I tell you, thank God for Aisam-ul-Haq! Because even though he lost the mixed doubles finals at the US Open today, there was far more grace in his losing than in anything else that has been going on in Pakistan.
Another Eid, another moon-sighting controversy and another bunch of lunatic maulvis. I refer you to my post last year on the same issue, aptly titled "The Rot That is the Ruet." But while that particular post was about the sheer idiocy of the whole moon-sighting exercise - which continues unabated - today we have sunk to even further depths.
In case you were rightly and fortunately more engrossed in the tennis, here is the situation so far:
The Central Ruet-e-Hilal (Moon Sighting) Committee, tasked with looking for the moon in the sky throughout Pakistan, announced that the new moon had not been sighted anywhere in the country. Therefore Eid would take place day after, i.e. Saturday (incidentally, on 9/11), in Pakistan. Fair enough, though Saudi Arabia and a bunch of other countries will of course be celebrating it tomorrow (Friday) 'cause their 30 rozas are already up. This was pretty much in line with what the Met Office had already predicted, that it would be almost impossible to see the very, very faint new moon anywhere in Pakistan with the naked eye, particularly with its transient 'rising' and 'setting' times, except perhaps in the far reaches of Balochistan. But since nobody sighted it in Balochistan either, it was decided that the new moon was not visible.
Popalzai Live: eagle-eyed
Enter Masjid Qasim Khan in Peshawar and its rebel mullah Shahabuddin Popalzai. Like last year, he announces two or three hours after any scientific possibility of anyone seeing the moon, that the moon has been sighted all over Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province and therefore Eid would take place tomorrow. Also like last year, the KP senior minister BatshitBashir Bilour (supposedly representing the secular ANP), then jumps into the fray to give his support to Shahabuddin and to announce that the province would officially observe Eid tomorrow. He justifies this bizarre announcement, which basically once again means that KP will officially celebrate Eid a day before the rest of Pakistan, under the excuse of provincial autonomy and that the provincial government must respect its own clerics. You know the 18th Amendment has got sidetracked when you hear such logic. WTF?
Of course this is not the first time people in KP seem to be on their own timeline. For some odd reason, the moon is far more visible in KP and Peshawar than anywhere to the west or east of them. But it doesn't end here. Baba Haider Zaman, the septuagenarian head of the Sooba Hazara Tehrik, which has been demanding that the Hazara region be separated from KP and made into a separate province, then decides to add his two bits and announces that the entire Hazara region in KP will not follow the provincial announcement and observe Eid according to the Central Ruet diktat.
So you now have one date (1st Shawwal) in all of KP tomorrow except for the Hazara region, while the rest of Pakistan will be on a different date (30th Ramzan) along with the Hazara region which incidentally is still part of KP. I was getting infuriated with the sheer lunacy of all this until it struck me that, in fact, this is a brilliant, brilliant turn of events. After all if every area, nay every mosque, can decide the date for itself, the logical progression has to be that every individual can decide the date as well. I think next year I will declare Eid whenever I think I've had enough of fasters' bad manners. It's every man (and woman) for themselves and after this precedent, who can challenge me?
On a more serious note, however, doesn't this lunacy perfectly encapsulate the total breakdown of state power and governance in Pakistan? Here we ponder how the state can extract more taxes from an intransigent elite, ensure provincial harmony or clamp down on terrorists, but really, the state cannot even find a consensus on a date.
As I said, thank God for Aisam. Maybe he should just moon these mullahs.
This is a shocking video from Indian Kashmir which demonstrates once again what the mentality of a frustrated and unpopular military force becomes against 'natives' it believes are all enemies... One could add that these sort of abuses are common wherever there are military forces considered outsiders or occupiers (Abu Ghraib, Gaza, East Pakistan anyone?) but that's neither here nor there. This is a video specifically from Kashmir and should give pause to those of our readers who were quick to claim that my characterizations of the situation in Indian administered Kashmir were exaggerated.
Keep in mind that we do not know the background here or the exact date this was recorded, seemingly on a mobile phone (it was uploaded only two days ago on this site). But a couple of things are quite clear:
1. that the perpetrators of these human rights abuses are Indian security forces and
2. the interest of these security forces here has nothing to do with security but rather with humiliating these boys (just listen to the instructions to them not to dare cover their private parts).
I have always wondered at the mentality of such people wielding power. After such an experience, why wouldn't these boys - even if completely peaceful before - have more empathy for militancy?
Viewer discretion is advised.
(It seems there is something wrong with the embed code since the video does not show up on the blog. So you will just have to go to the site linked above to see the video.)
Was sent this screen grab today from the Lord's Test match. Pretty damning, eh?
Salman Butt: ensuring compliance?
Anyone who has played any cricket or follows cricket closely could tell you that no fielder would be looking at the bowler at the point of delivery. They'd be looking straight ahead, at the batsman, in anticipation of the shot. That's fielding basics. But then not all fielders have money riding on no-balls.
For those who may not have followed it, this is the story as it broke earlier this evening: Cheema was waylaid on his way home early yesterday morning in Islamabad (around 3.30am) by people wearing police uniforms, bundled into a car, blindfolded and driven around for about 30 to 45 minutes, finally landing up in an unknown place where he was stripped naked, hung upside down and beaten severely before his hair and moustache were shaved off. After about six hours of this torture, he was taken and dumped on the Islamabad Motorway with warnings not to make the incident public. According to Cheema himself, the men beating him kept berating him for writing against the government and allegedly wanting to invite martial law, abused the chief justice of the Supreme Court and Cheema's parent organization, the Jang Group, and threatened his children as well as his immediate boss, Ansar Abbasi, with dire consequences if he and Abbasi continued to attack the government.
Anti-Mir Shakil grafitti on Zamzama (Photo: Huma Imtiaz)
Now recall that the Jang Group has been at loggerheads with the government recently (just a few weeks ago, parts of Karachi were plastered with abusive grafitti and banners against its chief executive Mir Shakilur Rehman obviously sponsored by the ruling Pakistan People's Party) and Ansar Abbasi in particular has been a sort of a thorn in the government's side with numerous investigative stories (and unfortunately, opinion pieces) detailing corruption and incompetence in the corridors of power. On the face of it, this seems a cut and dried case of governmental fascism.
So, why did the story seem too pat? Well, basically because of the obviousness of it. Which government could hope to pull off such a stunt against a high-profile media house and NOT see wall to wall coverage of it on its television channel and newspapers? And if I were a government out to commit such fascism, would I at least not ensure that it could not be easily traced back to me? That is, would I not at least send my thugs in civvies rather than police uniforms?
See from 0:30 onwards
I realize of course that these are merely assumptions of a certain amount of government intelligence and competence and are no proofs that the government was not itself involved. The counter argument would be that the government really is far dumber than even its worst critic believes. And certainly Imran Khan, interviewed on Geo for his reactions, is willing to believe that the two largest political parties, the PPP and the PML(N), have big enough 'dakus' in them to do something like this.
But it seems my gut instinct is shared by most journalists in Pakistan, including Ansar Abbasi and Umar Cheema himself. Both pointed out that the kind of operation it was, it was far too "professionally" handled for any "private" or "freelance" thugs, which basically leaves one of the three main intelligence agencies as the culprits. Umar Cheema went as far as saying that his own feeling about what his masked captors were saying to him was that it was meant as "deception", a smokescreen if you will, to make it seem that they were government agents.
There are some additional circumstances one must keep in mind. Umar Cheema claims that his abductors had told him that they were actually lying in wait for him in Gakhar Mandi, since he was due to travel to Gujranwala, but that when he had cancelled his travel plans, they had come to Islamabad to get him. Now, the only way they could have known about his plans was if they had the ability to eavesdrop on his mobile conversations. Who can do that in Pakistan but the intel outfits? Secondly, you might also recall a very similar incident in 2003 during General Musharraf's rule, when then Punjab deputy opposition leader (and current Punjab Law Minister) Rana Sanaullah had been similarly kidnapped, beaten and had his hair, moustache as well as his eyebrows shaved off. There is little doubt who was behind that incident.
Consider also why Umar Cheema would be targeted. What shocker has he written recently that would draw the ire of the government? Actually, having gone through Cheema's recent output, really not that much. His last piece, on August 20, was about how some big businessmen would not be attending a meeting called by President Zardari to raise funds for flood relief. On July 21, he reported about Zardari's rubbishing of claims by painter Laila Shahzada's daughter that he had helped her brother steal 93 of her mother's paintings. On July 8, he reported on the opposition parties' resolve to back the judiciary in any stand-off with the government. On July 2, he reported that some Turkish guides hired for Zardari's visit to Turkey had not been paid and had gone to court against the Pakistan embassy. On June 19, he reported about Law Minister Babar Awan chartering a PAF plane to go distribute monies to bar associations in southern Punjab. On May 16, he wrote a story claiming that General Musharraf's right-hand man Tariq Aziz had become Zardari's close adviser. And on May 12, he reported about how Rehman Malik's past was being whitewashed and the record of cases against him was disappearing.
On the other hand, many of Cheema's stories seem to be rubbing up the military the wrong way. Consider: On August 5, a sensitive story about how the army is using up to 400 personnel of the Pindi police to guard the army chief's house and the routes to it. On July 8, a story about the mishandling by intelligence agencies of high profile terror attacks such as that on Lt Gen Mushtaq Baig and ISI buses, which led to the acquittal of the accused. On July 7, a story detailing the Punjab government's condemnation of the army and its intelligence agencies for not cooperating in terror attacks investigations. On June 9, a story about how one of the commandos court-martialled for disobedience during the Lal Masjid episode was seeking Nawaz Sharif's help. On June 8, a story about how the two court-martialled commandos had not been provided the court-martial proceedings and had approached the Supreme Court for justice. On May 26, a report about the quiet arrests of an army major and his brother after the Faisal Shehzad incident in New York. On May 23, a story detailing a secret report that blamed the MQM for target killings. Etc, etc, etc. Of course it was Cheema who had filed stories against the army-managed National University of Modern Languages as well, which we had written about here as well.
In fact, remarkably, tonight's special edition of Capital Talk on Geo all but laid the blame for this incident at the feet of one of the military intel agencies - either the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) or the Military Intelligence (MI). It may not have been said in so many words or obvious reasons, but the participants, including Abbasi, Cheema and the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists' President, seemed to be quite clear in their minds who was behind it, and it was not the government-controlled Intelligence Bureau. If you consider the fact that this was Geo, the channel the PPP government has had the most issues with, the host was Hamid Mir and the participants included Abbasi, both of whom have been accused of carrying an anti-PPP agenda, you really have to give pause when all more or less absolve the government.
If true, this of course then begs the immediate question: what was the motive?
While Cheema's stories touching on sensitive military issues could be one reason, I really do not feel they warrant the kind of reaction this incident indicates. Plus his last story on the military was almost one month ago. It just does not make sense. There is also a body of opinion that believes that Cheema himself was only an unfortunate pawn (none of his anti-government stories have been major shockers) and the real motive was to send a message to Abbasi who is far more prolific and opinionated. This again would make more sense if indeed it was a PPP-sponsored attack. What message would the military want to send to Abbasi? Why would they not want him to expose corruption in the government? But Abbasi himself does not believe this was directed by the government.
No, I'm afraid the only thing that makes sense then is that this was someone's idea of psy-ops. To create a further wedge between the government and the media, particularly the Jang Group. To create the perception that the government is going out of control, to build a case that can be later cited as among the reasons it should not stay in power.
Unfortunately, what this incident has shown is that whoever was involved in this shameful, shameful incident cares not a whit for the real grave issues Pakistan is grappling with at this time. All this incident is likely to do is to blacken Pakistan's name further. If it was indeed the government, it is far more stupid than anyone imagined. And if it was the military, it is at least as incompetent as the politicians it moans about.
Sana Bucha, the host of Geo's Crisis Cell, has resigned from Geo and joined ARY. Obviously this means that her programme, which should have been airing tonight even as I write this, will not be broadcast.
Sana Bucha: out of her Cell
But perhaps much more intriguing are the reasons for her departure. Two of the more obvious ones are that Bucha had been offered more money by ARY and that since her husband (she recently got married) also works for Geo's Corporate Affairs division, she decided to make her exit before any administrative issue put the couple in a difficult position.
But insiders are saying one of the reasons is also Geo's attempts to lure Samaa TV's Meher Bokhari to Geo. Rumours of a bidding war involving Bokhari had been doing the rounds for some time, though Geo officials dismissed them as planted by Bokhari herself to increase her cache. The rumours were obviously credible enough, however, for Bucha, who it is said does not have a particularly soft spot for her television rival.
Meher Bokhari: being bid upon?
Incidentally, unconfirmed rumours are also circulating about Geo attempting to lure Dr. Shahista Wahidi, the host of ARY's top-rated morning show and whose brother Sahir Lodhi is now already doing a show on Geo. She, it is said, would replace the once-top rated Nadia Khan.
I am not going to write about Wednesday's triple Lahore blasts during the Youm-e-Ali procession. Not because they didn't affect me deeply (they did) but because there is nothing I can say about this kind of terrorism which I have not already said countless times before.
Inevitably, media attention has focused on security and organizational lapses which, had they not occurred, might have prevented such a large number of casualties. Focusing on organizational inefficiencies is fine... up to a point. I would like to steer the discussion towards another usually ignored tangential aspect of the whole issue. But instead of writing about it myself, today I am going to rely on other writers who have done an excellent job of presenting the point, even though at least one of them was not motivated by yesterday's specific incidence.
First up, do read Nadeem Farooq Paracha's very good (and thankfully, well measured) analysis of the forces that have brought Pakistan to this point and which are shaping the mindsets of the country's burgeoning youth populations even now.
Secondly, if nothing else, read the excellent op-ed piece in Dawn from one of journalism's grand old veterans, I.A. Rehman, a vanishing breed of professionally sound, thoughtful analysts whose integrity is beyond reproach. I am posting the entire article below, if only so those who have a knee-jerk response to the idea of secularism in Pakistan (some perhaps because of those who propound it as thoughtless fashion themselves) might reconsider their beliefs that it has no roots or legitimacy in the country. The points I.A. Rehman makes bear repeating because, increasingly, we are producing literate illiterates - those who can read and write (and hold forth on the media) but know nothing of our own history, culture or the philosophical debates that have shaped us.
Spectre of Secularism
By I.A. Rehman
Thursday, 02 Sep, 2010
The spectre of secularism is haunting the privileged elite of Pakistan, some privileged by birth or status, others by their grading in the realm of belief. Now pollsters have joined the effort to scare the people with reports that a majority of young persons prefer theocracy to secularism.
Unfortunately, huge confusion has been caused by presenting Islam and secularism as two mutually antagonistic and irreconcilable philosophies. In many cases this is done by persons who cannot, or do not wish to, analyse both Islam and secularism objectively.
The Oxford Dictionary gives many meanings and usages of the word ‘secular’, including a member of the clergy not bound by a religious rule; not belonging to or living in seclusion with a monastic or other order; belonging to the world and its affairs as distinguished from the Church and religion; civil, lay; non-religious, non-sacred; et al.
The strongest opponents of secularism always rely on its definition as “the belief that religion and religious considerations should be deliberately omitted from temporal affairs”.
However, it can be substantiated with the help of authoritative texts that Islam views secularism as a way of life that is inspired by Islam’s ethical ideal (Iqbal’s favourite expression) but in which reason is used to promote the good of humankind. That is why duties to human beings are considered more important than obligations to God.
The principle that Islamic injunctions can be amended to suit changes dictated by time and social development has been upheld by a long list of Islamic scholars, from Ibnul-Qaiyyam Jauzia and Ibn Khaldun to Allama Iqbal and that makes a strong case for Islam’s compatibility with secularism. (Falsafa Shariat-i-Islam, Majlis Taraqqi-i-Adab).
In Pakistan the advocates of secularism rely mostly on the Quaid-i-Azam’s dictum that religion has nothing to do with the business of the state. Actually, the subcontinental Muslims’ contribution to secularism has a much longer history, beginning (if not earlier) with Allauddin Khilji’s refusal to follow Qazi Mughis’s plea to convert or kill the more numerous non-Muslims. Babar advised Humayun to treat people’s religious affiliations as changing seasons and Aurangzeb scolded his teacher for making him waste his time on Arabic grammar while he should have been taught governance in a world that was larger than Shah Jahan’s kingdom. All these ideas bore the stamp of secularism.
In the modern phase of our history, Syed Ahmad Khan is considered the founder of the movement for Pakistan. He declared “the root cause of people’s misfortune lies in mixing the problems of the world with the problems of religion that are immutable…. Mixing of the affairs of the world with the affairs of religion is madness … conditions of society and civilisation change day by day, therefore, they cannot be part of religious commandments”. (Sibte Hassan in the Battle of ideas in Pakistan, Pakistan Publishing House, 1986).
Pakistan’s anti-secularism lobby has little respect for Allama Iqbal though quite a few mujavirs have won comfort by selling his name. In Iqbal’s life 1930 was a most significant year. It was the year he delivered the Madras Lectures, later on published in a book The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam, and it was the year when he addressed the Allahabad session of the Muslim League.
In the lectures, Iqbal’s overriding concern was to see the unfreezing of the Islamic jurisprudence that had been frozen for 500 years and had suffered greatly under what he described as “Arab imperialism”. He began his sixth lecture, ‘The principle of movement in the structure of Islam’, by describing Islam as a “cultural movement” and holding “that all human life is spiritual in its origin”. He added that a prophetic revelation was world-life’s intuitive perception of its own needs and its choice of direction at critical moments, and that “loyalty to God virtually amounts to man’s loyalty to his own ideal nature”. He told his fellow Muslims that “a false reverence for past history and its artificial resurrection constitute no remedy for a people’s decay”.
Allama Iqbal upheld the Turkish view that “according to the spirit of Islam the caliphate or imamate can be vested in a body of persons, or an elected assembly”. He gave ijma great importance as a source of lawmaking through a modern assembly. Then he addressed the question as to how to prevent mistakes by an assembly of lay persons. He rejected the idea of a board of ulema to advise parliament and told the ulema to be part of the assemblies.
“The only effective remedy for the possibilities of erroneous interpretations is to reform the present system of legal education in Mohammadan countries, to extend its sphere, and to combine it with an intelligent study of modern jurisprudence” (emphasis added, all references from the book published by Sh. Muhammad Ashraf, 2007).
In the last week of December 1930, Iqbal gave his Allahabad address. He declared that “Islam, regarded as an ethical ideal plus a certain kind of polity — by which expression I mean a social structure regulated by a legal system and animated by a specific ethical ideal — has been the chief formative factor in the life-history of the Muslims of India.” Then he added: “Indeed, it is no exaggeration to say that India is perhaps the only country in the world where Islam, as a people-building force, has worked at its best.” Since no Islamic theocracy was ever established by the Muslims in India, Iqbal could only be extolling their secular traditions.
After proposing a Muslim state in the north-western part of India, Iqbal dispelled the “Hindus’ fear that the creation of autonomous Muslim states will mean the introduction of a kind of religious rule in such states”. He then approvingly referred to a newspaper comment to the effect the Indian Muslim states did not ban interest and offered it as an example of “the character of a Muslim state”. This is secularism.
One should like to suggest a fresh interpretation of the Allama’s lectures and his Allahabad address. He may well emerge as a strong Islamic defender of secularism.
While the common people of Pakistan have no reason to share the ashrafiya’s fears of secularism they have every reason to dread the anti-secularism lobby. The “principal institutions of a secular society” listed by Altaf Gauhar are: the elected legislature, the judiciary, and the press”. (Battle of Ideas)
It is quite clear that all these institutions have to bear with one another. The Supreme Court can never sack parliament or the media, nor will parliament ever be foolish or strong enough to abolish the Supreme Court or the media. But the extremist militants that are being reared by anti-secular elements, if they ever capture the state, will almost surely pack off parliament, the Supreme Court and the media into oblivion. The choice before the people of Pakistan has never been clearer.
On August 27, Sher-e-Punjab and Saviour of Pakistan, Mian Mohammad Nawaz Sharif strongly recommended that the federal government should immediately provide at least Rs.100,000 (one lakh rupees) to each flood affected family. Immediately, he said, before Eid, and of course he would welcome it if the government provided more. He repeated the same line today while addressing flood affectees.
Just the sort of statement that makes you reach for discarded envelopes and a pencil stub for rough 'back of the envelope' calculations.
Let's take the conservative figure of there being some 17 million flood-affected people (some estimates run to over 20 million). Then, making the assumption that there are on average 10 people in a family (which may in fact be too high an assumption), this means that at least 1.7 million families will each need to be given Rs.100,000. That means the government would need to have Rs. (1,700,000 x 100,000) to dole out.
1,700,000 x 100,000 = 170, 000,000,000
So the government would need to be able to hand out 170 Billion rupees immediately, before Eid. Now, since big numbers often make people's eyes glaze over, let's see what this means in US dollar terms. Taking the dollar-rupee exchange rate as equivalent to 85 rupees, 170 Billion rupees comes to exactly 2 Billion US dollars.
To put it all into perspective, consider for a moment that the entireKerry-Lugar assistance comes to $1.5 Billion a year. Consider also that the cash requirement for such a handout easily dwarfs the budgeted allocation for any department or ministry under the Public Sector Development Programme for the whole year (the entire year's allocation for the National Highway Authority, the largest chunk of the PSDP, e.g. is 44.64 billion rupees). And Mian sahib wants that US$2 billion to be handed out in cash within 10 days??! And this is aside from the cost of whatever rehabilitation and reconstruction would need to come next. Noble sentiments I am sure, but where exactly would all this money come from? Does no one surrounding Mian sahib know basic mathematics? What is alleged financial whiz-kid Ishaq Dar doing?
Nawaz Sharif answers the question: how much is 2 + 2?
One could be forgiven for being shocked at a businessman's naivete about money. But remember, this is the same businessman who introduced the yellow cab scheme in the 1990s and the sasti roti scheme in the Punjab in 2008-2010 (now quietly wound up), both of which ended up bankrupting the governments he controlled. Obviously some people believe more in the value of populist rhetoric than in realism.
Today's image of zen, comes to you thanks to Twitterer Huma Imtiaz who found it here...
Yes, these are Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) refrigerator magnets!
Keep in mind that BLA is a shadowy outfit, characterized as a terrorist group by Pakistan, the US and the UK, that nobody ever owns up to being part of. In fact, at times it has also been accused (by Baloch nationalists) of being a figment of Pakistan's security agencies' imagination and (by the Pakistan government) of being a front for the Indian intelligence agency RAW. It is accused of several bomb attacks on military, oil, gas, rail and power installations in Balochistan as well as the killing of security personnel, government servants, policemen, teachers, doctors, labourers and foreigners as well as a campaign of ethnic cleansing against Punjabi settlers.
And you can own all that history for just $3.85 per magnet. They'll probably keep your grocery list securely pinned to your fridge as well.
Imagine my shock and surprise when I saw 'Breaking News' on Express TV just before 7pm tonight that the entire sordid cricket spot-fixing saga had been one big fraud engineered by the Indian intelligence agency RAW in collusion with the Indian International Cricket Council (ICC) President Sharad Pawar, the News Of The World newspaper, and RAW's paid agent Mazhar Majeed, who according to this report, received 50,000 pounds from the intelligence agency to enact the drama.
This was just before the three blasts in Lahore today which have killed some 28 people so far, so the story sort of got buried for a little while. But it was repeated again in the 8 o' clock and 9 o' clock news and even sort of referenced in Mubasher Lucman's programme at 8 o' clock, where some unknown "analyst" (identified as one of Daily Express' editors) claimed he had been saying from the start what everyone now knows, that the whole scandal had been manufactured to ruin Pakistan cricket. I was later told that Aaj TV had also run the same story aggressively.
There was one little problem with this expose, however: it cited no sources. In the 'Breaking News' just before 8pm, Express TV claimed the source to be "a British newspaper" without naming it. In the 8 o'clock and 9 o'clock news, the source had become "media reports." This vagueness (if there is such a earth-shattering story, wouldn't it make sense to tell viewers who managed the scoop?) and the fact that neither Geo nor any other channel had run the report (as far as I know) of course immediately set the bullshit alarm off. So I decided to follow up and see where this news had originated from.
Not quite "a British newspaper"
It didn't take much to be honest. A simple Google search revealed the only source: the rag known as The Daily Mail. No, not the right-wing mainstream UK newspaper (no great repository of truth itself), but the purveyor of all conspiracy theories headquartered in Islamabad which pretends to be a global paper and which is a favourite of Zaid Hamid acolytes like Ahmed Quraishi. Although fronted by a man known as Makhdoom Babar Sultan, here's a hint to what it's actually about: most of its op-ed writers are retired faujis and its focus seems plainly to be crude propaganda about India. No points for guessing who's probably behind it.
The funniest part of the whole episode is that apparently Aaj TV even ran the logo of the actual UK Daily Mail along with its story and Express TV were so taken in by the name of the source (as well as probably its ambiguous logo that has two upright lions in it that make it look vaguely British empire) that they just assumed the source was "a British newspaper." So much for fact checking at Aaj or Express TV!
The two lions are a nice touch
But more troubling is the fact that once Express TV figured out that the sensational news was not coming from the UK's established media, it continued carrying the story as something credible and simply started calling its source "media reports." Which of course means jack-all, especially considering the background of this rag. Here is the actual story in the paper which you can read and judge for yourself. One word to the wise: don't believe any of the bylines. I doubt any of these people actually exist.
This set me off wondering if this push for planted and obviously libelous stories was some new game by 'the boys'. Although why they should be interested in something as petty as saving the arses of Pakistani cricketers is quite beyond me. Perhaps some of 'the boys' believe it to be part of the 'national interest'? This led me to this story, which was printed in The Nation today as well as in the Urdu daily Express and apparently a number of other papers, although not in Dawn, the Express Tribune or The News (at least not in Karachi, I am not certain about the Islamabad or Lahore editions).
The story in The Nation printed as a box on the front page under the teasing headline "Is there an Indian connection?" claims to be from a reporter called Ashraf Javed. My sources have confirmed that the story actually arrived fully written directly from 'the boys' themselves. (So not only are some papers willing to publish planted stories verbatim, some like The Nation will also provide their own bylines for pre-written pieces.)
If there were any doubt before, we now know for sure how much credibility Express TV and Aaj TV and Express and The Nation have. But what in God's name are our psy-ops warriors up to?
As promised yesterday on Twitter, we bring to you proof that Geo:
1. Monitors Cafe Pyala
2. Doesn't believe in giving credit
Below is a screen shot of Geo's Crisis Cell programme from last night in which the cricket scandal is being discussed. Please note the couplet in Urdu, just below the images, which kept flashing throughout the programme. Remind you of something?
I guess part of me is flattered. And part of me wants to say 'Yaar, credit tau de diya karo.' It's not like we're going to ask you for money you know.
The only question that can possibly arise from any sensible follower of international relations after reading Center for International Policy director and former Washington Post South Asia bureau chief Selig Harrison's August 26 op-ed in the New York Times is this: Is Selig Harrison a paid lobbyist for India or simply senile?
Selig S. Harrison: using a table to seem reflective
So full of bollocks is his piece - written breathlessly like a breaking news story - that it is hard to imagine who could possibly ever take it or Mr Harrison seriously. The basic thrust of the op-ed is that Pakistan has covertly handed over the Gilgit-Baltistan region to the Chinese, a "fact" that it seems only Mr Harrison is privy to and thus he becomes the Chosen One to reveal it to the world. In fact, just hearing about this was enough for me to dismiss the story and move on. I mean, you have to ask yourself, despite our longstanding security ties with China, given Pakistan's national psyche, is such a thing even possible? Could such a development actually happen without anyone knowing about it? Or a hue and cry arising about it in at least Pakistan's anarchic media? (And please don't bring in that sliver of land called Aksai Chin into this, as far as I know nobody lives in that remote desert.)
But now that the Pakistan Foreign Office was forced to issue a rebuttal, I thought I would go back and actually read the piece. And woe is me. Mr Harrison begins with the kind of ominous foreboding that would suit a Tom Clancy thriller, and had it been a film rather than a printed article, would have surely included a menacing dhen dhen dhen soundtrack...
"While the world focuses on the flood-ravaged Indus River valley, a quiet geopolitical crisis is unfolding in the Himalayan borderlands of northern Pakistan, where Islamabad is handing over de facto control of the strategic Gilgit-Baltistan region in the northwest corner of disputed Kashmir to China."
Unfortunately, having set up his thriller, he almost immediately puts his foot into his rather large mouth by making factually ridiculous claims:
"The entire Pakistan-occupied western portion of Kashmir stretching from Gilgit in the north to Azad (Free) Kashmir in the south is closed to the world, in contrast to the media access that India permits in the eastern part, where it is combating a Pakistan-backed insurgency."
Does Selig even know anything of what he writes about? Gilgit-Baltistan is closed to the world??? Has he ever heard of European trekking and mountaineering expeditions? Or Japanese and Korean tourists visiting Buddhist relics? Or the Aga Khan Rural Support Programme that has international consultants coming in and out of the region with more regularity than he probably goes to the loo with? Or has he never read international dispatches from Muzaffarabad during the earthquake or from the site of the recent Attabad landslide lake in Hunza? Yes, foreigners do need a special visa to go into these areas, partly because Pakistan officially considers them disputed areas and partly because of security concerns. But not only does Pakistani media reach these areas but most newspapers have permanent correspondents based there and report regularly from there. But of course, this fool gives his hand away by comparing it to the "media access that India permits" in Indian-administered Kashmir (which foreign correspondents also need special permission for.) You have to be either totally blinkered or totally corrupt to make the case that media access in the Valley of Kashmir is greater than in Gilgit-Baltistan or Pakistan-administered Kashmir.
Mr Harrison then adds:
"... reports from a variety of foreign intelligence sources, Pakistani journalists and Pakistani human rights workers reveal two important new developments in Gilgit-Baltistan: a simmering rebellion against Pakistani rule and the influx of an estimated 7,000 to 11,000 soldiers of the People’s Liberation Army."
Aah, the "simmering rebellion" hypothesis, so favoured by Selig. You might go: what? where? How come I didn't see it in Skardu? But then you probably have not followed Mr Harrison's career. Here are two takedowns of his earlier claims, the first from an excellent blog on all things Central Asian called Registan, the other from the Pakistan Policy blog. Registan's post, evocatively and correctly titled "The Inexplicable Longevity of Selig S. Harrison" begins thus:
"Selig S. Harrison has a curious relationship with reality—that is to say, not much of one."
And that in essence is all you need to know about this former hack.
Incidentally, the People's Liberation Army soldiers? Apparently Chinese civilians who have come with flood relief goods and those helping the rebuilding of the Karakorum Highway, which if you recall, was built with Chinese assistance in the first place and has been severely damaged by the recent floods. Harrison in fact admits that most of the Chinese are "working on dams, expressways and other projects." But he also questions some "mysterious tunnels" that he believes could be used for laying oil pipelines and to hide missiles, and plans for railroad and road links that China could use to "transport cargo from Eastern China to... Gwadar." Oh wow. Damn those nefarious-minded Asian types, trying to do things for their own benefit.
By the way, doesn't everyone know about Pakistan's longtime collaboration with China on security matters? And why shouldn't Pakistan collaborate with China to build its infrastructure or even as a military counter-weight to India? And why would the Chinese do it unless they see something in it for themslves? Isn't 'strategic national interest' the very foundation of international state relations? But Mr Harrison sees something sinister in this. Why? Basically because:
"Coupled with its support for the Taliban, Islamabad’s collusion in facilitating China’s access to the Gulf makes clear that Pakistan is not a U.S. “ally.” Equally important, the nascent revolt in the Gilgit-Baltistan region is a reminder that Kashmiri demands for autonomy on both sides of the cease-fire line would have to be addressed in a settlement."
By the way, I have no clue what he means by the second part, regardless of his imaginary "nascent revolt" repetition. So, reminders that the Kashmir issue remains outstanding is a problem for you Selig?
But of course Mr Harrison can't leave it at that. He must earn his lobbying funds (ok, I have no proof of this, but I would be dumbfounded if the following bit of Indian establishment fantasy were being repeated without any quid pro quo):
"Media attention has exposed the repression of the insurgency in the Indian-ruled Kashmir Valley. But if reporters could get into the Gilgit-Baltistan region and Azad Kashmir, they would find widespread, brutally-suppressed local movements for democratic rights and regional autonomy."
I have news for you Selig. People all over Pakistan desire democratic rights and regional autonomy (as, dare I say, they do in vast swathes of Moaist insurgency-wracked India) but nowhere in Gilgit-Baltistan and Azad Kashmir will you find the kind of brutal military-backed suppression of local movements that you will find in the Valley. To draw equivalences there is the height of ignorance, of cynicism or devious attempts to deflect focus.
And of course no two-bit "expert" on South Asia (or any third world area) can go without attempting to stoke sectarian / ethnic fires through sweeping generalizations:
"When the British partitioned South Asia in 1947, the maharajah who ruled Kashmir, including Gilgit and Baltistan, acceded to India. This set off intermittent conflict that ended with Indian control of the Kashmir Valley, the establishment of Pakistan-sponsored Free Kashmir in western Kashmir, and Pakistan’s occupation of Gilgit and Baltistan, where Sunni jihadi groups allied with the Pakistan Army have systematically terrorized the local Shiite Muslims."
Yes, of course, he has to bring in the Shia-Sunni angle as well, as if his main aim is to protect the Shia of Gilgit-Baltistan (shades of neo-con "experts" wanting to protect the Shia in Iraq, the women in Afghanistan etc). Yes, there are sectarian tensions in parts of the area (Gilgit city for example) which have existed for decades and periodically erupt into violence. But he is obviously confusing areas like Kurram Agency in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) - where Al Qaeda backed militants have terrorized Shia populations - as part of the Northern Areas. I have yet to hear of any overt jihadi outfits operating in the Northern Areas. But when your agenda is something else, geography is the least of your concerns.
Selig Harrison goes on:
"Gilgit and Baltistan are in effect under military rule. Democratic activists there want a legislature and other institutions without restrictions like the ones imposed on Free Kashmir, where the elected legislature controls only 4 out of 56 subjects covered in the state constitution. The rest are under the jurisdiction of a “Kashmir Council” appointed by the president of Pakistan. India gives more power to the state government in Srinagar; elections there are widely regarded as fair, and open discussion of demands for autonomy is permitted."
That "democratic activists there want a legislature" must certainly come as news to Northern Areas elected chief minister Mehdi Shah and his elected cabinet. I guess Selig was sleeping when the Northern Areas elections were held. He is right that there is resentment about how much real power the legislatures of Azad Kashmir (which have their own president and prime minister) and Gilgit-Baltistan actually enjoy but do keep in mind that unlike India, Pakistan does not claim to have incorporated the region into the country and, at least accepts their position as regions whose status is yet to be resolved. The bit about elections in Indian-administered Kashmir being "widely regarded as fair" would be laughable (at least as far as the Valley is concerned) if only there were no daily military-enforced curfews and large-scale protests every day there by ordinary Kashmiris demanding independence (no, Selig, they are not demanding "greater autonomy" within India, but nice of you to at least concede that all is not hunky dory there).
Notice also that he never once points out that the people of Gilgit-Baltistan do not consider themselves historically part of Kashmir and their strongest demand has always been a de-linking of their status from that of Kashmir. Why? Probably because it goes against the Indian establishment narrative.
Nevertheless, Mr Harrison provides his prescription for what the US should do with (to?) Pakistan:
"In Pakistan, Washington should focus on getting Islamabad to stop aiding the insurgency in the KashmirValley and to give New Delhi a formal commitment that it will not annex Gilgit and Baltistan. Precisely because the Gilgit-Baltistan region is so important to China, the United States, India and Pakistan should work together to make sure that it is not overwhelmed, like Tibet, by the Chinese behemoth."
So, India should be "pressed" to resume talks with separatists on autonomy (kind of like the US presses Israel to resume Middle East talks?) even as its claims to Kashmir as a part of its union are accepted, while Islamabad gives New Delhi "a formal commitment" about keeping Gilgit and Baltistan in limbo? Oh, I understand Selig, it's because what is important to the US (and you) has nothing to do with the people of GB per se or what they want but with the United States' own strategic interests vis a vis keeping China at bay. And yes, we should all work together to make sure GB is not overwhelmed by China (a patently manufactured scare in the first place), since the only sort of overwhelming that is kosher is by the US. What Selig is basically saying is, if you want to be overwhelmed, Main Hoon Na. Thanks for clearing that up.
Tailpiece: You might have wondered what the Center for International Policy is all about, because any organization that has someone as clueless or mealy-mouthed as Selig Harrison as a director, well what can you really say about its credibility? Well here's what Wikipedia has to say about it's history:
"The Center for International Policy (CIP), located in WashingtonDC, was founded in 1975 by diplomats and peace activists in the wake of the Vietnam War. On its website, the Center describes its mission as "Promoting a U.S. foreign policy based on international cooperation, demilitarization and respect for human rights.""
How the mighty have fallen! At least they are keeping up the "promoting a U.S. foreign policy" bit.
Long-time readers of this blog would know that it's been a while since I last posted anything about cricket. In fact, my last cricket-related post was all the way back in May, which was right after the leakage of the inquiry committee hearings into our humiliating tour of Australia, and even that was about the alleged hygiene of the cricketers. Simply, I saw no point in endlessly moaning and whining about their abysmal failures as sportsmen and the even more abysmal state of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB)'s management.
But how on earth could I possibly ignore what has now happened? It has shaken most of Pakistan, and perhaps the entire cricketing world, to its core.
(Just in case, highly unlikely, that you are reading this from a different planet, here is what happened. And here. And here. And here. I don't have the stomach to repeat it.)
Mazhar Majeed: Mr Fix-it-All (source: NOTW)
But what can one really say any more that has not already been said? Two of the most comprehensive and well-written Pakistani responses by Five Rupees and Dawn blogger Farooq Nomani have probably said it all. Nomani's piece's title actually says it all: "How Low?" Seriously, the only response I really want to make, is the response I made when I first became aware of the story as it broke: Fuck them, fuck them all. Apologies for the crudeness, but there is simply no other way to convey the feeling one has having once again placed one's hopes and faith in someone, after having been burnt and let down before, only to again see the futility of it all. This was supposed to be the side that one was supporting through its dark times because it was in the process of rebuilding with young blood!
Green with Greed: (L-R) Asif, Butt, Amir, Akmal (source: NOTW)
I mean, if the worst flood devastation in our history were not bad enough, if millions of people without shelter and food and clothing were not bad enough, if the prospect of the country going economically under were not bad enough, if the barbaric mob violence and apathy in Sialkot were not bad enough, if the continued brutal 'target killing' of poor labourers and political activists in Karachi were not bad enough, if the continuing alienation of the Baloch were not bad enough, if the Taliban atrocities in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the global war being fought in the Tribal Areas were not bad enough, if the terrorist attacks all over Pakistan were not bad enough, if the abuse and massacre of our religious minorities were not bad enough, if the apathy of our elite and establishment were not bad enough, we have to contend with this petty and shameless greed rubbed in our face as well?
Can we get a fucking break?
Incidentally, for those who are spinning this as a concocted ploy by the English press always out to 'get us' or holding out hope that there is no conclusive legal proof to convict 'our boys', I have just one thing to say to you: get your heads out of your asses. People in the know and even sports journalists were talking about Kamran Akmal and others being on the take for quite a while now - hell, during the Edgbaston Test one former cricketer even made similarly correct predictions about upcoming overs as detailed in the sting operation by The News of the World now, based, he said, on 'rumours' he had heard - the only difference was nobody had this kind of proof. And nobody was willing to bell the cat.
You know the old saying about chickens coming home to roost? That's what has happened to us. In every single awful thing that has happened to Pakistan recently that I have mentioned above. In this particular case, as Five Rupees puts it:
"I would argue that one of the main reasons we find ourselves in this mess is that we didn’t take care of business when we should have, in the mid and late 1990s. Everybody else did. The Saffies banned Cronje, and took stern action against everyone else (Herschelle Gibbs was banned temporarily for the mere fact of not disclosing that his captain had asked him to partake). The Aussies punished Shane Warne and Mark Waugh for disclosing weather information. The Indians banned Azharuddin and Jadeja. What did we do? We swept everything under the carpet. Only Salim Malik was banned, and really, his career was over anyway. Everyone else involved, including guys like Wasim Akram, were given light punishments, mere slaps on the wrist, despite overwhelming evidence against them (Ata-ur-Rehman wrote a sworn affidavit in which he alleged that Wasim asked him to bowl badly). Why did we do this? Simple, because we were afraid of what it would do to our cricket team. Rightfully so, I might add, since everyone from Wasim to Waqar to Inzi to Mushie was involved, in some way. But we took the shortcut then, and are paying for it now, because by not punishing it, we encouraged it."
Catch Them Young: Fixer Majeed hands over jacket with cash to Wahab Riaz, left, while Umar Amin looks on (source: NOTW)
There are bound to be questions raised about how the team selection may also have been manipulated to ensure the 'right kinds' of people in the team. Why for example had the Pakistan team become mainly a Central Punjab XI, why were certain undeserving players like Wahab Riaz (also implicated in this scandal) brought into the team above more deserving bowlers, why Afridi actually walked out of the captaincy (according to the alleged fixer Majeed, most of the players "wanted to f*** up Afridi because he's trying to f*** up things for them"), why there was such a haste to send the new wicketkeeper Zulqarnain Haider home (a report today in Jang claims that not only was he not given the customary 'test cap' he was handed a ticket back as soon as he came out of the clinic even though he had he had been hopeful he would be all right in a few days), why perennial keeper-in-reserve Sarfaraz Ahmed was not called up even if Haider had to be sent home, and why certain players like Fawad Alam continued to be kept out of the playing eleven.
But let's not kid ourselves that the current sorry lot at the PCB would ever be willing to tackle these questions or take the drastic structural actions required. They are part of the problem, not the solution. And no change can come about unless you recognize how deep the rot runs.
The worst part is not even that all of this shit is happening to Pakistan. The worst part is we steadfastly refuse to learn from our own history.
I know I may be going out on a limb here but what IS up with Pakistani English fiction writers becoming the prescriptive messiahs of Pakistan?
I mean, I know that novelists are storytellers and there's nothing as powerful as a good storyteller to bring out the humanity of such a massive disaster as the current floods - often drowned in dry and incomprehensible statistics - for a wider reading public, especially outside Pakistan. And some, such as Daniyal Mueenuddin, have done an admirable job of painting pictures with their words, (Incidentally, here's a well-written critique of the American press' obsession with the Taliban taking advantage of the floods, that many readers have taken to be a critique of Mueenuddin's piece, which to be fair only pandered to this obsession right at the end). But since when did Pakistani English language novelists, most of them with only a book or two to their names, become the "experts" on Pakistan's politics, economy, sociology, and everything else? So much so that you would be hard-pressed to find a piece on Pakistan by a Pakistani in the New York Times or other Western English newspapers not written by a Pakistani fiction writer.
The Usual Suspects: (clockwise from top left) Hanif, Mueenuddin, Sethi, Shamsie
Don't get me wrong: I enjoy a well-written piece as much as anyone else (though some of the pieces recently appearing don't even fall into that category - Ali Sethi, I'm thinking of you) and I can understand the Western press' natural reliance on people who can string together a sentence in English. What I find inexplicable is the total reliance on a handful of mostly urban elite, mostly thirty-something writers to explain everything about Pakistan, to the exclusion of almost anyone else (aside from the official line periodically trotted out by the Husain Haqqanis and the Wajid Shamsul Hasans). You want a piece on feudalism? Let's go to Mueenuddin (he's a farmer after all). You want a piece on corruption, let's ask Sethi. The music scene? Mohsin Hamid. Attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team? Kamila Shamsie. Afghan refugees? Mohammed Hanif. The Ahmadis? How about Bapsi Sidhwa? At least Mohammed Hanif can claim to be a reporter who has covered Pakistani politics for years. And I am sure these writers reflect upon their country and have quite intelligent things to say about a variety of topics. But are they the only people who do / can? What about activists, political economists, musicians, sociologists, anthropologists, historians, sports journalists... you know, the people who actually work in these fields and do the research? Or for that matter, why not poets or writers in 'native' languages who have far greater experience of "the Pakistani condition"? (If Marquez for example wanted to submit an op-ed in Spanish about Colombia, don't you think the NYT would get it translated?)
But the problem is not just that the pool of op-ed writers being drawn from by Western publications is small and stereotyped. The more insidious problem is that some of these writers end up believing their own hype and think they actually have it all figured out, going beyond humanizing stories with anecdotes and observation to presenting solutions. So we have Shamsie blaming these floods on the timber mafia (yes, deforestation is a factor but certainly does not explain the entire gamut of devastation caused by the floods, most of it in areas where timber theft is not really a factor), Hanif trying to make a point against the Taliban scare by claiming that there is no indigenous word for terrorism in Sindhi or Seraiki (really? and Pushto does?) and Mueenuddin raising the spectre of the radicalization of and revolution by the displaced and hungry to explain why those people should be helped out.
But a special place in all this must be reserved for Mohsin Hamid, whose every article on Pakistan seems now to be predicated on the belief that everything would be rosy in Pakistan if only everyone paid more taxes. What is perhaps even more strange is that it's a local publication, Dawn, that gives him pride of place on its op-ed pages to hold forth his economic prescriptions that under a little bit of scrutiny turn out to be mostly nice-sounding fluff. Here, for example is his solution to Pakistan's woes, from his latest piece in Dawn:
"Helping [the flood affectees] means taxes. We pay only a tenth of our collective income to our state, far less than most countries. India and Sri Lanka pay half again as much as we do. We need to pay more. We need a comprehensive flood tax programme. We need to cease our foolish bickering about whether taxes should be paid to the provinces or to the centre, by merchants or by landlords, on luxury goods or on shareholdings. The answer to these either-or questions is both. Let’s tax both locally and nationally, both trading and agriculture, both consumption and wealth."
Author Mohsin Hamid: obsessed with taxes
Yes, Mohsin, we know you were a banker and we know that Pakistan's tax collections are abysmally low. But could you go and check with any economist how much of what we do collect is actually utilized? And I'm not even talking about corruption here, the other favourite bugbear of armchair theorists. I'm talking about the state's lack of capacity in even making the most of what it has. It is a favourite pastime of the intelligentsia to moan about how Pakistan allocates only 1.5% of its GDP to education and health and how we need to raise this number manifold. All well and good, but what about the fact that more than 50% of even this meagre allocation goes un-utilized because the state does not have the ability to use it? Yes, of course there should be more schools for children and health units in the rural areas, but what about the fact that even the ones that exist are often without teachers and medical staff and supplies? Mohsin alludes to this major issue with the throwaway line, "if we can... then spend for our impoverished majority..." Ah, yes, great idea, it's a pity nobody ever thought of it before.
Could we move beyond the safe generalizations to understand the complexity of the issues? Or am I just being a Wish Maker?
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