Love, Pakistani style

It's been a busy day for lovers around the world. In Malaysia, authorities arrested 80 umarried Muslims from budget hotels and parks. The catch would no doubt have tripled if they'd dared to go upmarket. In Pakistan, the transgendered community distributed flowers and luddoos in a hospital. And in Uzbekistan, the state picked bromance over romance and cancelled an annual Valentine's Day concert and aggressively promoted the birthday of the Mughal Emperor Babur instead.

But you know the world really is going to hell in a handbasket (with a little red bow and some flowers) when you turn on the TV to cleanse your palate of the faux-sentimentality of February 14th with that most bitter of things, local politics, and find Hamid Mir on Geo's Capital Talk wearing a red shirt and talking about how what Pakistan needs now is love, sweet love. If that isn't surreal enough for you, consider the intro, in which some of our elected respresentatives unite to wish us Happy Valentine's Day because...

"Dekhain mohabbatain bantnay kay liye kisi din ki zaroorat nahin hoti hai lekin jo mauqa milay uss ko avail karna chaahiye."





The disparate elements which combined to make this possibly the strangest Capital Talk ever - the juxtaposition of deaths in Turbat with love elsewhere, Hamid Mir's unlikely Cupid, Tehrik-e-Insaf's Abrar-ul-Haq's mealy-mouthed hypocrisy (referencing his leader Imran Khan's 'liberal fascists' line yet again), PMLN's Pervez Rashid's mullah-teasing, PPP's sedate Nayyar Bokhari and Sunni Ittehad Council's (SIC's) Sahibzada Fazal-e-Karim's apoplectic response to any love which dares speak its name - continue throughout the rest of the episode.

Highlights include nuggets about how one must love with 'limitations' (Abrar got famous because of rather naughty love songs but is now humming a different tune). The SIC man speaks more on how "aik padri ki yaad main yeh din manana ghair sharaii, ghair Islami hai" [it's unIslamic to celebrate this day in the name of a priest] and how celebrating the day is equivalent to flouting the Two Nation Theory. There is also a random clip from the recent Difa-e-Pakistan rally in Karachi in which a Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) member threatens that "media ka qabiristan issi maidan ko bana diya jaye ga" if presswalas don't give enough coverage to the "mohibban-e-watan" [this ground will be made into a graveyard for the media if it doesn't provide enough coverage to the patriots], after which Hamid Mir reads aloud an apology letter from the spokesman of that (banned) outfit and then deadpans that he - and presumably all the presswalas he speaks for - accepts the "peghaam-i-mohabbat" [message of love] they have sent on Valentine's Day.

In between, the Sahibzada (whose organization was recently outed as the recipient of some $36,000 in US funding) declares that you know there is no rule of law in a society when na-mehram boys and girls are able to send each other roses. And once every five minutes somebody or the other goes back to the latest murders in Balochistan, thus giving Mir the opportunity to again point out that what the rest of Pakistan needs to do is give it more flowers.

No, Mir sahib, we need to stop sending them funeral wreaths.

The War Within Geo

If you thought Pakistani society was polarized, take a look at the open warfare going on under the same media house roof.

The issue being discussed was, of course, the sudden release of the man known as Raymond Davis from jail after the payment of diyat or 'blood money' to the relatives of the deceased. What better time than that, thought Geo's analysts with wildly divergent points of view, to attack each other in the most personalized manner possible?

First up, Geo's Capital Talk programme, where host Hamid Mir assembled a long list of panelists and commentators he knew (or hoped) would raise a hue and cry about the release, among them the odious Irfan Siddiqui, the slippery Mohammad Mallick, the dissenting lawyer for the victims' families and former foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi. But star attraction was of course the once journalist-now-self-righteous turd known as Ansar Abbasi. Abbasi had made his contempt for the result of the case known earlier during Geo's news bulletins but had basically tied himself up in knots over the fact that 'Davis'' release had come about through the application of the Islamic Qissas and Diyat Laws - which have been often criticised for allowing the rich to get away with murder - laws that Abbasi can't bring himself to critique. That and the fact that ostensibly all of his former idols and regular sources, the ISI, the Sharif brothers and the judiciary were complicit in allowing 'Davis' to get away, seemed to have truly left him bewildered, though unfortunately not at a loss for words.

In today's programme, which went on air at 8pm PST, Abbasi made a number of remarkable claims, such as his opinion (presented as the gospel truth) that the case was one of 'fisaad fil arz' [spreading division in the land] rather than a double murder and therefore making diyat inapplicable. He further added that all terrorism should now solely be blamed on the military establishment, the federal government of the PPP and the Punjab government of the PMLN for letting 'Davis' go. Not for nothing is Abbasi known as an apologist for the religious extremists who might actually be carrying out the acts of terror.

But Abbasi decided this was also the time to vent his considerable frustration at fellow Geo analysts who had presented an analysis entirely opposite to his. So, without naming names but making it abundantly clear who he meant, he called Najam Sethi (who had also presented his analysis on earlier Geo bulletins) "an American agent." As proof he cited Sethi claiming to know what discussions were being held between the Pakistan government and the Americans. You can see what he said in the following clip, between 10:00 and 10:35...




It has to be mentioned that Hamid Mir had, in fact, begun his programme with a soliloquy also directed very much at Najam Sethi, criticising those who were gloating over their predictions having come true and blaming the media for misleading the public while supposedly not mentioning how the Americans had been proved wrong.

All it took was another two hours for the reply, in Aapas Ki Baat, Geo's 11pm PST programme featuring Najam Sethi. The opening intro by host Munib Farooq immediately set the tone for the programme as seemingly a reply to Mir and Abbasi. But by the end of the programme, Sethi had managed, also without naming names but making it abundantly clear who he meant, to call Ansar Abbasi and Mir brainless twits and journalists "jo apnay aap ko phannay khan samajhtay hain lekin ander se bilkul phuss hain" [who think the world of themselves but who are as empty as deflated balloons]. You can see and hear what he said between 0:00 and about 4:45 in the following clip:




Don't you just love Geo's tolerance of diversity? Or should one say glasnost?

Knowing the vindictive natures of both Abbasi and Mir, however, expect more sparks to fly in the pages of the Jang Group's publications. This is going to get very ugly unless the Jang Group clamps down now.

Shahbaz Sharif's Big BooBoo and His Agent Provocateur

In the understandable outrage over Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif's reported remarks day before apparently imploring the Taliban not to attack his province (because, hey, 'the PMLN is as against foreign dictation as you guys'), there was one element that escaped most people's attention. And that was the role of MrImpartialJournalistHimself Hamid Mir. Yup, with talk of appeasement of the Taliban doing the rounds, how could he not be somewhere close at hand, we should have known.

Ironically, this has come to light on Mir's own programme, Capital Talk, when PMLN's Ishaq Dar brought up what Hamid Mir had said in his speech just before Sharif's. The following is a transcription of the interaction between Dar and Mir about the issue...

Dar: Basically yeh jo aap ki taqreer thi, aap ki apni taqreer thi jis mein aap...

Mir: Haan, main bhi tha wahaan par, main ne..

Dar: Let's link now to that.. your viewers must know. [Mir laughs] Aap ne kaha, 'Main ne aik saal pehlay Sharif..' Main ne uss ke woh liye hain, woh pieces mangwaye hain, keh aap ne kya farmaya wahaan.Aap ne kaha ke 'Main ne aik saal pehlay Sharif biradraan ko yeh kaha tha ke aap ne Musharraf ko nikala hai, jo ke Amreeka ka chaela tha, aap ki policiyan uss ke khilaaf hain, aap dictation bhi nahin le rahe, androoni aur bayrooni quwwatein aap ke khilaaf mutaharik ho chuki hain, aap aur aap ki party aghiaar ke muqaablay mein deewar ban chukay hain...' Yeh aap ko quote kiya hai jo wahaan maujood thhe..'Lahore khoon mein naha jaaye ga.' Now, is hawalay se Mian Shahbaz Sharif yeh keh rahe hain, agar uss ko hum bhool jaayein tau totally woh... shukar hai unhon ne, main ne abhi ghaur kiya, 'agar' ka lafz unhon ne use kiya, kiya unhon ne..

Mir: 'Agar'

Dar: Agar! Tau matlab yeh hai, ke yeh saari cheez jo hai, iss ko agar accept kar liya jaaye, jo theory aap ne wahaan pesh ki...

English Translation of the interaction quoted above:

Dar: Basically, your speech, your own speech which you made there...

Mir: Yes, I was there too, I...

Dar: Let's link now to that, your viewers must know. [Mir laughs] You said, 'One year ago I said to Sharif...' I have got them, I got the pieces [of your speech], what you said there. You said that 'One year ago I told the Sharif brothers that you have ousted Musharraf who was America's puppet, your policies are against his, you are not taking dictation either, internal and external powers have become active against you, you and your party have become a wall against the foreigners' [designs]...' This is what you have been quoted as saying by those who were present there...'Lahore will be bathed in blood.' Now, with reference to this, Mian Shahbaz Sharif is saying..if we forget [what you said in your speech] it would sound totally... Thankfully he said 'if', I just noticed, he used the word 'if'...

Mir: 'If'...

Dar: If! Meaning that this whole thing, if we accept the theory that you presented there...

You can watch this bit of the programme in the clip below. Ishaq Dar's portion begins around 5:22 and continues for a couple of minutes.




Now, I'm not going to go into the merits of what Shahbaz Sharif actually said or didn't say - and Dawn, among many others have taken him to task for it - though for the record I agree with those who believe the Sharifs do have a soft corner for religious extremists or that they at least bend over backwards not to alienate what they believe is part of a solid vote bank for them. What interests me right now is MrImpartialJournalistHimself.

After watching / reading the portion quoted above, do we, the viewers, have a right to ask the following questions?

1. Was Hamid Mir being an impartial and analytical journalist with respect to the PMLN?
2. Is it his position as a journalist that allows him to provide security advice to the Sharifs and be on the roster of speakers at a madrassah at least two years in a row?
3. With respect to the security advice Mir admits himself to have tendered the previous year to the Sharifs and the (later assassinated) head of the Jamia Naeemia, does Mir know something he is not telling his viewers or the government, and if so, how?
4. Was it fair of the media to attack what Shahbaz Sharif said without providing the full context of what he was responding to, particularly when it involved one of its own?

Stuff to think about.

Hamid Mir Violates Ethics and the Law

I am no great admirer of former minister Sheeda Tully aka Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, he of Lal Haveli and the newly formed Awami Muslim League fame. But I have to say I was as outraged as him over what happened tonight.

Sheeda Tully aka Sheikh Rashid Ahmed

Keep in mind that the man is contesting for a bye-election in NA-55, his own constituency in Rawalpindi, a seat he won 6 times in a row until 2008 when he was trounced in an anti-Musharraf wave. Two years on, the seat was declared second-time empty when the PML(N) MNA 'Haji' Pervez Khan was disqualified for cheating in an examination (Haji Pervez - who obviously did not absorb much spiritual rectitude from his hajj experience - won the first bye-election earlier when the original winner Makhdoom Javed Hashmi of the PML(N) vacated the seat in favour of another constituency). Tully's main contender in the elections this time is the PML(N)'s Malik Shakeel Awan, a grassroots party worker without much name recognition but who has the entire PML(N) heavyweight leadership at his back.

The polls take place a few hours from now. According to the Election Commission rules, the campaigning officially ended at midnight between Monday and Tuesday, a rule enforced to calm voters down after the rhetoric of campaigning. So what happens?

Enter Mr Hamid Mir of Geo's Capital Talk. He proceeds to dedicate his whole programme to ridiculing and discrediting Sheikh Rashid, in what can only be termed a blatant attempt to influence the outcome of the polls. In addition to dredging up Tully's connections with the Chaudhries of Gujarat, General Musharraf and Asif Zardari - obviously calculated to refresh them in voters' minds - he also takes "expert" analysis from third raters like Irfan Siddiqui and Jang Pindi's magazine editor Farooq Aqdas. Not only that, he takes vox pops from a random selection of people in one market as well as the opinion of, of all people, 'Maulana' Abdul Aziz of Lal Masjid and fleeing-in-a-burqa fame, all of whom berate Tully as a 'lota', as 'dishonest' and as a 'killer of innocents'.

Now, I don't know if anyone else noted that Irfan Siddiqui was sitting with the top leadership of the PML(N) when the party recently met for an internal meeting. Little wonder then that Tully blew his top later on the Geo news bulletin, accusing Siddiqui and Hamid Mir of being on Nawaz Sharif's payroll, the programme of being "paid for" by the PML(N) and Geo of stabbing him in the back.

I will come to my point later. Here are the clips of the entire programme, if you have the patience:


Clip 1 in which Mir sets the tone for the programme with some selective clips of Nawaz Sharif and Sheikh Rashid from their rallies, and of Sheikh Rashid and Imran Khan in a 2005 programme in which Imran calls Rashid a "lota" (turncoat).





Clip 2 in which Farooq Aqdas calls Rashid "siyaasi taur pe bad-ehd aur bay-wafa aadmi" (politically a traitorous man), makes fun of the assassination attempt against him, and reminds the PPP worker of Tully's anti-PPP venom. Mir then adds a few clips showing Tully praising Musharraf...





Clip 3 in which Mir runs some two dozen vox pops, two-thirds of them against Sheikh Rashid (with people calling him a "lota" and dishonest and accusing him of being responsible for the killings in Lal Masjid) and including at least four anti-Tully people repeated more than once. To his credit, one of Mir's studio guests, Humayun Gauhar, calls out Mir's approach as the "target killing" of Sheikh Rashid...





Clip 4 in which Humayun Gauhar dismisses the selective targeting of Rashid without a contextualization of the larger political scenario...





Clip 5 in which Mir plays a clip of Mullah Abdul Aziz of Lal Masjid moaning about Rashid not having apologized to him (for what, one might question) and of how he has not received compensation yet (he should be compensated?!?) and Farooq Aqdas is called on to accuse Rashid of wearing Gucci clothes and smoking Havana cigars, i.e. being elitist. Then Aqdas and Gauhar get into a bit of a tussle over the credibility of Mullah Aziz and Mir wraps up by pretending to be neutral.






Now. Whatever one may think of Sheikh Rashid, this was a one-sided, deliberately vindictive and unfairly selective character assassination of one contestant in an election. More importantly, it was done in a sensitive period when campaigning on the behalf of anyone is prohibited, no campaigner is allowed to make public appearances or pronouncements and was obviously calculated to rig public opinion. Whether PEMRA takes note of the obvious bias in the programme or not, surely the attempt to rig an election calls for the Election Commission and, dare one say, the Supreme Court, to take notice.

Whether Hamid Mir did this programme because Sheikh Rashid's victory would put a stumbling block in Geo's attempts to oust Zardari or whether he actually indulged in financially corrupt media practices, I cannot say. However, I think there is a strong case for Hamid Mir and his programme to be taken off air for a while as punishment and for Geo to be fined and prosecuted.

Is A Modicum of Sanity Too Much Too Ask from Geo?

Is this absurd or what?

Hamid Mir in Geo's Capital Talk today (11 Feb) takes expert advice on water issues between Pakistan and India from Syed Salahuddin, Supreme Commander of the Hizbul Mujahideen and head of the Muttaheda (United) Jihad Council...



What's next? Lashkar-e-Taiba's Hafiz Saeed giving his expert opinion on tourism opportunities in Mumbai? Jaish-e-Mohammad's Azhar Masood reviewing Air India's inflight entertainment? Dawood Ibrahim analysing trends on the Bombay Stock Exchange?