1 week Ago By Shahad Ali
I saw it. It was there, sitting bold and shameless atop the table next to the ballot box. I cringed.
It is a symbol of who we are. It is also a reminder of who we are refusing to become. I often ask myself if this was the reason I stayed away from the polls for so many years.
Maybe I have become too reformed for the country I call home. Now, if you are trying to guess what “symbol” I’m referring to, let me save you the trouble. It wasn’t the balisier.
It wasn’t the rising sun. It wasn’t the heart, nor was it any other party symbol stamped onto the ballot paper. This, my dear citizens, is the stink, dutty, nasty, tattered, purple-stained rag that lives beside the ballot box—the same one thousands of us use to wipe our index finger clean of electoral ink.
The same index finger that, let’s be honest, is our go-to tool; our primal utensil, used in moments where no proper one is nearby. The finger we shamelessly use to remove debris from whatever demands attention. I remember, as a young and naive voter, how proud I felt to dip that index finger in ink.
How proud I was to press it onto that cloth. Ah, sweet ignorance, believing that the cloth was just a cloth. But now? That cloth is everything.
That cloth is everybody. Regardless of which party you voted for, that rag is the true emblem of our electoral experience. I was born in the late ’80s.
Based on life expectancy for men in this country, I’m already halfway through my journey. Surprisingly still..
. that cloth is here. When are we going to be rid of it? I’m not even asking for electronic voting yet—I have shelved that dream.
What I want first is to start a petition for sanitation, but also for national pride. No proud people should be using a shared rag to wipe themselves in 2025. We are a historically oil-rich nation.
We are two, maybe three generations past Independence. And this..
. this cloth..
. is still here? We must do better in the next five years. We have to.
I chose not to capture the barbaric utensil itself, because I’m not interested in hopping on that trend this year of publicly showcasing what we use to clean ourselves...
and use to elect a sitting representative..
