Relax, Don't Do It?

So, um, Mosharraf Zaidi had recently written an article in Foreign Policy called "The Talibanization of America", which is certainly worth reading for his intelligent recasting of the debate over Islam and Islamophobia in the US, though I have serious issues with his implication that the only valid debate is one between religiously-inspired identities. And with an English speaking Pakistani-American schooled at the Karachi American School who is more than a little fond of heavy metal and rap, sneeringly referring to governments in Pakistan as being run by "culturally dislocated Muslims." It's the sort of essentialism Mosharraf's otherwise well argued writing can do without.

But I bring that up only as a by-the-way talking point because what I really want to share today is the 1996 video below. It is of Christine O' Donnell, a Tea Party Express candidate and right-wing activist who defeated the favoured Republican candidate today in the party's Delaware primaries. As you may recall, the Tea Party is sort of the extreme right of the Republican spectrum whose members have been in the forefront of casting Barrack Obama as a (OMG!) Muslim communist and leading the fight against the New York Muslim Cultural Centre to be known as Cordoba House. According to analysts, the win for her has put a rather large stumbling block in the GOP's (Republican Party's) hopes of winning the Senate in the November elections, since they do not believe O' Donnell has a chance of winning the face-off against her Democratic rival.

In any case, here is the video from MTV that one TV programme dug up. It's O' Donnell's campaign against, um, well, you know...





The Taliban just get a bad rap sometimes, I tell you.

Why A Time Delay on Live Calls Is A Good Idea

If you don't know the television phenomenon known as Mathira, you have obviously been living on a different planet than the rest of Pakistan for the last two years. Or at least the rest of lewd, young, male Pakistan in any case. Starting off as a limber-limbed yoga instructor on morning TV and moving on as a deliberately coquettish veejay on Vibe TV, she soon became the one reason some people religiously watched that channel. She also became known as the "Gujji Gujji Girl", a title derived from the gibberish combination of sounds she adopted as her takia kalam for some unknown reason, right before she usually blew a kiss to her excited / excitable audiences. She has entire sleazy blogs and a number of Facebook fan pages devoted to her, and probably more Youtube clips than you can count and now hosts a show (probably aptly) titled "Love Indicator."

Mathira: suggestive enough for you yet?

A friend sent me the following clip from Vibe TV with the claim that this must be a first for Pakistani TV. Unfortunately, it isn't. Although I have not been able to identify the timeline for this particular clip, in a quick search I came across at least two or three similar instances of live calls gone wrong from other programmes involving Mathira... which suggests to me that this may be some sort of policy of sleazy leniency encouraged by the head honchos at Vibe.

In any case, just in case you think the mainstream channels are where the action is at (it isn't, believe me, try also some of the Sindhi and Punjabi entertainment channels), here's the clip that should explain in general terms why a time delay on live broadcasts is generally a good idea. At least if you're not into encouraging a certain sort of viewer interaction...





I have to say, however, that, for whatever it's worth, one must admire the poise of Mathira. She should not have been put in that situation in the first place but she handled it as best as she could on live TV. Somehow I don't think this is the last time she'd have to do it.

Pakistan Loves Animals, It Really Does

Our friend Ahsan at FiveRupees had once done a post on his blog about the curiously fanatical predilection of Pakistani internet surfers to surf the world of dark erotica, so to speak, more than any other country in the world. You know, not the usual hardcore porn that everyone else is surfing for around the globe, but porn of decidedly unusual tastes. We can confirm, from the kind of searches that have led readers to our blog, that there's a strange, strange world out there, and even stranger are some of the people who mistakenly land up at Cafe Pyala in search of their unusual fetishes. Think of your favourite Pakistani political celebrity and pair their name with the kinkiest of your fantasies and you'll be getting a sense of the kind of stuff we see all the time.

Now it seems the rest of the world has cottoned on to the decidedly bizarre thought processes of the Pakistani public. Here is what Fox News recently reported via the Associated Press:

No. 1 Nation in Sexy Web Searches? Call it Pornistan

By Kelli Morgan

Published July 13, 2010 | FoxNews.com

AP

Pakistan has banned content on more than a dozen websites because of offensive and blasphemous material. The Muslim country, which has laws on dress codes, ranks as the top country to proportionally search for certain sex-related terms.

This article was updated on July 14.

 

"They may call it the "Land of the Pure," but Pakistan turns out to be anything but.

 

The Muslim country, which has banned content on at least 17 websites to block offensive and blasphemous material, is the world's leader in online searches for pornographic material, FoxNews.com has learned.

 

“You won’t find strip clubs in Islamic countries. Most Islamic countries have certain dress codes,” said Gabriel Said Reynolds, professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Notre Dame. “It would be an irony if they haven’t shown the same vigilance to pornography.”

 

So here's the irony: Google ranks Pakistan No. 1 in the world in searches for pornographic terms, outranking every other country in the world in searches per person for certain sex-related content.

 

 

Pakistan is top dog in searches per-person for "horse sex" since 2004, "donkey sex" since 2007, "rape pictures" between 2004 and 2009, "rape sex" since 2004, "child sex" between 2004 and 2007 and since 2009, "animal sex" since 2004 and "dog sex" since 2005, according to Google Trends and Google Insights, features of Google that generate data based on popular search terms.

 

The country also is tops -- or has been No. 1 -- in searches for "sex," "camel sex," "rape video," "child sex video" and some other searches that can't be printed here.

 

Google Trends generates data of popular search terms in geographic locations during specific time frames. Google Insights is a more advanced version that allows users to filter a search to geographic locations, time frames and the nature of a search, including web, images, products and news.

 

Pakistan ranked No. 1 in all the searches listed above on Google Trends, but on only some of them in Google Insights.

 

“We do our best to provide accurate data and to provide insights into broad search patterns, but the results for a given query may contain inaccuracies due to data sampling issues, approximations, or incomplete data for the terms entered,” Google said in a statement, when asked about the accuracy of its reports.

 

The Embassy of Islamic Republic of Pakistan did not reply to a request for an interview.

 

In addition to banning content on 17 websites, including islamexposed.blogspot.com, Pakistan is monitoring seven other sites -- Google, Yahoo, Bing, YouTube, Amazon, MSN and Hotmail -- for anti-Islamic content, the Associated Press reported in June.

 

But it’s not to censor the Pakistani people, Reynolds said. It’s to shut out the rest of the world.

 

“[It] could lead to conversion, which would undermine the very order of the state,” he said. “Part of protecting the society is making sure that there is no way it could be undermined in terms of foreign influences.”

 

Pakistan temporarily banned Facebook in May when Muslim groups protested the “Everybody Draw Muhammad Day” page, where users were encouraged to upload pictures of the Prophet Muhammad. The page remained on Facebook, but Pakistani users were unable to view it, said Andrew Noyes, manager of Facebook’s Public Policy Communication.

 

And while Pakistan is taking measures to prevent blasphemous material from being viewed by its citizens, pornographic material is “certainly” contradictory to Islam, too, Reynolds said.

 

The country’s punishment for those charged with blasphemy is execution, but the question remains what -- if anything -- can be done about people who search for porn on the Web.

 

“It’s a new phenomenon,” Reynolds said."

I had once thought about doing a post about some of the searches that led people to Cafe Pyala but gave up the idea after I realized that it would probably lead to scandalizing decent people for no fault of theirs. All I can add to the report above is that Professor Reynolds is dead wrong about this being a "new phenomenon." Long ago, at the beginning of the net revolution in the country in the 1990s, Pakistani ISPs realized that were they to start filtering out sex sites (not that it would be possible in totality in any case) their traffic (and hence their revenues) would face a major downturn.

But why blame ISPs for the repressed fantasies of the common user? Pornography has been at the cutting edge of internet usage all over the world and continues to be the single biggest revenue earner in cyberspace. The only question that really is worth asking is why Pakistanis are so sexually repressed in their public life that their only outlet is on the net? And yeah, what is up with that bestial shit?

Will The Real Comic Please Stand Up?

I like Shazia Mirza. I do. First she travels all the way to Pakistan to entertain us with live shows at LUMS and T2F. Then she travels all the way home to Ye Olde England to entertain us with her take on them. A take which, for those who happened to be present at either, doesn’t present her as a wit as much as it does a half wit. Then again, what is comedy these days if not a playing coshing of the truth while it whimpers gently and wraps its arms protectively around its head?

Shazia Mirza: striking a pose for Ye Olde England

Ms. Mirza begins by recounting the strange case of what allegedly happened to her at a Pakistani airport. Someone asked her for a bribe. This is not going to be a shock to anybody who has ever traveled to a third world country in something other than a coffin. What is shocking is that she forks over $100, thereby drastically increasing the going rate and setting an unholy precedent for any number of corrupt immigration officials in sketchy airports across the globe.


If that isn’t enough to make the rest of us angry, consider this…

"My first performance took place at the Lahore University of Management Sciences (Lums). The audience was made up mainly of lecturers and students, and as I arrived I was told: "Don't worry about performing – we've stepped up security because people knew you were coming.""

First of all, I’d like to humbly request the lecturers and students at the Lahore University of Management Sciences to stop fucking with their guests.

"The fact that there needed to be security at all to tell jokes indicated danger. Pakistan is a sexually repressed country and that is the root of many of its problems."

Second, I’d like to suggest to Ms. Mirza that security is not also always equal to danger. In Pakistan security is often equal to privilege. As in, a sign of privilege. As in, to demonstrate that whatever is being ‘secured’ has a lot of money to throw around. Some people would have security guards in the crapper with them at all times if they could, maybe even swirling down the drain with the turd if necessary, so that when they lose a hand at that night’s poker game they can say ‘Oh yeah? Well I don’t care because I have so much money my shit has its own security detail’. My final word to Ms. Mirza on the issue of security in Pakistan is that these days most violent crime is actually committed by security guards.


Then we move on to her claim that Pakistan is a sexually repressed country, and therein lies the root of many of its problems. This is an interesting hypothesis, and doubtless the foundation of many a thesis project on gender studies by earnest young Pakistani women who aren’t getting any at home.


Unfortunately, if it were true, countries that aren’t sexually repressed wouldn’t have problems, and leaders of nations that are fine with a bit of skirt for breakfast or the dance of the two-headed beast in public wouldn’t need to export their legions of horny young men to far climes to get off on acts of gratuitous violence.


In fact, if I might just run with this, the most evolved country in the world right now is probably Finland, which has a record number of female parliamentarians, a gay prime minister, and has just banned strip clubs. So the answer to our problems my brothers and sisters – and you may indeed quote me in your thesis papers – might not be more sex but more lesbian sex.

"The last time I performed in Lahore I was told: "You can talk about anything you like – religion, politics, drugs, you can swear and curse, just don't mention 'The Sex'." Any sexual words or connotations were banned – because in Pakistan there is no mention of sex on television, radio, or in public."

Now this is where things get really dodgy for me. Which Pakistan is it that Ms. Mirza visited exactly? The Pakistan where you put your head into a bucket of stereotypes and bob for the most worm-ridden apples? Or the Pakistan where mucho copulation has led to mucho population, where wall chalkings offer phone numbers, texts direct you to ‘a good time’, film songs find new and disturbing ways to push the boundaries of vulgarity and there is a record number of accidents on a bridge in Lahore when a billboard of Neha licking a Magnum is, um, erected?

Neha at home

Ms. Mirza then went on...

“to perform two hours away in Karachi. The audience consisted of young people, old people, women in burqas and groups of men – all sitting on the floor together. The doors were locked as soon as all the audience were in, and once again armed security guards stood outside.”

Interesting. Yes the doors were locked (so as the performance would not be disturbed by people trying to come in when there was no more space), and I saw two women in burqas – in an audience of 300 people – but I completely missed the security guards. Could it be that my jaded Pakistani eyes are so used to the sight of overgrown eagle scouts that I don’t notice them anymore? Or could it be that Ms. Mirza is unable to tell the difference between a guard and a valet? (Note to Ms. Mirza: the first has a rifle/the second a gun/the first is for shooting/the other for fun.)

"On arrival I was told by the organizer: "The Pakistani Taliban are infiltrating down to the outskirts of Karachi now, so be careful with what you say. It's best not to talk about religion, or sex, and don't mention the word "gay"." Why? "Because gay doesn't exist in Pakistan," she explained. Pakistan believes it has freedom of speech, but the only freedom you have is to comply with the speech they want to hear. She continued: "There is a law against making any jokes about President Zardari. You cannot make any jokes about him in public and you are not allowed to text any jokes to your friends about him, otherwise you will be put in prison.""

I would now like to humbly request the staff and owners of T2F to stop fucking with their guests.

"When you tell a comedian not to do something, well. I made a joke about President Zardari. The audience loved it. They laughed like they had never laughed before."

Actually, I think we laughed a lot harder when he first tried to get us to stop making jokes about him.

"All the things the audience laughed at are the things they are most repressed about. Jokes about sex, religion and politics got the most laughter."

They did. But then again Ms. Mirza didn’t really make jokes about anything else. And there were some real zingers in there too. Such as:

'Extremists are told that when they get to heaven they’ll get 72 virgins. Have they ever thought about what a woman who remains a virgin her entire life probably looks like? Do you really want to go to heaven and have sex with 72 hairy bitches?'

Or:

'Why do fundamentalists have to say ‘you will burn in hell? Is ‘burn’ really necessary? What else are you going to do in hell but burn?'

She also did a great riff on anal sex. Which I personally do not think is funny.

"After the show I was invited to a party. I walked in, to be offered a joint of marijuana, followed by a joint of opium, followed by vodka and then a discussion on porn. I was asked: "What's your favorite porn film?" I have never watched porn. I tried to lie but I couldn't think of a porn movie, so I told the truth: I've never watched porn. This was met with "You've never watched porn? Let us show you some!" A collection of 600 films was pulled out from behind the bookcase. I was then offered a male Russian hooker for the night."

At this point, the people of Pakistan are probably asking themselves two questions. 1) Why the hell wasn’t I invited to that party? 2) If a male Russian hooker goes down on you in a forest do you make a sound?


Ms. Mirza ended her opinion piece by stapling once again onto our foreheads a label reading ‘the hypocrisy of a sexually repressed, censored society’, a label that no sane Pakistani would seriously argue with. How she came to that conclusion after two evenings in the company of people who are probably anything but, I don’t know, but as a writer I can completely empathize with her need to translate experience into material. For those who are offended by it, try to remember that she also sacrificed her mother.

‘My mother is a real namazi. She doesn’t pray five times a day. She prays twenty times a day. My problem with that is, the other day she said her prayers and then ripped the rickshaw driver off.’

As I said in the beginning, I like Shazia Mirza. I do. She can come back and poke fun at us anytime she likes as far as I’m concerned. And this time we’ll make sure those uniformed men are posted inside the bedroom instead of outside, and she won’t have to worry about the extremist she’ll have to have sex with when she gets to heaven.