I would have posted this yesterday but sometimes weekends should
remain weekends i.e. work-free, no matter the happiness work may bring. In any case, this has to be the best
thing to have happened in Pakistan yesterday or perhaps even the year.
And may I add, it could not have happened to a better blowhard at a better
occasion (a meeting of the leadership of the Duffer-e-Pakistan Council).
Given his past exploits rigging elections, General Hamid Gul sahib should have known by now that there's no guarantee of the kursi once you leave it.
Credit for digging up this Video of the Day, and even inspiring the title should go to @shahidsaeed on Twitter...
This is from the anti-Zulfiqar Mirza protests outside the Karachi Press Club on October 10, which followed the return to Pakistan of the former Sindh Home Minister and his attempts to stoke controversy yet again by bilious rants against his bete noire, the MQM and its leader Altaf Hussain. The MQM castigated the media for giving too much importance to the "nobody" Mirza and pretended it had nothing to do with the "spontaneous" protests while at the same time, through its testy reactions, it probably gave Mirza exactly the importance he craved. In any case, do not miss this hilarious clip where the chant leader begins with slogans of 'Altaf Kutta', which he belts out twice before realizing what protest he's at, upon which he slaps his head and does a 'tauba'. Unfortunately, it still doesn't prevent him from receiving a reproachful whack and being dragged away... As I said, bloody hilarious!
Sigh. Sometimes you don't know whether to laugh or cry at the state of political debate on the electronic media.
See following clip from ARY's "11th Hour" programme from yesterday with host Waseem Badami (thanks to Akhtar Rind for bringing it to our notice). The programme was ostensibly innocuously about 'What good news could the government give the public in the current dire scenario?' The first comment was solicited from well known columnist and television host Hasan Nisar, who decided to proclaim that no good news could come until the current political elite was not "totally eliminated." According to him, the current lot of politicians were all "robbers and dacoits" who were "sucking the blood of the people" and the people themselves were the "biggest villains" for bringing them into power in the first place. Of course it all went downhill from there. The PPP's Punjab president, Imtiaz Safdar Warraich, who spoke next, was remarkably restrained in his response, saying smartly that no sensible person would like to respond to such slander and he wanted to be counted among the ranks of sensible people. However, the PMLN's Senator Mushahidullah did take the bait. And this is what then happened:
If you would like to watch the full context of this exchange, you can do so here.
Hasan Nisar has made a name for himself as a frank and forthright political commentator in Jang. And I have to admit that I do often find even his rants about politics a refreshing change from the mealy-mouthed hypocrisy that generally clutters the op-ed pages of Urdu papers. But having watched this exchange, I have absolutely no qualms in saying that Nisar was egregiously in the wrong here. Not only in the shameful way he chose his words on live television but also in terms of his politics. Criticizing the trappings and non-representational character of what he terms "pseudo-democracy" is one thing. But what he basically said was no different from the line of social elites and autocrats: that the people really don't know what's good for them and only they themselves are the repositories of all wisdom. He should offer an immediate apology.
Incidentally, kudos to Waseem Badami for keeping his wits about him even in the midst of mayhem and managing to pull back the programme from the brink of collapse. It's not easy to deal with such unexpectedly virulent behaviour on live television.
Meanwhile if you thought that was bad, this is what happened on Express News' "Kal Tak" programme hosted by Javed Chaudhry on March 29 (thanks to Shahid Saeed and @fraz_lsf for pointing it out). Watch the end as Talal Bugti begins his 'conversation':
I have to admit I'm not particularly fond of PPP Senator Faisal Raza Abidi's appearances on television. But that's just because, my ears having been bled from the apparent dominant paradigm of anchors and participants on Pakistani television talk shows, I have a general aversion to over-emotional and LOUD grandstanding. And nobody gets more emotional and louder than Senator Abidi.
However, this typically cataclysmic rant from him on Aaj TV's Aaj Ki Khabar programme on March 17th (which one missed partly because the England - West Indies thriller was on the same night and partly because one doesn't normally bother with Aaj in any case) deserves to be heard. To be fair, he only let loose after the other participants (including the host Absar Alam, Khalifa-ul-Waqt Ansar Abbasi, Justice (retd) Tariq Mahmood, PMLN's Pervez Rashid and Jamaat-e-Islami's cretinous Fareed Paracha) all pointed fingers at the federal government for either letting 'Raymond Davis' go or lying about it.
But more importantly, if you can look beyond the political grandstanding and the ear-splitting volume of Abidi's splenetic fury (I'll admit it'll take some doing), he also makes some rather pointed and valid arguments against those casting the 'Raymond Davis' issue as one of national honour and 'ghairat' as well as the silent sympathisers of extremism and the opportunistic judicial system.
Yeah, so what indeed about the 23,000 plus Pakistanis killed by the Pakistani Taliban? But if you thought this could coax some soul-searching from apologists for extremism such as Fareed Paracha, you'd be sadly mistaken. Paracha subsequently responded that by letting 'Davis' go, the government had blocked people from collaring the people who are actually behind terrorism in Pakistan (i.e. it was 'Davis' and his Blackwater cohorts, it's never the Taliban and their ilk). As I said, cretinous.
The legislator is MNA Asiya Nasir, elected on a reserved women's seat from Balochistan, the only minority female legislator in the National Assembly and speaking the day after the murder. She holds a Masters in English literature from the Government Girls College, Quetta and a certificate in Teachers' Training and is a member of the NGO Aurat Foundation. She has been a member of the House since 2002 when she was elected on a reserved seat for minorities. Remarkably, she is affiliated politically with the Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Islam - Fazlur Rehman (JUI-F) and was elected in 2002 (as well as in 2008) on a ticket of the 'religious' parties alliance, the Muttaheda Majlis-e-Amal (MMA).
A powerful speech that should be heard by all in Pakistan, especially because it raises uncomfortable truths...
Just came across this hilarious skit from Dunya TV's Hasb-e-Haal, where the resident comic genius known as Azizi (real name Sohail Ahmed) parodies former foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi's persona after his recent bombastic speech. In common parlance, this would undoubtedly be known as the 'taking' of Shah Mahmood... Enjoy.
Sometimes we like to share things that are actually brilliant...
From the BBC's documentary series "The Joy of Stats", featuring Professor Hans Rosling, described as a "superstar boffin" whose "eye-opening, mind-expanding and funny online lectures have made him an international internet legend." This is what the description of this particular clip says:
"Hans Rosling's famous lectures combine enormous quantities of public data with a sport's commentator's style to reveal the story of the world's past, present and future development. Now he explores stats in a way he has never done before - using augmented reality animation. In this spectacular section of 'The Joy of Stats' he tells the story of the world in 200 countries over 200 years using 120,000 numbers - in just four minutes. Plotting life expectancy against income for every country since 1810, Hans shows how the world we live in is radically different from the world most of us imagine."
Apologies for the long absence from blogging. Much to write about.
But first, a clip: the latest example of the degeneration of political discourse in this country. Had heard about this yesterday. The channel is Business Plus, the programme The Pulse. The participants are (from left) former information secretary PPP and Bilawal House spokesperson and current adviser to Sindh Chief Minister, Jamil Soomro, former Citizens Police Liaison Committee head Jamil Yusuf, and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf's Sindh President Naeemul Haq. See it and wonder.
Here's the Daily Times report on this (The Daily Times being, of course, Business Plus' sister concern.) I wonder if their owner Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer thinks: some excitement at last on Business Plus!
Incidentally, the same enterprising Mr Wilbur Sargunaraj also shows you how to use an 'European Latrine' here, and hilariously comes across a bidet for the first time.
Floods. Devastation. Killings in Karachi. Fake Degrees. Fake Relief. French Chateaus. British Shoes. What will it take to get our mind off the negativity for a moment. Perhaps this can. And I am willing to bet anything that this is the most surreal video you will see this weekend. Enjoy.
So Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani goes to Mianwali and distributes cheques to affectees of the recent floods there at a medical relief camp. Except, the medical relief camp is fake - it was hastily established in a school for the sole purpose of the photo-op for the PM - and so are the 'affectees', lying on charpoys as if they were patients. Talk about chutzpah! The whole thing was dreamed up by the local administration to make the prime minister feel all warm and fuzzy. I have a feeling he won't be feeling so warm and fuzzy now. Kudos to the Geo team that caught it all on tape.
Here's the report (apologies for the quality, I couldn't find an original upload on the net, will replace when it's up):
Or if you really must see better quality visuals, you can go here and wait for the news item to come up during the bulletin (it comes in around 29:26). Incidentally, Geo later on did a mash-up of the news report with clips from the Indian film Munnabhai MBBS in which a fake hospital is established at a dhobi ghat for a visiting dignitary.
Stumbled across this hilarious gem of a song by legendary Indian composer Madan Mohan from the first film he ever composed for. The film was Aankhen, the year was 1950. The singers are the vocal giants Shamshad Begum and Mukesh. The song is timeless, and nothing if not pertinent to Pakistani politics these days.
By the way, the news today is that Sindh University has asked the Higher Education Commission (HEC) to be given further two months (TWO MONTHS!) to verify the degrees under its purview. That can mean one of two things. One, that the Sindh educational bureaucracy is really as inefficient as everyone thinks it is. OR. Or two, that after failing to delay the inevitable coming to light of fake degrees by using all manner of underhand pressure tactics (such as blackmailing the HEC Chairman by arresting his brother and raiding his home and threatening other education department staffers), the government has decided to employ this latest tactic of postponing the issue. I really don't feel like discussing this complicated and sordid business any further (yes, it's not a simple black and white case as columnist Mosharraf Zaidi eloquently explains here). But I am quite happy to make light of it, for God knows we need some light in our lives.
Apparently, so boring was the US Senate Armed Services Committee's hearing today, that US Centcom chief General David Petraeus fainted. The expression on the face of 'droning' former presidential contender John McCain's face is worth watching.
I don't usually post stuff about internal US politics - seriously, I don't care either way - but this had me laughing so hard, I really thought it was worth sharing. That, and because it demonstrates how Jamshed Dastis exist in all countries.
This is a video that a blog called TMPMuckraker dug up after Indiana Republican congressman Mark Souder announced he would resign his seat because he had had an affair with a part-time staffer in his office called Tracy Jackson. Okay, so no big deal there, happens all the time, even if it seems to happen more frequently to conservative, "family values" kind of self-righteous politicians. But the video that TMP has dug up is actually a promotional one of Rep. Souder talking about 'Abstinence Education', apparently one of his core political issues. Funny? Not half as funny as the fact that his interviewer is his staffer and lover Tracy Jackson.
Why Facebook is better than Twitter... You just don't come across such stuff on Twitter, do you?
This is apparently from Geo's "off-screen" transmission on September 28, 2009, 8:10pm. Thanks to someone called Waheed Gul from Peshawar - who claimed on his facebook page to have hacked into the not-for-public feed - for uploading it. Enjoy.
Came across this bitterbitterbitter attack on Youtube on Dunya TV's popular programme Hasb-e-Haal, which incidentally is the No. 1 ranked programme in terms of viewer ratings for its time slot. The ire of the poster has been kindled by the Hasb-e-Haal team making fun of Geo TV's Dr S&M a.k.a. 'Blowhard of the Decade.'
Thought I'd share the video with you. I don't know about anyone else but if Asif Zardari was actually responsible for Aftab Iqbal and Sohail Ahmed taking the mickey out of Dr S&M (for which there is absolutely no proof of course), my respect for him has really rebounded.
What can one say? Except, who IS this PPP idiot Sardar Abdul Qayyum Jatoi anyway? And this man is a minister???
Actually, listening to him, you may come to the correct conclusion that he is actually right: the bigger problem in Pakistan is certainly the nepotistic and screwed up system that throws up such incompetents as him in the first place! (Originally posted on siasat.pk)
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