Money Talks

Guess who was spotted on November 9 in Washington D.C. at a reception for American and Pakistani media personnel thrown by US AfPak ambassador Richard Holbrooke's media assistant Ashley Bommer? Mir Ibrahim Rehman, scion of the house of Jang and CEO of the Geo TV Network. He walked in with The Friday Times editor and Dunya TV's Najam Sethi but stayed long after Sethi left the party.

Mir Ibrahim Rehman (c) at his master's convocation earlier this year

Mir Ibrahim (MIR) apparently jetted in for a mysterious three-day visit to the US, during which, our sources say, the main objective was to convince the US administration that Geo was neither anti-US nor anti-democracy, the line being peddled by the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) government. MIR also wished to gather official American support for the Jang Group against the PPP boycott of the group as an instance of an assault on freedom of the media.

Our sources claim that MIR did not find too much traction among US officials against the idea of a media boycott, perhaps because the Obama administration itself has a similar boycott against Fox News (albeit without the shoe-throwing rent-a-demos and vile grafitti scrawls against Fox News owners). However, what is particularly interesting about the Jang Group's attempts to woo the American establishment is the fact that there has been apparently a lot of discussion within the US government about whether it should support and even subsidize a media group that has no qualms about running shrill propaganda against the US, and sometimes even promoting a pro-Taliban line. In particular, Hamid Mir's contribution to whipping up Blackwater hysteria in Pakistan, Ansar Abbasi's rants about Western puppets, and the space given to nutjobs such as Zaid Hamid (Aag TV) and Ahmad Quraishi (Aag TV and The News) have apparently raised quite a few eyebrows in the US administration.

The Americans have reason to be upset with the Jang Group, and MIR has reasons to find their upset unsettling. The running of the banal American propaganda Voice of America (VoA) programme Khabron Se Aagay [Beyond the Headlines] as an 'advertorial' on Geo since 2005 has netted the Jang Group and its owners, by some accounts, millions of US taxpayer dollars. Although the exact 'compensation package' doled out to Geo by the US government is still secret, it should be noted that the deal between Geo and VoA was mediated during the Bush-Musharraf era by the then Information Secretary Anwar Mahmood and advertising whiz-kid Asif Salahuddin, the latter of whom is reputed not to touch 'small' deals. Apparently, part of MIR's discussions with the US administration included those on the future of the Geo-VoA deal.

Incidentally, while Najam Sethi was ostensibly in the US for medical check-ups and may have been present at the Bommer reception only coincidentally, as we have reported in the past, he too has been trying to persuade American-backed NGOs to fund a new 'liberal' channel to be headed by him.

Coming back to MIR, it seems that more than American upset, a potential threat of withdrawal of lucrative financial support may be the trigger for a panic at the Jang Group. As they say, bullshit may walk but it's money that talks. I have a strong feeling that you may well see the (media) house line shifting very soon. If you suddenly begin to miss the casual anti-US vitriol in the group's publications and on Geo, you'll know why.

Odd Couple Television And Just As Funny

Sigh. I was alerted to this wonderful (I use the term in a tongue-in-cheek way of course) bit of television on DawnNews' Bolna Zaroori Hai a couple of days ago from kalakawa's blog (which in case you have never seen it, please do, it is usually bitingly witty.) It takes a special kind of talent to put together Marxist political economist and former LUMS academic Aasim Sajjad Akhtar with pop star turned conspiracy theorist and Zaid Hamid acolyte Ali Azmat. And I mean that quite sincerely: it does make for riveting television, even if it does not add much to one's bank of knowledge or insight. In fact, Azmat's performance here, is riveting in pretty much the same sense as watching a hurtling train you know is about to jump off the rails. Kalakawa has ranted enough about Azmat that I don't need to. But more than that...

I. Just. Don't. Have. The. Energy. To. Comment. On. This.

So, watch and weep (or laugh) all on your own.


Part 1: Where, probably for the only time, the study at the heart of the discussion is actually discussed in any detail, by host Wusatullah Khan...





Part 2: Where things get going, immediately on a tangent, thanks to Ali Azmat, who expounds his theory that the Pakistani media is demonizing Islam...





Part 3: Where Ali defends Zaid Hamid and disses democracy among other things...





Part 4: Where Ali really cuts loose... And by that I do mean LOOSE. He questions whether people would rather vote for the Indian military or the Pakistani military, talks about poor people who can barely run two airconditioners and voices support for a caliphate...





Part 5: Where Ali explains how the world is moving towards an Islamic caliphate system of governance and denounces the ending of the subsidiary on electrical power...





Part 6: Where Ali gives his view that what is labeled confusion among Pakistanis is simply them expressing a point of view different from the capitalist system and sings a song...





Oh, and yeah, in case you forgot, the programme was about whether Pakistanis are becoming more conservative.

Two Twits Down, One To Go

This has really been a good week in some respects.

First there was news about wankmeister Zaid Zaman Hamid's long overdue comeuppance, initially at the hands of students in Peshawar and finally with a cartoonish flop show on 23rd March in Lahore. This is how Nadeem Farooq Paracha blogged about it on Dawn's website:

"For months the Zaid Hamid brigade had been congesting cyber space and the two TV channels that the haughty ideological quack is a regular fixture on, with promises of holding a ‘massive gathering of youth’ at the Minar-e-Pakistan on this year’s Pakistan Day (23rd March).

However, the no-show by Zaid and his fans at the Minar-e-Pakistan suggests the long honeymoon Mr. Hamid had been enjoying may be as good as over.

He simply failed to reach the Minar-e-Pakistan, not because he had a massive body of passionate young men with him chanting for his caliphate, but mainly due to him chickening out in the face of an announcement made by a radical Islamist group that recently named him in a police FIR for murder.

Perturbed  the articulate (but not very accurate) TV ideologue decided to hold his ‘historic’ rally at Lahore’s spacious Alhamra amphitheatre.

A man who likes posing in (passé) revolutionary attire and who it seems is always ready to pick up a Stinger missile and boldly cross into India and take-over Delhi, decided to quietly escape being at a venue where presence of a fringe group was expected.

So, the following message was fired by the man on the 23rd March: “Alhamdulillah, for tactical reasons, the venue for Takmeel e Pakistan has now been shifted to Alhamra Open Air Theatre adjacent to Gaddafi Stadium. Insha’Allah it is going to be an emotionally charged ideological, historical, earth-shaking event. Spread the message to your friends. Each one of you please do bring along a sabz hilali parcham. Be there by 3:30 p.m. Insha’Allah. PAKISTAN ZINDABAD! ONWARDS TO TAKMEEL E PAKISTAN! See you there Insha’Allah!”

Now that we know what the ‘tactical reason’ was for the sudden change of venue, what happened next was even more ‘earth shaking.’ No-one turned up.

Reports coming in from those who did decide to go, suggest that there were hardly a hundred Hamid fans present there. Funnier still was the fact that the Alhamra Hall was booked on urgent basis (by Hamid and co.) not as a venue for a rally, but for an ‘urgent marriage ceremony’!

So what happened? A figurative divorce of sorts."

You can see for yourself the "earth-shaking" event at the Alhamra:








And then today we've had news that the incompetent and afflicted-with-verbal-diarrhoea Mr Jamshed Dasti (of the Muzaffargarh PPP and chairman of the National Assembly's Standing Committee on Sports) has been forced to resign from the National Assembly after his Master's degree in Islamiat was adjudged to be fake by the Supreme Court.

The details of Mr Dasti's humiliation are rather tantalizing. Asked a series of questions by the Supreme Court hearing the challenge to his credentials, Mr Dasti managed to make even the justices cringe. Asked what were the subjects he studied for his degree and which year his degree was awarded, Mr. Dasti expressed complete ignorance. He was then asked to name the first 15 chapters of the Quran - he could not. Asked to name the first 5, he again could not. Finally asked to name at least the first and second, he replied that they were "Alhamd Sharif" (it's actually called "Sura-e-Fateha") and "Sura-e-Aal-e-Imran" (it's actually Sura-e-Baqrah, Aal-e-Imran is the third). Now, I doubt most people could name the first 15 chapters in exact order but keep in mind that the man supposedly had an MA in Islamiat. He was also asked how much 4 times 2 is, which he also apparently got wrong. After the Chief Justice told him to rethink his defence, he asked for time and ran away from the court only to have his lawyer come back and tell the court that he had submitted his resignation from the parliament.

Dasti lords his incompetence over others (Source: APP)

But dheet that he is, he still had the temerity to appear on Geo News to sheepishly say that he accepted the court's verdict and that he put his faith in God. I think his actual words were "Allah khair karay ga" (God will make everything all right). Do recall that this is the man who used to breathe fire and brimstone from the pulpit of the Sports Committee and fling around allegations like nobody's business. So not only is he a fraudster and incredibly stupid, he is also unrepentantly macho. The combination boggles the mind.

But he is not the only one who has been caught out faking his credentials. At least 3 other parliamentarians from the Punjab have resigned in the face of similar humiliation. Personally, I see no reason why this should be the end of the matter. Firstly, what about the two years' worth of salaries, allowances and perks they have managed to wangle from the people of Pakistan? The least that should be done is for these amounts to be recovered from them. But equally importantly, why should resignation from parliament be the end-all for them? They have knowingly defrauded the state of Pakistan, subverted the electoral will of the people and denied the legitimate candidates who stood against them. Even if this does not fall within the ambit of high treason, a stint of jail time is the least they should now enjoy.

You know what would make it a perfect week? If someone took a shoe to another fake fraudster, Mr Hardilazeez Twit himself.

Bake Up Pakistan

When I heard this news today, I can tell you, it warmed my heart.

Wanker-in-chief Zaid Hamid's arrival on March 6 (Saturday) at the Islamia College University in Peshawar for a Wake Up Pakistan pep rally (i.e. his usual pompous drivel) was met not only by strong vocal protests from a range of student groups (including the Peoples Students' Federation, the Pakhtun Students' Federation and even the Jamiat) but his car was also apparently stoned and some students even attempted to beat him up. Some reports also claimed a bout of aerial firing. Here is a clip of what happened inside the woefully named Takbeer Hall (posted obviously by an acolyte wanker):



One of the student protestors, Idrees Kamal, had this to say to Dawn in the protestors' defence:

“We have already suffered a lot due to the suicide bombers and militants and do not want those promoting the extremists.”

I'm not usually someone who condones such tactics against people whose opinion one disagrees with. But in this case, it's fair enough as far I'm concerned. Since chauvinists like Zaid Hamid talk only in terms of violence and genocide, keep proclaiming their fondness for militaristic solutions and attempt to shout down all voices opposing them or sneakily denigrate them as unpatriotic, about time that they get a taste of their own medicine.

One must also keep in mind the circumstances of this pep rally. According to all local sources, Zaid Hamid was invited by the university's chancellor, the NWFP Governor Owais Ahmed Ghani, and was provided VIP security protocol by plainclothes law enforcement and intelligence personnel. (Oh yeah, it's so much easier to 'Wake Up Pakistan' with the intelligence agencies at your back, isn't it Zaid, Maria and Ali?) What exactly is Mr Ghani up to? Why is a madman receiving such official patronage? Haven't we seen enough of the consequences of backing such unhinged demagogues? It is to the credit of the student bodies that they resisted this obviously establishmentarain attempt to build up this charlatan.

Here is Dawn's report and here is The News' report on the fracas. And here is a slightly more detailed local report from KhyberWatch.

My only disappointments about the whole episode were as follows:

1. That Zaid Hamid did NOT get beaten up
2. That he DID manage to deliver his drivel nonetheless
3. That, according to The News' report, some of the protestors called him a "controversial scholar."

If he's a "scholar", my pet snail is one too. And both leave equal amounts of slime in their wake.

Wake Up, Stand Up, Stand Up For Your Fights

A hilarious post on "Sexy Islamism" by ex-DawnNews journalist Khawer Khan pointed me in the direction of this clip of designer Maria B. being interviewed on Samaa TV's Nai Rahain programme with host Nadia Jamil. You must watch too for a good time.





Here are some gems from Maria B.'s mouth:


On Why She Supports the lunatic Zaid Hamid (at 1:05):

"Because he doesn't stop you from anything!"

On Deciding Why She Won't Do Revealing Clothes Anymore (at 1:29):

"It's part of what my evolution is becoming [sic]."

On "Hate-Mongering" Critics of Zaid Hamid (at 2:19)

"He is a fakir, who teaches love"

(You can see some of that love on a previous post here btw)


On What 'Wake Up Pakistan' supremo Zaid Hamid's Ranting Is All About (at 2:52):

"This is a movement about tolerance, it's about love, about protectioning [sic] the minority."

Here's the sufi in his own words (do see the whole clip):





On How She Thinks Muslims Should Behave Towards Non-Muslims (at 6:32):

"Some people think that being religious and Islamic means ke you just going to... [treat non-Muslims with derision].. No! Those.. that Hindu can be a better person than you and higher in the scale of Allah [sic] than any one of those Muslims going around beating people up. So ye bilkul bhi mujhe koi na kahe (don't anyone say this to me).. just because you are Muslims you think you are superior, nobody is."

Aah, noble thoughts indeed. But then what do we make of this bit of humility from your mentor, wherein he claims 50 crore Indian Hindus are just itching to convert to Islam and that the next time Pakistan goes to war with India, Indian Hindus should be prepared to be massacred ("This time we will take no prisoners")?:





On How 'Wake Up Pakistan' Movement Is All About Diversity and Tolerance (at 7:45):

"Hum jab meeting kar rahe hotay hain, aik larki baithi hoti hai hijab mein, aik niqab mein, aik main baithi hoti hoon, aik Feeha Jamshed baithi hoti hai.. (When we have our meetings, there is one girl sitting in hijab, one in a niqab, I am sitting there and [TeeJays' designer] Feeha Jamshed is sitting there)... and we respect each other."

Like duh. So it is all about fashion statements, isn't it? By the way, what, no Ali Azmat at the meetings?



I don't know about you but I want to set up the "Wake Up Maria" movement.

Braaallelujah! Brallelujah!

I did not particularly wish to do this story. As far as I’m concerned, as long as they’re not hurting/ maiming/ killing/ reading any column from GT aloud to anyone, what people wish to do in their own time is their own business. But there are aspects to this post at the ambiguously named Pak Alert Press blog that are worth pondering.

'CIA trying to make inroads into Pakistani media'?

1) Who leaked these pictures, and why? If the cunning plan was to subtly imply the journalists featured collaborate with the evil Americans (see heading "CIA Hosts Drinks and Dance Party for Pakistani Journalists at US Embassy Islamabad" and subheading "CIA Public Relations at Work?" for examples of aforementioned subtlety), that’s a fail.

Secret agents apparently don't need secret rendezvous any more

Nobody of reasonably sound mind would be convinced that Pinky, Tinky, Dinky, Minky etc are the spawn of Satan, lovers of Lucifer or buttmonkeys of Beelzebub after looking at a couple of relatively innocuous shots of them with an American or two at an officially sanctioned gathering. Especially when other guests include Asma Shirazi of the ARY Network who, if memory serves correctly, told Hilary Clinton during her last visit to Pakistan that America needed to bugger off home pronto, that the war on terror was not our war, and that using 9/11 as a justification for anything didn’t cut it in a nation where 9/11s happened every day.

If the point was to make the two female anchors featured prominently in most pics – Samaa TV's Meher Bokhari and DawnNews' Saima Mohsin- look stupid, that’s an even bigger fail. Anyone of reasonably sound mind who has seen their shows already knows that they are well capable of achieving that look by themselves. See the episode of Newseye in which the dominatrix of rhetorical obfuscation Ms. Shireen Mazari teaches Saima a little something about humiliation, and the interview in which PM Gillani stuns Meher into silence by asking her to identify anybody who opposes the Kerry Lugar bill (good thing he didn’t ask her to name the four provinces), for examples of why I think so.

If the point of the story, however, was to give the clearly already crazed inhabitants of the Zaid Hamid / Ahmed Quraishi blogosphere - whence these pictures originated and continue to be distributed - a little somethin’ somethin’ to look at, I completely understand. Haters have rights too. Especially Master Bators. Sorry. I meant Master Haters. (Interestingly, all the pics initially proudly bore the 'PKKH' - short for the Pakistan Ka Khuda Hafiz blog run by acolytes of the aformentioned gentlemen and quite possibly themselves - logo and stamp, which was subsequently removed on second thought!)

Saima Mohsin's Freemason handshake?

2) What are the current rules of engagement for local journalists when it comes to networking with people or entities they might not particularly wish to hang out with but have to anyway because if they don’t have access they don’t have anything? If they are uber-nationalistic, should they accept invites to receptions in honor of the ambassadors of countries they secretly wish would explode? If they are Muslim, should they attend Christmas parties at foreign missions? If they do, should they refuse to shake hands with female dignitaries if male and avoid physical contact with male dignitaries if female? Should they wash their hands (and so on and so forth) if such contact occurs? Should they walk out if alcohol is being served? Or should they make sure they drink or dance (if indeed dancing and not the incredibly convoluted Freemason handshake is what Ms. Mohsin was doing) where cameras cannot capture them like so many other ‘good Muslims’ do?

Meher Bokhari aroused great, er, ire from the commentariat...

3) Why are we so darn racist? Incredible ire was provoked in the comments on the post by the fact that two of the anchors were posing with "blacks" or "kalas", with most deciding to completely ignore the CIA/ anti-Islamic bait and advocate the shaming/ stoning/ killing of the women for their proximity to "negros."  One monsieur ‘Khan’ expressed it best perhaps when he wrote of Meher Bokhari:

"…appears to be drunk and drowned in love of the blackman hugging (or attempting to do so) her in every picture. BTW she is real hotty. Why no Pakistani makes her to feel cool? Afterall what’s bad in her? But that ugly blacky, I curse her choice. May be, she know far better and far deep or have a specific taste."

...but for some reason this guy did not

That makes it twice in one day that rapidly circulating items (see Imran Khan in Ilford clip below) illustrate how deeply embedded prejudice is in our national psyche. Is it a reflection of some deep rooted insecurity on the part of our mard hazraat, or are some of us just taking ‘beware of Blackwater!’ too literally?

Wanker of the Week

I have been meaning to do a proper post about the Kerry-Lugar bill and the nauseating media frenzy that's been whipped up about it, for a few days now, but just haven't found the time. I will, I will, I promise.

But in the meantime, I came across this bit of supreme wanking from Pakistani electronic media's Wanker-in-Chief, Zaid Hamid, and just had to share it. I mean, LOOK at this guy - red beret, photographer's jacket, scraggly beard - this guy must really think he's Pakistan's loony answer to Che or something.



But you have to have a strong stomach - or the absolute cluelessness of an Ali Azmat or whoever that bimbo is who's 'interviewing' him here on TV One - to listen to him. He begins by fabricating complete fiction about the bill - among his contentions is that the bill's wording includes that "those who love Pakistan should be removed from Pakistan's intelligence agencies." I mean, really?

He then goes on to call Pakistan's ambassador to the US, Hussain Haqqani, "Israel's ambassador", "Mir Jaafar", "Mir Sadiq", "beysharam" and "bayhaya". Ok, so I'm no fan of Haqqani, not by a long stretch, but hearing this from this lunatic, I almost feel inclined to support him. But Hussain Haqqani is only one of the targets. Others are the PML(N) - also "baysharam" - and the Awami National Party - which is warned to 'straighten itself out' ("hosh mein aa jayein") and 'stop operating at the behest of the CIA' or 'get a clobbering greater than what it has already endured from the Taliban' ("jo maar parri hai woh thorri hai"). Blackwater personnel, meanwhile, are apparently going to find themselves hanging from the trees very soon.

But my favourite bit is where he goes off about how "we, the patriotic people, are controlling things" and how the government's days are numbered. I personally think this madman's 'we' may simply be usage of the royal pronoun but, on the other hand, he may be letting slip who his backers are too. You might get further clues from who he thinks is the most patriotic organization in Pakistan...

The Wanker Guerrilla growls: "We are warning them, we are warning this government and the Americans... We will consider them traitors... It's a clear warning. Wake up!"

Which of course begs the question: who the F*** are you?!!