WE don't learn from history, we don't learn from experience, we don't learn from our elders, we don't learn from what we were taught at school. And to boot, we are led by the corrupt and the ignorant.

This generation may well say they had no elders to teach them to differentiate wrong from right. And right now, most of the eight citizens of this country born each minute have no schools to which they can go to be taught. A few fortunate ones do have parents to teach them, and even teachers, and friends to encourage and help.

The world's sole superpower, the US, goes to war and kills millions when it wishes to while at the same time preaching and upholding the concept of human rights, tolerance, and democracy. Such is the privilege of the Jungle ka badshah.

For the uninitiated : a child once asked his father how the lion, the king of the jungle, produces its young. The wise father answered : Sher, jungle ka badshah hai, Marzi ka malik hai. Kabhi anda daita hai, kabhi bachcha daita hai.'

For the foreseeable future, the US will dominate the world. It has the good sense to listen to and heed the intelligent and the hardworking. It has made an industry out of education and earns $13 billion per year through educating students from other countries. It has sound work ethics. The first traffic jam of the day on many a highway leading to the large cities is recorded at 0600 hours. All this is sustained by a sense of justice and fair play. In the recent election crisis it was the judges of the Federal Supreme Court who said what they had to say and settled the issue. The loser did not storm the court, he did not even complain; he gave in with considerable grace. The winner did not crow; he acknowledged his victory with humility.

We move to the other badshah we must live with, our good friend and ally, the inscrutable one who rules over a land replete with black gold. He has helped us, but does not wish us to make known how or why. Today, newspapers carried a statement issued by the Saudi information ministry on the alleged payment of millions of dollars to obtain the release of Nawaz Sharif: "Pakistan is far above compromising on its values, dignity and magnanimity and the Kingdom does not underestimate the history and nobility of Pakistan and will not accept any slur on the dignity of Pakistan ..... The Kingdom has never needed to adopt a posture such as this to offer help to its Arab and Muslim brothers.... The reports are devoid of any truth.

The Kingdom has always responded without any hesitation to its humanitarian commitments toward the ex-Pakistani prime minister with a view to finding a solution to the crisis .... The response of Pakistan to a demand by the Kingdom is only in conformity with the ideals of the Islamic and historic relations between the two countries."

The king has spoken. He has demanded. The sovereign state of Pakistan has acquiesced. Subject closed.

Throughout history there have been many exiles, perhaps the most famous being that of 1815, the case of the Emperor Napoleon of France, who, after his defeat at Waterloo and capture by the allies was sent in exile to the remote lonely island of St Helena.. Nawaz Sharif's sole resemblance to Boney is in height and posture; the corporal-turned-emperor brought glory to his country through his conquests, he brought it gains and riches. He gave it a code of law which exists to this day.

A meticulous man whom no detail escaped, whilst in exile he had more than time enough to reflect upon his past, its triumphs and its failures. His attention span was remarkable as can be gauged from the following list attached to his Will, made at Longwood, St Helena, April 15, 1821 :

I. 1) The sacred vessels used in my chapel at Longwood. 2) I entrust them to Abbe Vignali, who is to give them to my son when he is sixteen.

II. 1) My weapons, namely : my sword, the one I carried at Austerlitz; Sobieski's sabre; my dagger; my sword; my hunting knife, my two pairs of Versailles pistols. 2) My golden toilet case, which I used on the moorings of Ulm, Austerlitz, Jena, Eylau, Friedland, the island of Lobau, the Moscowa, Montmirail. It is for this reason that I want my son to hold it dear. Count Bertrand has had charge of it since 1814. 3) I charge Count Bertand to care for and preserve these items and give them to my son when he is sixteen.

III. 1) Three little ebony chests : the first contains thirty-three snuff boxes, or bonbonnieres; the second, twelve boxes with the imperial arms, two small spyglasses and four boxes found upon Louis XVIII's table in the Tuileries, March 20, 1815; the third, three snuff boxes decorated with silver medals, for the emperor's use, and sundry pieces of toiletry, according to the inventories numbered I, II, and III. 2) My camp beds, which I used in all my campaigns. 3) My campaign telescope. 4) My silver toilet cases, one of each of my uniforms, a dozen shirts, and a complete set of each of my sets of clothes, and generally of everything I used for my toilet. 5) My washbasin. 6) A little clock which is in my bedchamber at Longwood. 7) My two watches, and the chain made of the empress's hair. 8) I charge Marchand, my head valet, to keep these items and give them to my son when he is sixteen.

IV. 1) My collection of decorations. 2) My silverware and the Sevres porcelain I have used on St Helena (lists B and C). I charge Count Montholon to keep these items and give them to my son when he is sixteen.

V. 1) My three saddles and bridles, and the spurs I have used on St Helena. 2) My five sporting guns. 3) I charge my huntsman Noverraz to keep these items and give them to my son when he is sixteen.

VI. 1) Four hundred volumes selected from those I made most use of in my library. 2) I charge St Denis to keep them and give them to my son when he is sixteen.

He then wrote his 'Advice to My Son' :

"My son must not think of avenging my death; he should rather learn a lesson from it. He must always bear in mind the remembrance of what I have accomplished. He is always to remain, like myself, every inch a Frenchman. He must strive to rule in peace. If he were to try to begin my wars all over again out of a mere desire to imitate me, and without the absolute necessity for it, he would be nothing but an ape. To begin my work over again would be to assume that I had accomplished nothing. To complete it, on the other hand, will be to prove the strength of its foundations, to explain the complete plan of the edifice begun. Such work as mine is not done twice in a century. I have been compelled to restrain and tame Europe with arms; today it must be convinced. I have saved the Revolution as it lay dying. I have inspired France and Europe with new ideas which will never be forgotten. May my son make everything blossom that I have sown. May he develop further all the elements of prosperity which lie hidden in French soil."

Napoleon died less than a month later, on May 5.

His son, Napoleon-Francois-Charles-Joseph Bonaparte, King of Rome (the traditional title of the heir to the Holy Roman Empire) and L'Aiglon (the young eagle), was born in 1811 at the height of his father's power and glory. His mother, the Empress of France, was Marie Louise of Austria, eldest daughter of the Holy Roman Emperor Francis I. After Napoleon's capture and exile in 1815 he was rechristened Duke of Reichstadt and kept at the court of Vienna under constant tutelage in Hapsburg traditions, though he remained faithful to the memory of his father. He suffered from repeated illnesses and died of pulmonary tuberculosis in the Palace of Schonbrunn, Vienna, on July 22, 1832, at the age of twenty-one. Napoleon's hopes came to naught.