing this obvious but often ignored topic, Arthur. Our generation has taken enough damage of the brain-wash for us to get out of our shackles, but we have to do everything that we can to make sure that our coming generations have the independence of thought and decision that they deserve and desire. This tyrannical abuse of the old has to end.

Good luck with your endeavors,

Farhan

P.S. You are very good at making your point. Just one suggestion. Please stay out of enforcing your point with statistically flawed analogies and relationships that you believe are valid for your argument. If you do find them necessary to include, make sure you qualify your assertions with some blanket statements or disclaimers. For most readers, a flawed analogy is a good enough reason to assume that the main point being made is flawed, which is obviously not the deal in your case.