Hospitality or Hypocrisy: Another aspect of our culture

CHITRAL: Among many positive aspects of Chitrali culture, one is that we like guests and are always in a welcome mode for them. Even in hotels, clients are called guests by default since long before the term was adopted internationally. Chitralis have been accommodating hippies in their homes for free in the 60s and 70s just for the liking of their harmless and care free company.

The intrinsic characteristic of extending welcome to guests has been more prominent during visit of political personalities and government officials. Going to the Lowari top (now tunnel) and garlanding VIP visitors and bringing them in a motorcade is a normal affair. This has often led to misunderstanding and miscalculation by politicians only to be dissapointed later when the wheat is separated from the chaff.

A glaring example to further elaborate the point is of a certain politician from Islamabad whom managed to get the NA ticket from Pervez Musharaff and alighted in Chitral to be greeted with huge number of welcomers. The person spent money lavishly on his election campaign buoyed by being a Musharraf candidate. When the election results came out, the fellow was absolutely disgusted and it is said that while leaving Chitral, he threw the Chitrali cap presented to him by Chitralis, on the Lowari top saying “they are hypocrites, I don’t need this”.

The purpose of highlighting the event is to emphasize that the difference between genuine hospitality and hypocritic sycophancy should be understood. When a political leader of national stature visits Chitral and addresses a public meeting all gather to watch the ‘tamasha’ giving a false impression to the politician that he has so much following. Later on to be disappointed. If instead, only those attend the public meeting who honestly believe in the politician and his policies, the politician would get a clear picture of his standing. .. CN report, 16 Sep 2020

One thought on “Hospitality or Hypocrisy: Another aspect of our culture

  1. We have not been able to fix our priorities at the time of elections and more often than not toe ourselves with MMA a party which by itself is not capable of either farming government in the KPK or in the centre and thus we remain out side the decision making corridors and continue to suffer ie, no roads no electricity, no gas supplies and no employment to talk about only a few. We should aligne our selves with either of the three main political parties so that we can either be part of decision making or can forcefully make ourselves present thereby shut the mouths of the people you have referred to above.

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