THE LISTS discussion

"But today, eleven years later, Allah was sending him signs that all pointed to a place so dark, so final, that General Zia wished he could muster up some doubts about the Book. He knew if you didn't have Jonah's optimism, the belly of the whale was your final resting place."

This quote aptly portrays Zia-ul-Haq's misguided religious beliefs and how he tries to relate everyday life to omens that he determines via flipping through random pages of the Quran and reading random passages. Whichever passage he lands on, he interprets as his daily prophecy. In this case, he believes that he will soon be swallowed by a whale, and will be forced to pray in order to get out, a truly frightening fantasy for him.

A strong image for this set of 50 pages is Jonah trapped in the belly of a whale. This image reflects the holy verse from the Quran that Zia-ul-Haq began to obsess over as a bad omen. He planned to increase security and avoid shorelines that may potentially have whales to swallow him up. He absurdly caused a national crisis doing so.

Haiku:
A fleeting display
An outrageous prophecy
National crisis