Pakistan, A Malleable History

Last month, while other pyalas scuttled off to the Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf's (PTI’s) Karachi jalsa with visions of free potty training seats in their heads, I stayed at home with a copy of Imran Khan’s Pakistan, A Personal History. I read it with the intention of reviewing it here immediately but, like certain Bufo toads that can, at will, secrete a noxious hallucinogenic substance that acts as a deterrent to predators, the book did not encourage further handling.

I revisited it today because I chanced upon Amir Zia’s review for Newsline last month. He succinctly articulated some of my biggest problems with the content of the memoir, saying:

“Khan’s personal analysis of the origin and spirit of the Pakistan Movement underlines his simplistic and superficial understanding of those times. In fact, it appears more akin to former military ruler General Zia-ul Haq’s distorted and twisted propagandist history, which still remains a part of our curriculum. For instance, Khan, in his zeal to promote the Islamic basis of Pakistan, equates Quaid-e-Azam Mohammed Ali Jinnah’s religious views with those of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi by saying that both stood on the same page vis-à-vis the role of religion in politics.”

And…

“The tribal system, its code of honour and values are a constant refrain in the book. Khan maintains that the tribal areas were “crime free” before the upheavals of the recent years, ignoring the fact that before the start of the war on terror, the entire belt remained the epicenter of smuggling and gunrunning in the region. The known criminals and absconders used to take refuge in these areas and vehicles snatched from various parts of the country landed in the tribal belt. But Khan, in his zeal to glorify tribalism and the jirga system, shuts his eyes to all these facts. He makes a passing reference to the tribal practice of ‘honour’ killings which are being endorsed by jirgas in the rural areas. In fact, he views these jirgas as an “ancient democratic system.” The oppression, the backwardness, the myopic worldview and total alienation from the modern world, all of which stem from tribalism, fail to bother the Khan.”

Amir Zia did make an effort to balance his take on ‘the Khan’s’ personal history with references to the many good things in it, calling his recollections of cricketing life and building the Shaukat Khanum Memorial hospital ‘moving’ and ‘inspiring’. Mr. Zia is probably a better person than I am because I feel no such compunction. Whatever bright spark once lurked in the heart of this self professed Chosen One – his version of what happened to make an English jury return a verdict of 10-2 in his favour in the Botham libel case can be summarized with “As I was waiting, I got a message from a friend that Mian Bashir wanted to speak to me. I phoned him and found him in a cheerful mood. ‘Allah is changing the jury’s mind!’ he said – has long been obscured by a cloud of magic dust. Like in Pullman’s His Dark Materials, only without its fierce interrogation of dogma and ritual.

If you don’t like my words for it, take a few from the horse’s…er…mouth:

The Khan on what needs to be done to deal with the ‘10%’ of truly militant militants in the tribal areas (the rest apparently prefer crochet, only times are hard and the war blocks access to the market for doilies):

“I have spoken to General Pasha, head of the ISI about this, and he too believes that if we disengage from the US war, start a dialogue with the tribes, and withdraw troops from the tribal areas, we could eliminate this 10 percent in ninety days”.

The Khan on the need for enshrining the difference between a public face and a private face or, as some people might call it, hypocrisy:

‘The main difference Islamic sharia has from Western secular society is in the realm of public morality. This protects the family system, one of Pakistan’s greatest strengths…An Islamic society tries to protect the sanctity of marriage by creating an environment that affords the least temptation for people to commit infidelity. Secondly, it tries to protect impressionable young people from public immorality, the same concept behind the ‘adults only’ film classification…So apart from these vital provisions aimed at protecting the family, a true Islamic society would be no different from the democratic welfare states of Europe.”

Passages like this worried me because they indicate a rigid, conservative mind that thinks along the lines of 'my way or the highway'. It is the disproportionate power given to those who would be custodians of 'public morality', for political purposes, that has landed Pakistan in the soup it is in today. Passages like this also amused me because, for someone whose main vote bank so far seems to be young people, he really is pretty clueless about what young people really want and, more importantly, need. The life of the body, the life of the mind, these are fundamental human rights. And too many of the physical and creative freedoms required to have either would potentially face the chop if somebody decided to place the protection of 'impressionable young minds' above both.

The Khan, for example, only took about two decades of experiential learning to understand "there was a world of difference between happiness and pleasure-seeking".

The Khan on people who might disagree with him:

“…those at the other end of the extreme are called the ‘liberal fanatics’. To liberal fanatics modernization means westernization and Islam can only impede Pakistan’s progress…For them every solution to Pakistan’s problems is imported. Hence liberal fanatics have variously advocated Marxism, a radical version of women’s liberation, market economics and other Western beliefs.”

Yep. Damn redistribution of wealth (don't look now, Ali Shariati). And women voting in parts of Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa. And supermarkets. And mineral water. Especially mineral water.

The Khan on about half of the people who attended his Party In The Park:

“ The elite that consumes most of the country’s educational resources is incapable of providing the intellectual leadership needed to move forward either the religion or the culture. Western education simply does not allow them to do so.”

... Which would, errrr, make the Oxford-educated Khan singularly incapable of providing intellectual leadership, would it not:? But I digress...

Rants about this 'elite' function as periods throughout the memoir, punctuating his opinions on everything from environmental degradation to the need to overhaul the education system to his observations about the injustice of our judicial system. This is a real pity because they undermine the few things he says that actually make sense. Pakistan is indeed, as he hammers home again and again, saddled with a parasitic elite that has insisted on usurping, keeping and abusing power to the detriment of the many hovering around the poverty line; but his reductionist identification of them as people who have strayed from the one faith and become 'westernized' is sadly flawed. The powerful elite of which he speaks include the shallu-wearing landlords and industrialists that are now part of his movement for justice. They can also wear beards, uniforms and burqas as well as jeans and ape Saudi Arabia as well as Western pop culture, but apparently that isn't quite as bad. His position seems to be that if you are not part of the solution (in this case, his notion of Islam) you are part of the problem.

This debauched, rudderless, still mentally colonized elite has done Pakistan a world of harm, he says. For example, post 9/11:

"I have never seen Pakistanis so terrified of US anger as during this period. This is a typical example of how fear can be used as a weapon by the ruling elite to make the people fall in line; at the same time, it shows that policies based on fear always end up in disaster."

That previous nugget comes much before the point towards the end of the book where he says:

"...my biggest worry remains that if things continue as they are we could face a rebellion within the army's ranks, the ultimate nightmare situation for Pakistan."

I could go on, and quote verbatim other choice bits of text, such as his one sentence lament about how mean presswalas kept calling up his good friend Sita White for ‘lurid interviews’, or the paragraph where he mentions one Shah Mehmood Qureshi as an example of what is wrong with Pakistani politics, or how he lambasts the jamaati thugs he is now in bed with, or how it only took him five meetings and nearly as many years to understand Musharraf wasn't a good boy, or how my mother’s brother’s third cousin’s dog inferred a Madonna-whore complex from all the things Khan Saab’s book didn’t say about women in Pakistan when he accidentally sank his teeth into it but, really, what’s the point. Let’s not be liberally fanatical in our negativity and look at the plus points of it.

1) We have been asking for a PTI manifesto and lo and behold there has been one amongst us for a couple of months already, complete with Islamic Fabioesque cover and – just like his first book where the ghost writer really was a ghost - no mention of who actually wrote it.

2) In this book, we learn a lot about poetry. Well, Iqbal’s poetry. Well, those of Iqbal’s poems which fit into Imran Khan’s view of the world. In particular, the one about the shaheen. No not Khayaban-e-Shaheen, the other shaheen, the eagle, which as Khan Saab tells us is “an emblem of royalty which denoted a kind of heroic idealism based on daring, pride and honour.” (No mention of course of that of Iqbal's verse that calls, e.g., for burning down crop fields that do not feed the peasant, but I digress again.)

I was thinking of Khan Saab's fondness for the metaphor of the regal predator driven to hunt rather than scavenge when I read the inimitable Aakar Patel’s column in the Express Tribune today. In the column, the second in his examination of the army’s dominance in Pakistan today, Mr. Patel puts it down to a caste-driven obsession with the notion of ‘warrior’. His hypothesis…

“is that the division of the Punjabi nation in 1947 produced a Pakistani Punjab that was heavily weighted in favour of the martial castes. The trading castes, which tend to be more pragmatic and balance society’s extremism mostly left to come to India. This has produced the imbalance which explains Pakistan’s fondness for a state dominated by soldiers. Gen Pervez Kayani runs the state’s foreign policy, security policy and most of its economic policy because the majority of Punjabis are comfortable with the idea of a warrior being in charge.”

Mr. Patel’s insight into the veneration awarded to ‘leading from the front’- which in my book can also be considered a Pashtun trait- is driven home when, later in the column while mentioning Kayani’s recent statement that our nation’s “honour will not be traded for posterity”, he goes on to say that…

"Only a warrior would make that statement and only a nation of warriors would accept it."

You see the same kind of verbal posturing in Imran Khan's utterances (tsunami = destruction), and the same kind of frenzied, emotional response in his followers (tsunami? a massive tidal wave that kills indiscriminately? hell yeah!) that a popular general would get from his ranks. It is almost as if hundreds of thousands of usually pacifist people have suddenly decided to get in touch with their inner Spartan.

In Imran Khan's Pakistan though, there would be no loincloths.

My basic problem with the worldview that Aakar Patel is skewering and Imran Khan and other balding eagles seem most comfortable inhabiting is that Pakistan can no longer afford to be a nation of warriors. We need a narrative of inclusiveness, tolerance and unity based on achievable things like economic goals, not one that suggests identity is who you're not rather than who you are. Those who want to buy into the PTI’s ‘war' on corruption, the west (and mineral water) might want to stop and ask themselves what impulse, whose hand, they are really strengthening.

My other basic problem with men who think they are berserkers is their propensity for camp followers or, in less offensive terms, their demonstrated opinion of where women would be post-victory. Consider this clip follow up of an excellent Express Tribune report about what happened after Prime Minister Gilani was successfully driven off stage by the soldiers of the Lawyers' Movement at a Lahore Bar Association meeting a couple of days ago...





Incidentally, Imran Khan's last reference to the the Brotherhood of the Black Coats he mentions glowingly several times in his memoir is:

"Though the anti-status quo wave known as the lawyers' movement for genuine democracy was hijacked, it remains simmering beneath the surface; I am convinced the moment the next elections are announced, a 'soft revolution' will explode on our political horizon and sweep away the corrupt status quo from Pakistan once and for all."

Ladies, keep those Rose Petals handy.

The Return (and Resurgence) of Napier

The recent spate of violence, mayhem and bloodletting in Karachi has drawn a number of responses, ranging from the outraged to the resigned, the depressed and confused. And all of them are understandable on their own terms. It would be fair to say, however, that in a city as teeming, complex and diverse, there is no single truth about the causes for the flare-up that trumps all others. Every actor in this sordid saga can (and does) point to the actions of other actors as an excuse for their own villainy.

'The burnt out ends of smoky days' (Photo source: Times of Karachi)

If the MQM operates like a mafia, there is also no denying the underworld nexus that parties like the PPP and ANP are using to carve out their own slice of turf in the city. If Karachi's law enforcement is inefficient, corrupt and politicized, it is not an aberration from the rest of Pakistan where the writ of the state has been steadily eroded. If politicians are venal and self-serving about their political ends, this city has not been spared the shenanigans of the military's nefarious tactics to ensure they have the means to keep the political kettle boiling. If people from all over Pakistan stream to the city because of its higher professionalism, employment opportunities and avenues for making money, there are also those who resent the ever widening gap between the affluent and themselves. Where Karachi is Pakistan's most cosmopolitan and ethnically diverse city by far, its diversity also creates the conditions for easy friction between cultural identities and is a magnet for those who wish to take advantage of it. Add in the desire for political and economic clout to diminishing respect for the state's writ, the complexity of administering a megapolis in general and in times of a regional shadowy militancy in particular, severely strained resources and constrained availability of land and you have a truly volatile mixture.

Does this mean that the anarchy let loose on Karachi in recent days could not have been prevented? No, it definitely involved actors who benefited - at least in their perceptions - in some way from it and it was fueled by leaders without vision (some may argue, basic humanity) who believe the best route to getting what they want is brinkmanship of the most dangerous kind. But what it does mean is that these sort of spells will recur (as they have before) unless and until the issues that underlie these conflagarations are addressed in some cogent, cohesive manner and unless at least the majority of stakeholders recognize that the status quo will not hold. It is not just a matter of allaying the current insecurities of the MQM (as the PPP seems to believe) or satisfying the local political ambitions of the ANP. There are serious chronic issues to do with land-use, planning, administration, distribution of resources and law enforcement that need to be tackled. Otherwise new problems, one example of which is this, will keep rearing their heads.

But this is actually not what I wanted to address in this post. What I wanted to look at was an intriguing aside to the current flare-up, how the seemingly raging fires of political instability were suddenly damped down. Consider the following timeline:

August 3 (Just Past Midnight): MQM supremo Altaf Hussain issues a fiery statement, full of rhetoric, asking the people of Karachi to stock up on at least a month's rations (even if they need to sell valuables to do it) and to be ready for sacrifice for the 'cause'.

August 3 (Morning): Fears of what is implied in Hussain's speech lead to palpable tension in Karachi and a run on stores as people stock up for impending shut-downs and further violence.

August 3 (Afternoon): British Foreign and Commonwealth Office Minister for South Asia Alistair Burt calls up Sindh Governor Dr Ishrat-ul-Ebad. According to the official press release, Mr Burt said:

"This morning I spoke to the Governor of Sindh Dr. Khan to expressed my concern at the continuing violence and loss of life that Karachi has faced in recent weeks.  I encouraged the Governor in his ongoing strong personal engagement to restore law and order.  I warned that inflammatory statements from any political party risked making the situation worse and that all political leaders and their parties have a duty to refrain from inciting violence and to reduce tensions and restore calm.  I reiterated the view of Her Majesty’s Government that the stability of Karachi is in the interests of all in Pakistan and the wider international community.  I said that peace and prosperity in Karachi was necessary to encourage further foreign direct investment which would be vital to Pakistan’s future economic growth and stability."

August 3 (Evening): Altaf Hussain makes another, milder speech, this time with nary a word about stocking up on rations. Even more intriguingly, he makes half the speech in English.

August 4: Altaf Hussain issues an unprecedented apology for his earlier speech, claiming his talk about stocking up on rations was misunderstood and that he never meant to offend anyone. He also appreciates the paramilitary Rangers' actions at Kati Pahari, the area at the centre of the storm. Conciliatory statements also come from the MQM's bete noir PPP Sindh Minister Zulfiqar Mirza who speaks respectfully about "Governor sahib" who he had dubbed a "bhagora" (fugitive) just a few days ago.

August 5: MQM members of parliament attend the Sindh Chief Minister's iftar party in a seemingly convivial mood, strengthening rumours that the MQM has come to an understanding with the PPP. President Zardari formally invites the MQM to yet again join the government.

Sindh CM Qaim Ali Shah with MQM leader of the 'opposition' Syed Raza Haroon at iftar (Photo: Whitestar/ Dawn) 

One can only speculate about what the exact reasons are for the British to take such a leading and active role in this reconciliation. Could it be that they were asked to do so? It's important to recall that anarchy in Karachi not only threatens the entire economy and stability of Pakistan (more than 70% of Pakistan's tax revenues are generated from the city) but also obviously port operations - which is the hub of the NATO supply lines into Afghanistan. It would also do well to recall that it would not be the first time that the British have played foot-soldiers for their allies. And as WikiLeaks has divulged, it's not the first time that the US and the UK have coordinated their efforts with regards to Karachi and the MQM either.

It could also well have to do with Britain's own interests in Pakistan too. After all, trade between the UK and Pakistan is well over 1 billion pounds (mutual direct investment adds about another 300 million pounds)  and has been rising significantly and more than 100 British companies operate in Pakistan including the giants Unilever, Shell, GlaxoSmithKline, Standard Chartered Bank, HSBC and Barclays. British pharmaceutical companies also control over 30% of the market share in Pakistan and Britain has also earmarked over 1.3 billion pounds in aid for Pakistan over the next 4 years.

But far more interesting would be to understand why the British have the leverage they do in the current situation and why they are likely to play an increasingly significant political role in the future. Consider the following simple facts:

* Altaf Hussain, Leader of the MQM: Lives in self-exile in London. Is now a British citizen with a British passport. The MQM's 'International Secretariat' is also based in London. And as slyly pointed out by journalist Abbas Nasir in his column in Dawn today, "the British government has acquired greater leverage over some of the political exiles on its soil because an amendment to the immigration laws in 2006 empowers it to revoke the nationality of any naturalised dual national if the decision was deemed for the 'public good.'"

* Asif Zardari, Co-Chairperson of the PPP: Has property in the UK including Rockwood, the infamous "Surrey Palace" (Abbas Nasir has reminded me that Rockwood was sold off to pay debts). Has a son and daughter studying in the UK.

* Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, Chairperson of the PPP: Studying and living in the UK.

* Yousuf Raza Gilani, Prime Minister: Has a son studying in the UK.

* Nawaz Sharif, President of the PMLN: Has property in the UK including flats in super-posh Mayfair. Wife is currently under medical treatment in the UK. Keep in mind also the British assessment of Sharif's future as detailed in this secret US diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks.

* Shahbaz Sharif, Chief Minister of the Punjab: Has property in the UK including at least one flat in Mayfair.

* Pervez Musharraf, head of APML: Lives with wife in London, has property there including a flat in Edgeware and is provided security by Scotland Yard.

* Imran Khan, Chairman PTI: Former wife and two sons are British citizens and live in London.


It pays to be even a former colonial power doesn't it? The US can try whatever it wants to gain influence in Pakistan but even it realizes that the British do have first mover advantage.

Crap All Round

The Jang Group has become so obsessed with quickly seeing the back of the government and is probably salivating so much over the prospects of threatened long marches that sometimes it gets muddled up in its excitement...

This is the heading from yesterday's daily Jang about Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani trying to reassure people - dreading a government-Supreme Court showdown in court today (October 13) - that nothing bad would happen. The headline reads: "13 March Ko Kuchh Nahin Hoga..." [Nothing will happen on March 13...].

(Thanks to Maaz Abdullah for sending this to us.)

Just so you're assured that YRG didn't actually flub the month himself, this is how Dawn reported it.

I guess the Jang Group was too focused on the Geo-spearheaded 'Get Zardari' campaign to get their months correct. A sample of this campaign is reproduced below, this one invoking Muslim history to shame Zardari about the concept of justice (it ran on the front page of the Jang Group publications yesterday, thanks to Muhammad Shahid Khan for sending it to us). Other 'public service messages' on Geo question the constitutional immunity granted to the president, as if that immunity is something Zardari drafted himself.

Living with Justice and the Jang Group

As you may have heard, the governmental spokesperson Fauzia Wahab has announced that the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) will from now on boycott Geo and Jang (what's the soft corner for The News all about?) because of their "partisanship." Fair enough, as long as that boycott means simply that PPP leaders will not appear on Geo's programmes or give interviews to Jang (it's their prerogrative) and does not mean stopping government advertising to them. Government advertising is state-controlled advertising and should have nothing to do with a particular party's stances.

But here's my problem with the government... Ms Wahab also goes on to state that:

"the Jang group was a defaulter of Rs8 billion and evader of taxes amounting to Rs1.68 billion."

So why don't you arrest its owners and put them on trial? What's with brandishing this as a smear tactic? If it's true (and it better be for you to say it Ms. Wahab), what stops you from taking action against the group? Or are tax laws only for the less powerful? Also, while you're at it, you may want to get those 25 ministers and countless rich parliamentarians (on an average worth over 8 crores each) who pay either no or incredibly little taxes to cough up their dues too.

Burn, Baby, Burn?

First a couple of disclaimers.

1) I don't like Asif Ali Zardari. I think he is a venal, ill-educated and ruthless man who should never have risen to the position of power he is currently in. It is the tragedy of Pakistan that it must contend with the stupidity, arrogance and insensitivity of "leaders" like him.

2) I think the government's crude attempt to muzzle Geo by forcing cable operators to take the channel off air, by burning copies of Jang and threatening newspaper hawkers who carry it is just plain wrong and needs to be resisted by all who believe in a free media.

I have explained where I am coming from for the simple reason that what I am about to say next may fly in the face of conventional wisdom, or at least the overwhelming consensus that seems to have been manufactured in the country. And make no mistake, it is a manufactured consensus.

I may not like Asif Zardari as a person but it does not take away from the fact that he is the elected president of the country. And people can say all sorts of things about the shambolic nature of a democracy that resulted in him being elected president, but those were the rules everyone agreed to play by and those are the rules we have to accept. And the reason I bring it up is that much of the manufactured consensus against him in the media is implicitly or blatantly a refusal to accept those rules.

Zardari with Cameron (Photo: Kirsty Wigglesworth / Reuters)

Let's take the case of his trip to France and England which has been the source of much of the venom spewed against him. Should he have undertaken the trip at this time, with UK PM David Cameron's pointed barbs in India against Pakistan preceding his trip and the floods wreaking such devastation across Pakistan? No. The former demanded a sense of dignity from any self-respecting leader and the latter simply a sensitivity to public perceptions.

But even though we know that it was really the former issue - and Asif Zardari's ignoring of the entreaties of even his own Foreign Minister - that really pissed the establishment (read military) off, what we have been constantly hearing is that Zardari should have been taking care of the floods situation at home.

Nowshera, July 30 (Photo: A Majeed / AFP-Getty)

Really? What exactly would Zardari have done in Pakistan? This is a man who does not even venture outside his presidential palace, unless it's to his bunkered home in Nawabshah, and who has never even once visited the frontline of the battle against the Taliban in two years, and we expect him to be directing flood relief efforts? And more importantly, didn't he just hand over all executive power under the 18th Amendment, making him just a figure-head president? Isn't PM Yousuf Raza Gilani at least correct in his rhetoric that he is the chief executive of the country and it is he who is responsible for directing relief efforts? Him and the provincial chief ministers who seem to have got away pretty unscathed so far. Yes, Zardari failed miserably on the optics and in basic decency, but does anyone seriously believe that the floods' devastation and the ineffectual state response would have been ameliorated by Zardari being in Pakistan? I don't think so. But that is the constant refrain we now hear as if it is the gospel truth, particularly on Geo.

Taunsa near Multan, August 1 (Photo: Khalid Tanveer /AP)

So Zardari was an insensitive ass. But is that such breaking news that the media focus shifts entirely to undermining him? Were he not the president, would the suffering of the affectees of the biggest floods in Pakistan's history be any less? Would the administration become super-efficient? Isn't the issue of the inherent lack of capacity of the Pakistani state to deal with such crises a bigger issue than Zardari and his jaunts? Criticise him by all means but is a man chucking a couple of shoes in his direction really a bigger story than the tens of millions displaced from their homes? Or have we become so blinded by our rage and the cult of personality that we are willing to jettison all sense of proportion?

The question then becomes, to what end is this consensus being created? You only have to watch Aaj Kamran Khan Ke Saath to get a clear sense of the game that is cynically being played.

Here's a clip of last night's programme. Watch from 5.10.




Here's the other myth that is being perpetuated: that the flood relief efforts that the army is undertaking are somehow divorced from the government's response, almost, it would seem, in opposition of government directives. Is the army separate from government? Isn't the military hardware being used in the airlifts and food drops, as well as the soldiers, paid by the government and people of Pakistan? And to take nothing away from the brave work of the jawans who endure hardship and danger to rescue people and provide them food, but why are we being made to feel that the army is doing the people of Pakistan a favour? As if this were not really their job but are doing this only out of the goodness of their hearts?

Does the building up of the army's reputation come always as the cost of undermining civilian reputations? The tragedy for Pakistan is of course that its stupid civilian leaders play exactly according to the script. And only seem to prove their cluelessness with interventions like this:

What will such a demolition, in public perception, of everything other than the armed forces mean for Pakistan? Is that what is intended? Are we destined to go back to Square Zero every time?

But coming back to the issue of Geo's forced blackout: as much as I oppose it, I for one am not buying into the claims of hurt innocence that Geo is now loudly proclaiming. Yes, the government has responded in typical hamhanded fashion and has probably added fuel to burn itself. But was Geo simply reporting news as an unbiased and neutral observer? Does it have no hidden or obvious agenda? I think we all know the answer to that, at least in our hearts.

You could also do worse than read this assessment in The Independent by Chatham House fellow Farzana Shaikh. It is probably not something you will see quoted with relish on Aaj Kamran Khan Ke Saath.

As If Fake Degrees Were Not Enough

So Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani goes to Mianwali and distributes cheques to affectees of the recent floods there at a medical relief camp. Except, the medical relief camp is fake - it was hastily established in a school for the sole purpose of the photo-op for the PM - and so are the 'affectees', lying on charpoys as if they were patients. Talk about chutzpah! The whole thing was dreamed up by the local administration to make the prime minister feel all warm and fuzzy. I have a feeling he won't be feeling so warm and fuzzy now. Kudos to the Geo team that caught it all on tape.

Here's the report (apologies for the quality, I couldn't find an original upload on the net, will replace when it's up):

Or if you really must see better quality visuals, you can go here and wait for the news item to come up during the bulletin (it comes in around 29:26). Incidentally, Geo later on did a mash-up of the news report with clips from the Indian film Munnabhai MBBS in which a fake hospital is established at a dhobi ghat for a visiting dignitary.

The Soft Head of TV Journalism

Can I just say how sick I am of silly television anchors' idea of "hard-nosed journalism"? Can no serious issue be covered without dragging it down to the level of bathos? Or without trying to make politically loaded connections that are tenuous at best and whose only purpose is to showcase the anchors' populist credentials?

Here we have a truly tragic incident in Lahore, where a 36-year-old rickshaw driver, Akbar Ali, not only committed suicide, but poisoned almost his entire family as well. Two of his young daughters died with him, while his wife and another daughter are struggling for life in a hospital. One young son escaped the poisoning. The fact that a working man should feel despondent enough about his and his family's future to commit such a terrible act should definitely serve as a wake-up call for society on a number of fronts. Not least of them, about the state of mental health and the social fabric in the country: it is instructive to note that Akbar Ali had a number of siblings, relatives and neighbours, as well as elderly parents, none of whom apparently had a clue about the storm raging inside Akbar. And of course it should lead to circumspection about how economic hardship and the lack of social safety nets are affecting the poor.

Newsbeat's Meher Bokhari: empathy theatre

Instead we have Ms Meher Bokhari of Samaa TV's flagship current affairs programme Newsbeat, turning up from Akbar Ali's home with the young son draped over her arm, doing a show taglined "Ijtimayi Khudkushi... Budget Ke Munh Pe Tamancha" ['Collective Suicide...A Slap on the Face for the Budget']. Huh?? Is this all she could relate it to, the budget?!? Now don't get me wrong, I appreciate the fact that Samaa and Ms Bokhari wanted to give this incident due attention (even if I found the drama of doing a show in the midst of wailing family members and the melodrama of having the exhausted and no doubt traumatized son sleeping in Ms. Bokhari's lap rather unsettling and in poor taste). And expressing empathy with the bereaved family members is also commendable. But what exactly was the content of the show beyond superficial berating of officialdom?

It's the easiest thing in the world to attack governments and their wasteful expenditures. And heaven knows they richly deserve it. But when anchors focus on the current president and prime minister in very personal attacks, making it seem as if all was hunky dory in days gone by, you begin to get a whiff of either a political agenda or utter and complete naivete. Meher Bokhari's intro to the programme attacks Asif Zardari for not knowing the number of rooms in the presidency, Yousuf Raza Gilani for being overly concerned about his sartorial trimmings, and ministers for having too much security protocol, all in the service of showing how disconnected this government is from the people. But can she seriously claim any different under General Musharraf, for example? Unfortunately she probably thinks she is being a hard-nosed and edgy commentator. Geo has a lot to answer for.

When Ms Bokhari took on PPP Information Secretary Fauzia Wahab with a rambling and incendiary non-question, I felt sympathy for Ms Wahab, probably for the first time. You really have to see this performance theatre to understand what got my blood really boiling. The Fauzia Wahab portion begins around 6:36 in this clip:




Ms Bokhari seems insistent in linking the suicide to the presentation of the federal and provincial budgets. It sounds almost absurd, as if Akbar Ali waited to listen to the budget speeches before deciding his course of action.What possible evidence does she have to imply cause and effect? None. But no facts dare stand in the way of our intrepid analyst.

During the entire programme, Ms Bokhari also touts a figure of 7,000 suicides in Pakistan over the last two years (once again, decontextualized from the situation before the PPP government came into office). First of all, even though she claims this is "on the record data", the sources for her figure seem highly dubious. As this report from the Daily Times quoting an academic study says:

"There are no official data on suicide from Pakistan. Data on suicide is not included in the national annual mortality statistics. As a result, national rates on suicide are neither known nor reported to the WHO."

This is not of course to say that suicide rates have not increased in the last few years (there is compelling anecdotal evidence to support this), just that there are no figures.

When Fauzia Wahab points out (though getting the mathematics horribly wrong) that Ms Bokhari's figure implies roughly 10 suicides a day (she thought it meant 1000 a day), Ms Bokhari immediately agrees to revise the figure down, falling back on the soft emotionalism of 'even 100 suicides is not okay.' This is journalism?

Even if we accept Ms Bokhari's figures of the number of suicides in Pakistan, how do we immediately connect all of them to economic despondency? Surely not every suicide in Pakistan is related to poverty. It would also be instructive to look at the global figures for suicide, which experts tell us has increased dramatically all over the world in last few decades. Incidentally, Japan and Korea, two of the most industrialized and prosperous countries in the world, have among the highest rates of suicide. What does that mean for Ms Bokhari's analysis?

Once again, I am in no way discounting the effect of increasing poverty (for which there are figures) and the increasing wealth gap (ditto) on the apparent rise in despondency in Pakistan. The point I am trying to make here is that serious issues, and particularly such tragic incidents, need to be dealt with in a more sober and thoughtful manner. By making easy and dubious political judgements, based on nothing but grandstanding, the media does no one any favours.

Oh, and someone should tell Ms Bokhari that shouting like Jasmin Manzoor - as she is increasingly wont to do on her show - does not make one a more credible journalist. Just irritatingly loud.

Shoania Moania - II

Will this never end?

First there was news yesterday, that Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani intends to send a parliamentary delegation, headed by Population Welfare minister Firdous Ashiq Awan, to attend the "Shoania" (here I must acknowledge reader Takhalus' far better name 'ShoSan', but I am sticking to what is already out there) wedding. (Thanks to reader Asif Ali Khan for drawing attention to this news.)

Parliamentary delegation??? At the taxpayers' expense? Why???

Gilani has also intimated that he is going to send a "special gift" for the couple. Ms Awan has already said, obviously feeling she must live up to her portfolio, that she intends to give the couple a "family planning kit." What could possibly be more special than boxes of Saathi on your wedding?

But today, there is "breaking" news (what else!) that it has been discovered that Shoaib Malik's father's name on the Sania wedding invitation is different from that on his Ayesha / Maha Siddiqui divorce papers. On the wedding invite he is named as Malik Faqir Hussain, while on the divorce papers he is named as Malik Saleem Hussain. When Geo called on Shoaib's brother (I suspect the step-brother since he also moaned about not being invited to the wedding) to explain the anomaly, he gave some bizarre story about his father having gone through a phase some 20-25 years ago where he "zabani taur par" (verbally) changed his name, though not officially. Ok, so dad was going through an identity or a mid-life crisis or he didn't really like his name... why that should make any difference to official legal papers submitted now, I just don't understand.

I tell you, between the media, this family and the Siddiquis, it's enough to drive anyone bonkers.

Laughing (Live)Stocks - Updated

Why oh why, you may think, are we incapable of moving beyond mediocrity as a nation? Or why are we so oblivious and uncaring of people laughing at us? You may have thought that if you had chanced upon the news this evening that Jamshed Dasti - the PPP MNA from Muzaffargarh recently forced to resign his parliamentary seat by the Supreme Court for faking his academic credentials and all-round buffoon - had been appointed an adviser to the Prime Minister.

But then, you probably did not read the following story in this morning's Dawn, which would have put the whole thing into perspective for you:

Gilani’s brother in run for NA-178

By Our Correspondent

Friday, 09 Apr, 2010

        

"MUZAFFRGARH, April 8: The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) has decided to award by-election ticket for NA-178 to Syed Ahmed Mujtaba Gilani, the brother of Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani.

The seat fell vacant when MNA Jamshed Dasti resigned for possessing a fake BA degree.

Local PPP MPA Irshad Sial and district PPP acting president Ashiq Baloch also confirmed the decision, while Jamshed Dasti said he was in Islamabad to meet the prime minister and the president to get the ticket for himself. He admitted that he was facing a problem in getting the PPP ticket.

After this news spread in Muzaffargarh city, supporters of Dasti staged a rally in his favour while local PPP workers and leaders hoped that Mujtaba Gilani’s election might be a blessing for the constituency in the shape of major projects.

A PPP leader said the reason for not giving ticket to Dasti was his anti-party policies. He was very vocal against party MNA and minister Hina Rabbani Khar, and once he held a press conference against Governor Salmaan Taseer.

Mujtaba Gilani will face ex-governor Mustafa Khar, Nawabzada Iftikhar Ahmed Khan and Nawab Mansoor Ahmed Khan in the election.

Sources close to Dasti said he would not leave the field and might contest as an independent candidate."

See? It all makes sense now doesn't it? Whoever said politics was not about sordid give and take? An adviser-ship on Dairy and Livestock in return for leaving the field clear for the PM's brother.

On the positive side, Jamshed Dasti is probably more at home among livestock than on the National Assembly's standing committee on sports or in any other capacity in parliament. As the Online report adds dryly, "It has been told that Dasti has vast knowledge on Dairy and Livestock matters."


: : : UPDATE : : :

I know I didn't imagine the news item since Mohammad Malick, The News' Islamabad-Rawalpindi editor has also written a scathing piece against Gilani in today's paper. But now the news of the adviser-ship is being denied by Jamshed Dasti himself. But believe it or not, the denial comes coupled with clear confirmation that he has, in fact, today been awarded a PPP ticket to contest the elections again from the same seat.

Now, technically, of course Dasti can contest the seat since the condition of parliamentary candidates being graduates has been done away with (and quite rightly!). But what message is the PPP really sending out by re-nominating a man known to have committed fraud? (Incidentally, the PPP has also given a ticket to Nazir Ahmad Jat, another MNA - formerly of the PML(Q) - who also resigned around the same time when his fake degree was challenged in court. Vehari's Nazir Jat, had earlier announced his decision to resign was because he wanted to leave the PML(Q) for the PML(N). I wonder what happened to move him into the PPP camp!)

Will this brazen move not invite calls for the cases against Dasti and Jat to be reopened and taken to their logical conclusion, i.e. conviction for fraud? As it is, I think the Supreme Court's political decision to allow Dasti a facesaving by resigning in lieu of making a legal ruling on the matter, was a bizarre exercise of judicial prerogative, which could easily be challenged in court.

And it would be interesting to find out what really went down this morning in the parliamentary party board meeting chaired by Asif Zardari. Was Gilani put on the back foot because of the sordidness of his wheeling and dealing regarding his brother's candidature? Now that his powers have been stripped as president, was Zardari sending out a message to Gilani asserting his control over the party? Does Dasti really enjoy as much grassroots worker support as is being made out? Whatever did go on at the meeting, what is clear is that this way or that, the PPP has really put its foot in it.

Scooped

You know what the difference is between a scoop and just another story? Sometimes as little as a few seconds. In my case, it's about one hour.

Finance Minister Shaukat Tarin (Source: Dawn / Reuters)

So the story is, I actually had the scoop about Finance Minister Shaukat Tarin's resignation having been accepted - ostensibly because he's needed back at Silk Bank, which he owns -  at about 9pm tonight. Problem was, I couldn't completely confirm it. Bigger problem was I was away from the net. And by the time, I finally got to a computer, Kamran Khan had led with the story in his 10 o' clock show on Geo. Pretty pathetic I must admit. And no, I don't expect you to believe it. If someone else told me the same story, I would probably say, well, too bad, but who cares you had the story earlier. Point is, Kamran Khan broke the story.

But it did make me think a bit about scoops. In the olden days, scoops operated on a day-basis: which newspaper got the story a day before the others. Wire agencies - those who supply news to newspapers - of course operated on a much more stringent timeframe, since agencies competed with each other to be the first to break the news to other news organizations. But generally, the average person (i.e. those not working in newspaper offices) hardly ever discovered which agency got the scoop first.

Since the advent of 24-hour television and the web, that whole languid manner of working has gone out the window (pardon the pun). And everyone with access to television and the net has access to breaking news, even from wire agencies. Of course, the race to achieve first-status is why all manner of mayhem is unleashed on the unsuspecting public, with half-baked and even sometimes completely untrue stories making it out there. But despite what DawnNews may think, you really cannot have a news channel that ignores the breaking news (as an aside, while Kamran Khan was breaking the news about Shaukat Tarin, DawnNews' new Urdu programme hosted by Wusatullah Khan was running a fascinating discussion about the place of 'regional' languages in the national psyche). It's the nature of the beast. The best you can do is to try and tame the excesses of news organizations, through laying greater audience store in the checking of facts. It's a long-term process, however, where audiences force channels through their viewership / ratings to provide them correct information. If there is any other viable (i.e. non-draconian) alternative, I don't know it.

I also thought about whether scoops really matter to anyone other than media people. I mean, I can think of some stories that might save lives (e.g. you hear about firing going on in an area you are about to go to before you get there) but, generally, most scoops can hold for a few hours or even a day. For example, would it really make a difference to a common viewer / reader if they found out that the Supreme Court struck down the NRO the day before? Would finding out about Shaukat Tarin's resignation tomorrow really negatively affect anyone other than perhaps people who might want to lobby for his post and find themselves out-lobbied? Isn't the act of scooping closely tied in with egos and entertainment?

Just some things I was thinking about...(And I'm not being a sore loser; I have already accepted that I lost the "race.")

In any case, coming back to the Shaukat Tarin story, Kamran Khan named three possible successors to his post: Arif Habib CEO Nasir Baig, former State Bank governor Dr Ishrat Hussain and former PPP finance minister Makhdoom Shahabuddin. From my sources, apparently, the President's camp and the Prime Minister's camp have their own favourites. Baig, who is incidentally the brother-in-law of Anwar Majeed, Zardari's so-called right hand man (who is also related to Shaukat Tarin through the marriage of their offspring), and Shahabuddin are apparently in the President Zardari's list, as is PPP MNA Naveed Qamar. PM Yousuf Raza Gilani's list, on the other hand, has, in addition to Hussain, current state minister Hina Rabbani Khar and economist Dr Hafeez Pasha. Who eventually gets picked may indicate which way the wind is blowing. In fact, having one of Zardari's nominees get the post would be no big deal. One of them not getting it, on the other hand, might be.

First Aman Event Remains An Asha

Apparently the first big do for and by 'Am(a)n Ki Asha' - the Times of India / Jang Group collaboration - has bit the dust in the wake of the dual bomb blasts in Karachi.

The Jang Group was going to play host February 16-17 in Karachi to a massive gathering of business and industry leaders from Pakistan and India. The event was to have seen the likes of the Tatas, Birlas and Ambanis or their representatives from the Indian side and the Manshas, Saigols, Hashwanis et al from the Pakistani side. Almost all the top companies from both sides were represented and people like former Pakistan State Bank Governor Ishrat Hussain and Indian filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt were to have addressed the august gathering. Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani was scheduled to be the chief guest, the idea being that sitting down and sharing biryani and pulao would help break some ice and promote greater collaboration between the business sectors of the two countries. But it was not meant to be.

Fears about security and, possibly, nervousness from the Indian side after the carnage in Karachi on the 5th of February, have, sources claim, put paid to the plan for now. The meet has been postponed till further notice. No word on what the next step will be. Shireen Mazari must be ecstatic.

Can Pakistan and India ever move forward on anything without something or the other screwing it up?

Yousuf Raza Gilani for Prime Minister!

Have been trying to find a clip of the BBC interview with Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani that was broadcast yesterday (Dec 3) but haven't found it yet (if anyone else does, please post the link in the comments). In its lieu, here is Dawn reporting the same.

YRG: One thing I tell you

Here is what YRG said, with the requisite amount of disdain, when interviewer Zeineb Badawi pressed him about UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown and the US asking Pakistan to "do more" in the war against terrorism:

"One thing I tell you, this is our own war and we are fighting it for the interest of our own country. We are not mercenaries and we are not service providers either, and nobody has to judge our performance."

One thing I tell you: it swelled my heart with pride. About effing time somebody said this. You go Gilani! Sod off Gordon, trying to find scapegoats for your own failures, in Pakistan every time! How about "doing more" about this?

Of course, the very next day, that is December 4, Al Jazeera English carried an interview of Gilani by Sir David Frost, where YRG tried to repeat the pithiness of his earlier response, with slightly more mixed inspirational results. When asked about the Western fears of a Taliban takeover of Pakistan, the PM refuted that perception and added:

"Pakistan is a country. It's not a vegetable that someone can come and take it."

Um, ok. Whatever. Just remember, it's always better to go out on a high YRG. In any case, I'm still with you on the first one.

Guinness Geniuses

Firstly, have a look at the latest from Absurdistan (this is from The News):

Saturday, April 25, 2009

ISLAMABAD: Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Dr. Babar Awan here on Friday declared that the name of Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani may soon qualify for the Guinness Book of World Records for regularly attending sessions of the National Assembly.

Ok, I'm not going to question whether doing your job qualifies you for the Guinness Book of World Records or even if the Guinness Book of World Records now has a category for the most regular attendee of Pakistan's parliament (if it does it could be placed right after the most rewarrhis eaten in a single session while suspended from a ceiling fan in inner city Multan)...

But what IS it with this government and its geniuses? Image it seems is all they are concerned with, but it's a validation they seek only from 'abroad', preferably from the most tackiest of fora. Substance it seems is never a question. I can almost see 'Dr' (another one of those Aamir Liaquat-type degrees) Babar Awan quoting the Reader's Digest next.