Absurdity, Thy Name Is...

Must Pakistan - or perhaps one should say specifically its government, its political leaders, its judiciary, its military and its bureaucrats - continue to make an ass of itself? Must it circumvent any attempt to make the world forget that we can be the most absurd cretins in the world?

Graphic by Nick Bilton (Source: New York Times)

Barely had the memory of the Lahore High Court-imposed Facebook ban faded from the collective global 'News of the Weird' consciousness that we were struck with the Twitter ban, which the Ministry of Information Technology people told us was because of "blasphemous and inflammatory content" on the site.


(Update: I had almost finished writing this post when news came in that the Twitter ban had been lifted but am posting this in any case in the off-chance that someone within the corridors of policy-making might read and prevent a recurrence of such ineptitude.) 

According to this Express Tribune story:

"Pakistan’s government had asked Twitter to stop a discussion on Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), which was considered derogatory, [PTA Chairman Dr Mohammad] Yaseen said, adding that “Twitter refused our request.”"

Now, you would have to be totally unaware of what Twitter is and how it works to think the above statement makes any sense whatsoever. Imagine, if you will, the government asking a cell phone company to stop people SMS-ing each other anything derogatory about the Prophet. The only way it would be possible for the cell phone company to enforce such a 'request' would be to either read each and every single SMS from the billions that go out from within its network or to simply ban any SMSes that used the word 'Prophet' or 'Muhammad' or 'Mohammad' or 'Mohd' or any other possible variation (and there would still be ways to circumvent it), which would of course block all Islamic SMSes as well. Any cell phone company would obviously 'refuse' the government's request, simply because it would not be possible to implement.

Of course I am not even touching upon the concept of 'free speech' (and which particularly protects 'speech' that one disagrees with or finds offensive) which is integral to rational societies and which would be another reason for Twitter to refuse to censor something even if it could. But this is a concept which is obviously is too lofty an argument for the cretins in officialdom to understand.

In any case, I am more than sure that there is not a single person within the so-called 'Ministry of Information Technology' who is on Twitter or even has a passing knowledge of it.

In all likelihood, given the storm of outrage and mocking it has unleashed, the ban will not last very long. But let's look at what this ban has actually achieved:

1. It has given free global publicity to offensive material that most people - including us - were not even aware of. 

2. It has shown that those in Pakistan who are supposed to manage information technology actually have no clue what they are in charge of. They are obviously also clueless about the ease with which such bans can be circumvented (it took us and others a total of five minutes to get around it.)

3. It has made Pakistan a target of mocking all around the world yet again as a country that cannot be rational, trust its citizens or tolerate any opinions that don't fit in with its own. 

4. It has made an issue out of a non-issue (most people were unaware of the material as pointed out above) and in that given oxygen to precisely those obscurantist elements who use these things to fan the flames of bigotry and intolerance, both within Pakistan and abroad. Note that there had been NO protests before the Ministry of Information Technology drew attention to this 'issue' but that with its ineptitude it has ensured that it is now on the radar for all rent-a-crowd mullahs and will embolden those racists who enjoy provoking all Muslims. 

5. It has shown that any flimsy excuse can be used to censor opinions, particularly political opinions, that the government of the day is uncomfortable with. Because at the end of the day, it's not alleged blasphemers and pornographers who suffer from Pakistani bans, but common people expressing their personal views, on Twitter, Facebook or on blogs, outside the more easily controlled corporate media.

Let me draw another analogy for our esteemed policy makers. If, on the street, someone were to go around particularly eavesdropping on conversations among random groups of people to check if anyone were using foul language so that he could berate them, or more closely, telling everyone to shut up because he had heard some people using foul language, we would consider such a person a lunatic. Unfortunately, that is exactly what the people at the Ministry of Information Technology have proved themselves to be, overzealous lunatics. It's about time bureaucrats realize that we cannot police the entire world and, more importantly, that there is no need to.

Yes, Television Was Sometimes Awful But Was Social Media Any Better?

Almost two years ago, I wrote this piece and this piece about reporting on the Air Blue aircraft crash in Islamabad. The tragic crash of Bhoja Air flight from Karachi to Islamabad yesterday and its attendant coverage has compelled me to sit at my keyboard yet again. But whereas my initial disgust with some of the reporting on television was the initial motivation for writing a few words, the subsequent speculation and shoot-everything-in-sight diatribes on social media deserve an equal evaluation.

Bhoja Air crash (Photos via Dawn)

More on the latter later in the post, however. First, let's look at where television coverage went right and where wrong (contrary to the outrage being expressed on social media, all of it was not dire). Generally, most channels did NOT show bodies or limbs. I flipped through most of the major channels during the initial coverage, once reporters and cameramen had reached the site of the crash, and none of them were deliberately showing gore. I have heard that Samaa breached this agreed upon rule during its coverage (I did not personally see it) and, if so, viewers should definitely haul them up for it. Generally, however, good sense dictated the on-site footage, with some minor slip-ups that occurred because of the live nature of the coverage but which were corrected immediately.

Most channels did go over the top in the intrusive way they covered the grieving families and friends of those who had lost their lives in the crash, with one channel's reporter even shoving a mike in the face of a wailing relative and most running footage of distraught people in a loop. This kind of insensitive and senseless reportage (what exactly is a grieving relative going to say that will add to the sum of our knowledge?) needs to be checked and the privacy and dignity of those affected by a tragic event needs to be respected by the media. Ditto for the silly and offensive animations that we have objected to earlier as well that are based on pure speculation (one had a plane nose-diving while ARY even ran a clip from a Hollywood film!)  and only serve to mislead viewers and perhaps cause agony for those affected.

However, those on social media who were of the opinion that there should be absolutely no coverage of those affected and that no such intrusion occurs anywhere else in the world are living in some sort of make-believe world. I'm sorry but, to a certain extent, this is the nature of the medium that television is, it gravitates towards dramatic visuals and I have personally seen Western reporters be equally insensitive and intrusive as well as plenty of footage on Western channels that covers grieving relatives. Instead of talking about having channels shut down over their coverage (on what basis one is still not quite sure) or hauled up and fined, it would be far more productive to build consensus on where the ethical line actually is. A good point to start, as someone pointed out, is for channels and reporters to put themselves in the shoes of those grieving. If one of their own family members had suffered such a tragedy, would they want their and their family's grief to be broadcast in close-up and in a loop to the whole world? Would they want to be asked what they are feeling? Pressure should be built on channel heads and news editors to sit down together - as they did in the case of coverage of people killed - and work out a framework of guidelines on how grief is to be shown, also keeping in mind that overly dramatic scenes of grief are not healthy viewing particularly for children who sometimes can catch them inadvertently.

Where most channels really slipped up, however, in my opinion, was, as in the case of the Air Blue crash, in their knowledge of basic scientific principles and facts and in their propensity to conjecture for no worthwhile reason or on the basis of any real facts. Thus two channels, including Dunya, initially kept insisting that the plane was a Russian aircraft (ostensibly implying poor quality construction) even while others had already pointed that it was an American Boeing. One channel, Express, initially announced that a military helicopter had gone down with soldiers on board (before reversing their 'breaking news') and ARY ran a lengthy clip of a local on site who claimed that the crash was probably caused by aerial firing 'as he had always feared and filed a court petition about'. Other 'eye-witnesses' variously claimed the plane had split up in the air or had been struck by lightning or that its engine was on fire. In most cases, the problem with unsubstantiated stories finding their way on to television news has to do with the 'breaking news' disease, the desire to be the first with the 'news' as part of ratings wars. But news editors should also know by now that 'eye-witness' accounts in such cases are notoriously contradictory and should at least be moderated by an editorial narrative. Wild claims such as that of aerial firing by the conjecturing 'eye-witness' only add to viewers' confusion and really should not be part of the narrative in the first place. I suppose when anchors have seemingly never even heard the term 'cloudburst', they latch on to whatever is easiest for them to grasp, whether it is relevant or not.

Incidentally, as pointed out by a journalist who emailed us, every channel also got one fact completely wrong: that this was Bhoja Air's 'inaugural' flight from Karachi to Islamabad. He pointed out that a friend of his had flown Bhoja on the same route three days earlier. However this wrong bit of information was apparently traced to Bhoja Air's own website. I have no idea why Bhoja would claim this was an inaugural flight when it was not. One suggestion was that, perhaps this was the first afternoon flight on the route while the earlier flights were morning flights. Even in that case, the term 'inaugural' is a bit of an exaggeration.

Of course the default position of all channels is to try and find scapegoats. Everyone knew that the weather had suddenly taken a turn for the worst and freak acts of nature have in the past brought down planes in other places in the world - in fact, pilots who landed in Islamabad just a few minutes earlier confirmed that the weather had suddenly become very dangerous - yet most channels chose to attack the age of the aircraft, the skill of the pilot, the company's chequered history (it ceased operations in 2001 and only started up again a month and a half ago), Civil Aviation Authority's procedures and bizarrely even the government (in the case of Samaa). Geo's anchor, meanwhile, actually asked an astonished aviation expert if, 'had the pilot been more skilled, he could have brought the plane down low enough in the air for the passengers to jump out'. Really Junaid? Have you never travelled in a plane??!

The point is not that one or more of these factors could not have played a part in the tragedy. But that they were discussed ignoring the fact that even with the best and youngest of aircraft, the most skillful of pilots and the best of professional environments, accidents can and do happen with freak forces of nature. What purpose exactly is served, aside from filling up airtime space, from making conjectures whose actual answers will not be known until a proper inquiry is held? Or is creating pointless agitation among the public at large the job of news media? A debilitating lightning strike or devastating wind shear (as is now being discussed) could have solely been responsible without any of the factors being discussed coming into play.

Which brings me to the speculation that swamped Twitter and Facebook right after the crash. Truth be told, it was no better than the conjecture of the television anchors. One common refrain was the age of the aircraft that went down (more than 27 years according to this report in Dawn quoting AviationSafety.net), as if no old planes ever fly anywhere else in the world. In fact, as this answer points out, the average age of DC-9 aircraft operated by the US carrier NorthWest Airlines in 2005 was 34 years old! And that theoretically, depending on regular checks and maintenance, planes can continue to fly forever. (Here's some more info on life spans of aircraft in case you're interested.) In fact, the main reason fleets are replaced is because newer aircraft are more fuel efficient (but fleet replacement, as was blithely being suggested by certain people, obviously requires a lot of investment capital). Once again, the point is not that the age of the aircraft could definitely not have played a part in the tragedy. Only that picking on this one factor without any proof of it being a factor is as absurd as anything the channels were doing.

The other great target of social media activists seemed to be, as is always the case, Geo. I am hardly a defender of Geo's excesses, but as someone who watched most main channels' coverage of the incident, I can tell you that Geo was far more restrained than some of the others. By far the worst in terms of absolute absurdity were Express and ARY, mainly because there seemed to be no sensible editorial control and a surfeit of banal posturing from their reporters. As an example, in one segment on Express, the reporter held up a burnt out fire extinguisher because the anchor goaded him to get in amongst the debris and then spouted this gem: 'This cylinder is a fire extinguisher, used to extinguish fires, but when the plane caught fire, even this was no use.' He then went on to pick up another piece of debris, adding 'This used to be a part of the plane but after its destruction, it is no longer a part of the plane.'

So please, hold Geo's feet to the fire by all means, but let's not lose sight of the wood for the trees.

Facebook Administrative Issues

This is just a short post about administrative matters.

Apologies to all those complaining about our Facebook page not being updated regularly. We had put the Facebook page up to automatically aggregate our posts and twitter feeds and had hoped we wouldn't need to do more on a regular basis.

The newer, hopefully better, Cafe Pyala Facebook page

It turns out that the issue was with Facebook itself and some new required permissions it put in place in November, pending which our blog's RSS feeds stopped being updated under the 'News' tab. We have made some changes to the page so that our blog posts will now arrive directly on the 'Wall.' There is no longer a 'News' tab though Twitter feeds can still be seen under the Twitter tab. Hopefully this should also mean that new posts should also automatically turn up in the 'NewsFeed' of those people who are 'Fans' of the page.

Please do let us know if this is working out all right. You can reply either in the comments under this post or under the Discussion tab on the Facebook page itself.

How Pathetically Low Can You Go? (Updated)

A picture has been doing the rounds on email purporting to show the debauchery of Balochistan Chief Minister Nawab Aslam Raisani. It shows a smiling Raisani with his head on the shoulders of a young, T-shirt clad girl. The picture has actually been culled from the Facebook page of Express News, where it was posted - for what exact news reason we do not know - on October 1. The poster of the photograph (we are not sure whether from within Express News or one of its 'community') claims it was taken at a party in Islamabad, the obvious implication being that Raisani was drunk and coming on to the girl.

As of now there are over 700 comments beneath the photograph which mostly range from downright abusive of Raisani (and generally all "ayyash" [debauched] politicians) to calls to "kill the lech." Most are unprintable. But even worse are the comments reserved for the girl, whose moral character was openly questioned, whose body language was sleazily analyzed and who, thanks to one commenting woman (!), was immediately and conclusively dubbed a "call girl."

We too were forwarded the photograph and link but decided there was no reason to carry such an obviously salacious piece of character assassination. No matter what one might think of Raisani and his political antics, this was clearly, we figured, none of our business... Until we received an anguished email from a friend of the girl, with proof, to set the record straight.

So guess what that poor, poor girl's name is: Aana Hassan Raisani. Yes, she is Aslam Raisani's own teenage daughter, who attends school in Islamabad. And the photograph of a father expressing innocent affection for his daughter was apparently taken at their home. Seeing how such an innocent (and private) moment was twisted and presented as one of alleged depravity by no-doubt the most depraved of people themselves, made me almost sick to my stomach. And I have a fairly strong stomach. Then the outrage took over.

In addition to Aana's friend who emailed us, a bunch of her other friends and classmates are now taking on the commenting sad fucks on the Facebook page itself. According to the friend who emailed us, Aana herself has been so severely traumatised by this event and the venom spewed about her and her father, that she has gone incommunicado. Nevertheless students from three schools in Islamabad plan to protest on Tuesday against this amazingly sleazy episode.

We have consciously decided not to republish the photograph. But if you have the stomach, read the comments under the photograph again to see how sick, perverted and corrupted the minds of the people in this country have become. To heap abuse on and defame someone without a shred of evidence or even a modicum of common decency, to be ready to draw the most perverted of inferences without a second thought, really, what can one say about such sad excuses for human beings? But what it also indicates is how quickly Pakistanis are willing to believe the worst about political figures, a function, I would submit, more of the environment we have all had a hand in creating than of anything the politicians themselves have done or do.

As for Express News, which ultimately bears responsibility for the content on its page, well may be it should just take its onanistic being and go screw itself.


: : : UPDATES : : :

UPDATE 1:
So, that possesser of high journalistic standards, the Islamabad daily Jinnah, had actually published the photograph on its front page as well yesterday, certainly without any fact checking but also without any sense of decency. After Aslam Raisani apparently threatened the paper with legal action, unless it published a retraction today, the paper has published the following front-page grovelling apology (translated here from the Urdu):

"It Was a Father-Daughter Photograph"

"Islamabad (Special Report): Yesterday we had published on this front page a photograph of Nawab Aslam Raisani with the following caption: "This is a photograph... which people have been sharing on the internet (Facebook) for the last two days. If this photograph is real, it is a remarkable picture...But if it is the product of the computer and Photoshop, then from a technical point of view, the person who made it should be praised [for their skills]... From a moral point of view, however, the person should be severely condemned. And if this picture is of this person's relative and someone has misused it by bringing it on the internet, that is also worthy of being condemned. But if this picture is correct, then, the judgement is for our readers to make.

The details that have emerged regarding this photograph, according to them, this is a picture of a father-daughter. It was indeed immoral to bring it on to the internet and Facebook. The people who did this should be arrested. Daily Jinnah requests the Cyber Wing of the FIA [Federal Investigation Agency] to conduct an impartial investigation into this [matter] and undertake a legal investigation about how this picture appeared on the internet.

Jinnah Administration"

Notice how Jinnah feels no contrition about its own standards of journalism - for publishing a photograph taken off the net without any fact checking and obviously only for salacious reasons -  and passes the blame entirely on to 'the internet' and 'Facebook'. Note also the weasely way it claims it had distanced itself from the photograph in the first place. In fact, I had seen the October 3 epaper earlier and I am not even certain the reference to the possibility of the 'misuse of a picture of a relative' was in the original caption (I don't recall it). It certainly exists now in the October 3 epaper version but the only way to confirm that the paper has not tampered with the original caption would be to check it against the actual print copy of the paper. Regardless of whether the original caption is true or not, daily Jinnah deserves as much condemnation as Express News. Perhaps the newpaper bodies All Pakistan Newspapers Society (APNS) and Council of Pakistan Newspaper Editors (CPNE) should also issue a condemnation of their member publication.


UPDATE 2:
Express Tribune's web editor has written to us and claims the Facebook page is not an official page run by the Express Media Group, is bogus and has been reported to Facebook for copyright infringement. The text of his clarification follows:

"To clarify this issue, The Express News Facebook page which put up the photo of Chief Minister Raisani is not run by the Express Media group (or unofficially by any of its employees to the extent that we have investigated) and has already been reported to Facebook for copyright infringement. The matter is pending Facebook's response.

The act of sharing this photo is condemnable and would never be allowed. 

The only official Facebook pages for The Express Media Group are the Express Interactive and Tribune Facebook pages.

Best regards and will keep you up to date on when Facebook shuts down this bogus page. "

We appreciate the clarification and apologize for our strong words based on the assumption that this was an officially sanctioned Facebook page. However, we do wish this matter of copyright infringement had been taken seriously and dealt with before the current scandal broke. The Facebook page has been in existence for quite some time now (it has over 40,000 'fans'), displays the Express News logo prominently and also carries regular updates from Express News. We hope, in the interest of transparency, the Express Media Group shares publicly whatever legal action it does take against against those who infringed its copyright and scandalized the organization.


UPDATE 3:
So Express Media Group has finally managed to have Facebook shut down that page masquerading as Express News today (6 October). Confirmation of the shut down was received by EMG and forwarded to us. In addition they have informed us that EMG has also filed for an investigation into the matter with the FIA's Cyber Crime Wing. The Express Tribune and the Daily Express also carried clarifications on their back pages today dissociating themselves from the fake Facebook page. With regard to the lapse in taking the offending page to task before it caused damage to EMG's credibility, Jahanzaib Haque, the web editor, wrote to us to say that:

"The copyright infringement did not come to our attention till this issue surfaced, which is really unfortunate (we also noticed that the page had existed for a really long time), but better late than never."

We thank EMG for taking swift action in the matter and also for transparently sharing their details in the matter. It is much appreciated.

Convergence

So, this is merely an administrative type post. Trust us.

Thanks to the millions of people... ok, thousands of people... ok, two or three anonymous commenters on the blog who wondered why Cafe Pyala's posts were not shared more widely on Facebook, we've finally created a page for ourselves on that darned social networking site. We don't really think it will make much difference - people share what they share - but at least next time someone asks us that question, we can throw this in their face. (The things we do to go one up on our readers.) Incidentally, not sure if you guys noticed or not but there's been a sharing hotlink to Facebook and a couple of other sites below each post for some time now.

In any case, if you're on Facebook, you can look us up on our Official Facebook Page. We're listed as, believe it or not, Cafe Pyala.

But actually what is kind of exciting about the Facebook page, purely from a tech point of view, is that it aggregates not only our blog posts but also our Twitter feed (@cpyala, yeah, we've kind of got used to that infernal thing too, though if truth be told it makes us waste even more time than we already did). We believe this is known as 'convergence' in techspeak. Not sure if it will make a darned bit of difference to us but it sounds cool.

So, if you're one of those people who find it a gargantuan task to open a new tab/window on your browser and actually mosey over to our blog because you're too busy checking out who's becoming friends with whom in your news feed, we've made things easier for you. You can stalk us equally easily as your crush from school.

So that's it. We're on Twitter and Facebook as well now. Told you this was nothing but administrative crap. You can go back to your bunkers now.

Typo of the Day

Actually, from Tuesday, June 1st editorial in The News titled "Facebook fracas":

"Hurting religious feeling is always unfortunate; the competition put up was abdominal."

Freudian slip?

The Cretinous Republic of Pakistan

How cretinous can we be?

The Lahore High Court has ordered the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority to block Facebook in Pakistan because of some lame-ass campaign originating out of Seattle to make caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH). According to the wire new agency Xinhua:

"Judge Ejaz Ahmed Chaudhry instructed the Ministry of Telecommunication to enforce the ban on the use of Facebook in Pakistan and submit a written reply by May 31.

Officials told the court that the government has already blocked parts of the Facebook relating to the caricatures competition but the petitioner argued that no part of any website can be banned unless the whole website is blocked.

Chaudhry Zulfikar Ali, lawyer for the Islamic Lawyers Forum, said that the competition of blasphemous caricatures created concerns among the Muslims across the world."

Widespread evidence, including personal, indicates that this ban has already come to pass.

Now, I should point out that I am no fan of this allegedly 'free speech' campaign, which is Western liberal cretinism taken to its extremes. Why? Because I personally think it is entirely hypocritical. There are laws in many parts of Europe for example (even in Denmark which flew into a rage over the Islamic world's reaction to the earlier blasphemous cartoons issue) which make any questioning of the scale of the massacre of Jewish people during the Nazi era, a jailable crime. You simply cannot even say anything that goes against officially sanctioned history and a number of people have been jailed for writing books that have been deemed to be a denial of the Jewish Holocaust. There are also laws (in Europe) that make blasphemy a cognizable offence, with the caveat that blasphemy is considered to be only against Christian beliefs. The US 1st (free speech) Amendment does legally protect all forms of speech but even in the US, it is socially and politically suicidal to say anything in the mainstream media that questions certain sacred cows, such as the right of Israel to exist, having sex with those 'under age', or to make fun of Jesus. I am not weighing in on the merits of these prohibitions, only pointing out that the freedom always exists within certain limits prescribed by society. The clash in this case is that the limits in the West are different from those other cultures or societies have set for themselves. And that what happens in one part of the world is immediately transmittable to another part through the power of the internet.

Secondly, my problem with this campaign is that it is not a little bit patronizing - as if the only issue left to ensure freedom of expression in the West is that these 'uncivilized and illiberal' Muslims need to be taught a lesson. In a world wracked by the perception (right or wrong) of a clash between Islam and the West, it is grossly irresponsible to further fan flames of bigotry and racism.

Having said all that, however, one can only rue our own immensely cretinous response to this silly campaign. Why do I think that? Consider:

1. Why, oh why, does everything in Pakistan boil down to banning this or that? Will we ever realize that 'banning' things does not really make them go away? Remember, Indian films were banned in Pakistan in the early 1960s and alcohol was prohibited for the country's Muslims in 1979...

2. Does Judge Ejaz Ahmed Chaudhry even know what he is passing judgement about? Does the moron Chaudhry Zulfikar Ali? I have serious doubts they even understand what social networking sites - indeed the web - are all about. Did the court even take advice from any technical expert? Or did it base its judgement on what a moronic Islamic Lawyers Forum lawyer said to it? What does that say about the competence of our legal profession and higher judiciary?

3. Are we masters of cutting off our nose to spite our face or what? Will Pakistanis not being able to access Facebook in Pakistan stop this campaign? Will it prevent those Pakistanis who want to access the cartoons from accessing it in a number of other ways? Will we ban email subsequently?

4. What the hell does Facebook even have to do with this? From what I can gather, someone merely created a page in support of this campaign - like the millions of other pages hosted by the site - while the main campaign is hosted here, which is accessible still. It is akin to banning Facebook if Geo runs something the government does not like, just because Geo has a fan page on Facebook, while letting Geo continue its television transmission. But before some other bureaucratic moron decides to block that link, however, let me just quickly point out that there are a number of other places on the web where the same material is hosted. The only way you can block it all is by banning the internet altogether.


Given our history of legal and bureaucratic cretinism, I wouldn't be surprised if that's the next thing Chaudhry Zulfikar Ali demands. And gets.

Facebook Inc.

Ayesha Siddiqa: Facebooked

On March 26 Ayesha Siddiqa, the author of a seminal work on Pakistan's armed forces, Army Military Inc., and Friday op-ed contributor for Dawn wrote this on her Facebook page:

"Absolutely miffed at how Dawn's current set of editors have turned the paper conpletely into a something that can only follow 'partyline'. So much for freedom of press. While they allow for careful leaks from within to be published as front page stories, they would edit my column mercilessly to keep the establishment h...appy. This is no free media but a carefully guided media."

On March 28 her status update read:

"Good news - one of my facebook friends squeeled to the editor sahib and reproduced my facebook entry about Dawn which was used an excuse to finally get rid of me. So, it is goodbye Dawn. I hope Mr squeeler remembers to pass on this post as well."

We had been overhearing some chatter about this recently, with Dawn op-ed people basically calling her 'Ayesha-sloppy-copy-Siddiqa' and Ayesha basically telling everyone in cyberia about those spineless morons at Dawn. But we never thought it would end quite like this: as Pakistan’s first bonafide Facebook-related sacking.

Ayesha Siddiqa's is an important voice in Pakistan's current political discourse and she may not be a great stylist but she makes sense most of the time. So where to now for her? Could it be The News, where nobody would ever think of even proof-reading an op-ed let alone edit it...? Or could Army Military Inc end up at Lakson Inc?