What I gathered from the Shahbaz – Putin meeting was not the earpiece blooper. But a civil executive asking for help on international stage, the army coming to the rescue, the army putting things in place and the falling apart of things again as soon as the army left. This joke is so much more poetically symbolic than that dumb earpiece falling blooper.
The foreign office, the military boys and the fleet of good ministers all would’ve gone in fits, for many reasons, as soon as Shahbaz would have started fumbling with the earpiece. It was Putin he was meeting, the entire international media is hooked on to him. They knew whatever PM Shahbaz will do would become news. Especially after Putin being Khan’s last meeting before he was shown the door. So a lot was there in the background of this meeting.
This entire episode was so metaphoric to Pakistan’s vicious cycle of events.
There it was, Pakistan’s beacon of democracy, our best bet, drowning in the ocean, on a day when the weather wasn’t even that bad. He called for help, despite the presence of the foreign office and a fleet of good ministers, seeing Pakistan’s image going down on international stage the military was the first to respond.
Why is it that the army is called in for all events? For the most biggest like the floods, to the most trivial, like an earpiece falling off. In this scene, where were the foreign office staffers?
Joe Biden was the only leader who’s motorcade was allowed to drive up to the Westminster Abbey for the Late Queen’s memorial service. The rest of the royal families of the world, head of states, lined up on a bus. This happened not because the US is the most powerful country of the world but because they have a system, and a resolve in the institutions to uphold their system. I bet the The secret service had reason battling meetings with UK authorities before they managed their president’s motorcade to be arriving at the gate.
Our institutes like the foreign office are more inclined towards maintaining international ethics more than national pride. Also, it takes resolve to break international traditions to save one’s own face, which the foreign office lacks blatantly. Adding to that, the foreign office is under another party at the moment, this incident would’ve just left them confused on what to do.
So what I presume happened was that they foreign office people would have been seated and restricted to a certain area and when this incident was happening they just couldn’t cross that social line. They just did not have enough vigor. They are not trained to overleap international manners for national pride. They also lack confidence to do so.
And the PM’s trusted fleet of ministers would just be divided in reactions. Some would be smiling, some embarrassed, some not caring, some just not paying attention. Seeing this only the military boys had the courage and candidness to step up on stage to help our PM.
But there’s another side to this story.
To be honest, Shahbaz felt a sigh of relief when he saw that the military had arrived for his help.
He would have never been more carefree had it been the foreign office or his ministers. He felt safe with the military. The military did it’s best to save Pakistan’s image. But as soon as the military left, the earpiece fell off as expected.
He is a Pakistani journalist, documentary producer and teaches journalism at various universities in Lahore. He is a silver medalist in MPhil Mass communication and has reported and edited for a number of English print media organizations in Pakistan.
