The old adage ‘My enemy’s enemy is my friend’ aptly describes the case of the Russian Alexander Litvinenko; ex-spy for KGB. The details of his death can be read here.
Every second news channel is concerned with the fact that why and how was he murdered but there is another even basic question that why is his case being considered so important when there are scores of people dying for no apparent reasons? Case point being Palestine and Iraq. OK the context is entirely different but the coverage is disproportionate or maybe the news channels got tired of the monotony coming out of Iraq and thought ‘ok this look more interesting; at least more than the usual lot’ and so Alex made the headlines, and that too of some massive proportions.
So what was reason of all this hoopla over such a petty matter? Speaking relatively of course. Was it to break the monotony from the usual Iraq menu of two car bombs, one suicide bomb and a couple of hundred dead? Or maybe to pit Russia into the corner and being true to that old adage? It’ll be a bigger mystery than the cause of Litvinenko’s death.
The case of the recent murder of a Lebanese minister is no different. Now they want to investigate his death through UN even though they turned a blind eye to Lebanon when it was being bombed with impunity.
The leading news channels have this tendency to wander off once in a while and take one particular issue, no matter how small, and literally drag it to tremendous heights. Make no mistake, Litvinenko’s murder is not being condoned here, its just that it is too inconsequential to be given this level of importance.
A concept lies behind the existence of every thing. Vague and encompassing but a true statement nonetheless. A concept is what defines structure and function of something, anything.
A Public Toilet can be regarded as a utility; and this utility, though very important, is easily disregarded as something gross for obvious reasons. The working mechanism of a public toilet is fairly simple. One can enter it, answer nature’s call, and then leave it. The local incarnation of the public toilet is commonly referred to as the ‘Awami Latrine’ (pronounced awaami latrrrreeeeeeeeen, emphasis on r’s and e’s) and a small fee is often charged for the use of it. Though vandalism of the toilet structure is a trait common to all the people of the world, it is more pronounced in this part of the world that is the southern Asia. The reasons behind it are primarily to satisfaction of the artistic hunger. This can be observed in the form of vulgar, though a treat to watch, graffiti. Employees of various telephone companies also frequent the various outlets of public toilets; a proof of which is the presence of the telephone directory on the walls of this public hangout.
Now coming to the PublicToilet.org. This website is about the actions and events of people who find it difficult to differentiate between a public toilet and things other than a public toilet like life, government, politics, and the whole DAMN WORLD apart from a public toilet that is.
So where is this similarity between the actions that take place in a public toilet and that in, for example, politics? Consider Pakistani politics. A political candidate pays a small fee to enter the political arena a.k.a. the toilet, answer’s nature call by eating the toilet rather than excreting in it, and then simply leaves or stays a little longer, thanks to some illicit connections with ‘the man standing outside’. The international scenario is no different but in that it is someone else’s toilet that is being vandalized.
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