Decline and fall of the human male

A lot of things are going to change in the course of this century. Some expected; others unexpected, but none more of a game-changer than the decline of the human male whose dominance has been nasty, brutish and far too long. Now, at last, man is getting his comeuppance in such diverse places as Jeddah, New York, Washington and hopefully elsewhere too. Here is the good news. Iqbal Jafar (The News)

The Human Rights Commission of the last stronghold of male chauvinism, Saudi Arabia, reported last year (The News, July 14, 2011) that in Jeddah alone 145 wives, on an average, beat up their husbands every month. This adds up to a much larger number for it’s not the same 145 wives who beat up their husbands every month. There is, though, some cause for regret for us in Pakistan for had the wives of some of our politicians done what the women in Jeddah do, we wouldn’t be in this mess today. To return to the other good news, much to the delight of French women and the dismay of French men, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, an alpha male by any standard, was made to realise in his lair in New York that the days of man-the-hunter were over and the days of man-the-hunted, inaugurated by an African huntress, had begun. Just the right thing to happen because our remote ancestors began their hunting career in the woodlands of Africa, before they munched and chewed their way to other climes and continents long before the birth of Dominique. The social evolution of man from hunter to warrior was but a logical progression. In the course of his long career as a hunter, man had become muscular, cunning, fast and possessed by bloodlust – just the kind of qualities that a warrior should have. In this phase of evolution he found strength in the companionship of the horse that gave him an edge over other animals who were not riding a horse. Soon enough the two became thick as thieves, and embarked together on a long career of pillage and plunder with wild abandon. This made him vicious and destructive. The warrior race still holds the horse in great respect. It is, for example, customary in the military academics the world over that the passing-out parade of young warriors be reviewed by a horse, often with a rider, in ceremonial harness. To return to hunting that placed man at the top of the food chain, one cannot help noticing that even after 10,000 years of the advent of agriculture (introduced by the woman) man cannot resist the call of the wild. Even today he satisfies his primordial bloodlust through mindless warfare and even more mindless hunting. In the US alone, reports the US Fish and Wildlife Service, voracious hunters, equipped with rifles, shotguns, muzzleloaders, hand guns and even bows and arrows, kill more than 200 million (this is not a typo) birds and animals of all sorts every year, not sparing even such exquisite little creatures as squirrels scampering about in the forest. This shows how urgent it is to reprogramme the American male. Elsewhere, the passion for hunting is the keenest, though much restrained, amongst the members of the British aristocracy who often dress for the occasion (scarlet coats, black boots without laces, breeches, caps) and go fox-hunting in the company of dogs and horses. Oscar Wilde, for one, wasn’t thrilled at the sight of ‘the English country gentlemen galloping after a fox’. It was a case of ‘the unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable’, he said. Oscar Wilde’s comment is rather harsh because the ‘unspeakable’ are led by His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh himself. He is so well-known for his enthusiasm for hunting, that to reinforce the faith of the loyal subjects in the British sense of humour the duke was made president of the World Wildlife Fund. Not being British by birth, the duke is not much given to playfulhumour himself. In fact he has been severely criticised for ‘amazingly rude and insensitive remarks’. Britannia, he was reminded, can no longer waive the rules. The queen, who is the essence of Britishness, took note of those prickly remarks and promptly conferred upon him the Most Noble Order of the Thistle. But the days of running with the hare, hunting with the hounds, and galloping with the horse, are gone. Gone also are the days of moustached bluff and muscular bluster. Under the unrelenting barrage of feminist fire even such bad boys as Berlusconi and Dominique, who have been on the loose for a long time without adult supervision, are running for cover. Talking of feminists, it was not Simone de Beauvoir or Germaine Greer but Liz Taylor who found a way to savour sweet revenge. In her eventful life as an iconic femme fatale of our times, she disposed of as many as seven husbands, one of them twice and the rest of them once, to deconstruct the male hubris. Good girl. http://rtilive.pk/detail/7791 Right to Information Pakistan Live, RTI Live, Information Pakistan, RTI online Research ORganization,pakistan,news pakistan, pakistan news,punjab,lahore,Decline and fall of the human male,