“Why can’t we as a nation take a principled stand”?

“That’s silly – since when did your principles match mine exactly.”

“There are some universal principles.”

“For example?”

“We must always be honest.”

“You need to narrow it down: honest as per what principle? And to whom”?

“OK, never invoke your past bad treatment to justify…”

“George Bernard Shaw said that we are made wise not by recollection of our past but by the responsibility of our future.”

“I have it on good authority that the handful of our politicians who have read Shaw are not too enamoured by his work.”

“Speaking of politicians, Thomas Jefferson said I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.”

“The Visionary Ahsan Iqbal may endorse this view but only while formulating a minimum of ten and a maximum of 30 year plans, but our politics is about never forgiving and never forgetting and never…”

“Yes, I guess anyway isn’t not to lie a principle that we all can support?”

“Nah…there are white lies and then there are black lies.”

“Let’s be neutral – how about agreeing on grey lies.”

“Your grey lie may be my black lie.”

“OK, OK, I give up. “This is the holy month of Ramadan – pray and pray and pay some more.”

“Pray for what?”

“That the so-called principled stand of stakeholders may become slightly more flexible…”

“I have told you repeatedly wishes are not horses in this country, they are more like dragons, fiery but extinct.”

Copyright Business Recorder, 2024