(Under)Lying Conditions

The Nation, January 5, 2014

Certain diseases have a way of flying under the radar in a way that eludes medical science to this day. Since infections are generally detected through the presence of antibodies that fight them; scientists figured it was easier to hang a bell round the good guy’s neck rather than the bad guys. This means that in nearly 85 percent of cases the good guys show up to do battle with the baddies, and just when they are about to fall into the villainous trap set by the trespassing vermin, doctors send in the cavalry, flooding that patient’s circulatory system with enough medication to wipe out the bad guys and all their sleeper cells, for good.
But like in blockbuster Hollywood action movies, sometimes those vermin can turn into super-villains, infections that cannot be brought down by a simple dosage of Penicillin or other broad-spectrum antibiotics, creating circumstances that necessitate the deployment of Her Majesty’s Double-O division. Of course, Agent 007 is suave, sophisticated, highly-skilled and completely fuelled by Vodka Martinis that are shaken, not stirred. But he is also a loose cannon, a bad team player and, at best, a liability for the MI6. Now, while Dame Judi Dench may have no qualms about unleashing such a madman onto the world, your average doctor will think twice before letting something like that loose upon their patient’s compromised immune system.
Life is seldom fair, though, and tends to offer up more than one Kobayashi Maru per cycle. For the uninitiated, the Kobayashi Maru refers to a no-win situation; a test designed to evaluate leadership qualities among cadets at Starfleet Academy. While the universe created by Gene Roddenberry is a work of fiction, the logic and philosophy behind the Kobayashi Maru test is infallible: a crippled ship, marooned deep into the heart of the Neutral Zone, or No Man’s Land, is transmitting a distress call. You are the captain of the USS Enterprise and you have a choice; attempt to rescue the ship and its helpless crew and risk sparking an intergalactic incident which may cost the lives of your crew, or abandon all souls aboard the Maru to certain death. There is no correct answer, no optimal solution to this problem. In fact, the only way James T Kirk ever got around this test was by cheating. And deception is not very becoming of a ‘good guy’ now, is it?
Unfortunately for us, it is the only weapon in the arsenal of the righteous few that govern the land of the pure. Ours is a society sympathetic towards self-preservation: a model Darwinian eco-system. The Dog-eat-Cat-eat-Mouse-eat-Cheese world we live in has shaped us, for better or for worse. We are no longer crippled by agony and misery, no longer paralyzed by guilt and no more stricken with grief at the various injustices that surround us. Our minds have found a way to rationalize the pain, relegated it to the background. Our consciences have grown tired of shouting themselves hoarse outside press clubs and on The Mall and have gone back into hiding. As more and more people are lowered into their self-righteous graves, we grow more and more scared of our own shadows.
Ten years ago, no one would have believed me if I’d have said that Salmaan Taseer would be assassinated by an acolyte of the Right for doing wrong by his God. Eight years ago, you would have laughed at the prospect of any dictator, let alone the democratically-mandated Pervez Musharraf, would ever be tried for ‘crimes against the state’. Six years ago, you would not be caught dead trying to find a way to get the Taliban terrorists on the negotiating table. Four years ago, we would’ve been laughed out of conversations if we insinuated the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf would be the third largest political party in Pakistan. And, of course, two years ago, we would have crucified the government official that had the audacity, nay the gall to classify a dead terrorist as “a martyr”.
Things change. People change.
The disease of the last millennium has now become a revolution. Violence in the name of God is now, more than ever, the single largest threat to our existence. This is not a new phenomenon, just old milk in a new bottle. Over the course of the past few years, a game of dominos has been played with regimes and political systems in North Africa, Asia and the Middle East. Country after country has fallen prey to a veritable Molotov Cocktail of sectarian strife, internal political wrangling and external military involvement. Egypt, Bahrain, Tunisia, Libya, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan; all have faced their darkest hours. We in Pakistan, though, have had the luxury to sit on the sidelines so far, content with watching the world as we knew it coming down all around us. We have been held hostage by the terrorists for so long that now we have begun to rationalize our preference for their tactics, Stockholm be damned.
Civilized society is all about looking out for the little man, the marginalized and the vulnerable. But our Darwinian dwelling has evolved far beyond the limits of what is acceptable in the civilized world. Today, neighbours would rat our neighbours; friends will betray friends; brothers will kill their sisters and terrorists can threaten our entire way of life, without causing us so much grief as we would suffer when one of the good guys stands up and chastises us for our wrongdoings. Salmaan Taseer did nothing more than remind us to be good people, Shahbaz Bhatti’s only crime was that he stood up for the poor sods who didn’t have a voice. Hundreds of thousands of heroes, who have laid down their lives in defence of what they thought was right are today shunned by our pathological leaders because they cannot afford to antagonize the disease any further.
We must recognize the underlying condition for what it really is: denial. We just don’t want to believe that we no longer have control over our lives, or that our lives are controlled by the fear of something unpleasant. We just can’t live each day paralyzed with fear, not realizing our full potential just because we think that someone will come and blow us to bits if we do. So far, we’re letting the terrorists win. Let this be the year of their defeat.

Honne and tatemae

The Nation, December 29, 2013

For people in the news business, information is a drug. The quest for information makes journalists act irrationally, take unnecessary risks and put their lives on the line for that ultimate payoff; the high of seeing your story in print or broadcast at primetime.
Over the past decade or so, journalism in Pakistan has evolved. Private media houses have, over the course of their brief lifespan, gone from being pioneers to activists to judges to hangmen to bogeymen to saviors and back again. The media narrative has always been centered around this mythical construct of The Common Man and the troubles he (or she) faces in their day-to-day. News broadcasts are literally littered with stories that highlight a need of some sort, be it faulty drainage in Mughalpura, Talibanisation in Sohrab Goth, encroachments in Faizabad or the faulty construction of Peshawar Ring Road. The residents of Hazara Town will always be in the news protesting, and Young Doctors will always be scuffling with law enforcement personnel while ignoring their duties and letting innocent people die. Whichever page you flip to, whatever channel you tune, there will almost always be some sort of protest, where people wielding sticks and burning tyres will demand that their demands be met, post haste.
But for those of us who actually live in Pakistan, things are a little different.
The drains of Mughalpura are clogged because the residents throw everything into their kitchen sinks and expect their uncovered drains to do for them what toxic waste processing plants do in the first world; Sohrab Goth has a complex ecology that cannot be explained by one word, coined to make ‘lawlessness’ sound sexy; Faizabad is a mad house of bus terminals and flyovers modeled after the intricate architecture of the Aztec civilization, a tour de force of incompetence in urban planning; and potholes on the Ring Road are the least of Peshawar’s current worries. While I may be guilty of oversimplification, so is the news media: they create archetypes and mould coverage to fit the superlatives that sell the most copies and airtime. Things are not always what they seem, especially on TV.
Any journalist will tell you that there are certain things you don’t cover. Whatever the circumstances, whatever the need may be; there are topics and issues too taboo to be covered by the mainstream Urdu press. Crimes against women and children, the persecution of minorities and the exploitation of religion, even the drone strikes and the state’s love-hate relationship with its prodigal pupils, the Taliban: these are all subjects on which you must toe the line. A single article praising drone attacks for their ability to knock off high value targets with precision will invoke the ire of the hawkish Right. Any journalist brave enough to call out the exploitation of religion will piss off the Mullah Brigade. Even the military’s relationship (or lack thereof) with banned outfits is no longer a kosher topic for dinnertime chit-chat. You can fall in line or have a chalk outline drawn around your lifeless body, your choice. Of course I exaggerate, but you get the picture.
Now, it’s not like journalists and media organizations don’t know any better: they do. But they continue to pander to public perception rather than shaping it. They seek to reinforce stereotypes rather than debunking them. Japanese society, which has several parallels with Pakistan in terms of being a closed society, has a name for this hypocritical duplicity. They call it the honne and the tatemae; the way things are and the way things are perceived to be. The gap between the truth and the façade should ideally be the area that journalists seek to target. But instead, these are areas that have seen the least sunlight and feeling an acute deficiency of Vitamin D. Our flock of shepherd-less cattle has lost the ability to differentiate between truth and façade, so much so that tatemaes are fast becoming honne for us.
Take the drone debate. Any rational individual who is not swayed by political rhetoric will tell you that strategic strikes are OKed by Pakistani military and/or government officials. The tacit agreement is that we will share intel and support the strikes, but will publicly denounce them to save face. This was the deal under Musharraf, Zardari and now Mian Sahib. Admitting to this hypocrisy will be suicidal, so everybody does the next best thing; they go into denial. The press, the pundits, the people, they are all swept up by the charged and frenzied discourse around the illegality of the drones and the loss of innocent life and fail to see the bigger picture.
It is the same with our problems with the Taliban. Some of us are ashamed to live in a country where the Interior Minister brands the country’s most wanted man a martyr, but most of us agree with him. Many of us ridicule Munawwar Hassan for insinuating that soldiers killed in the line of duty are not martyrs, but many don’t. These ambiguities are caused by unwillingness on the part of the journalists to tell it like it is. While I don’t blame individuals per se and I understand that there may be several social, political, economic and personal pressures that force them to act this way, but the net effect cannot be ignored. The people of Pakistan today have no clearer idea of what the hell is wrong with this country than they did ten years ago. In the middle of all the clutter, actual information is being sacrificed at the altar of short-term memory loss.
Journalists are in withdrawal. Their favorite drug is fast disappearing off the market. Scoops are being replaced by “he said-she said” and actual investigative reporting is now overshadowed by interest-oriented reporting, or blackmail. The press needs to detox before the fourth estate gets plotted and sold off as DHA’s next venture. I can already hear the boots of status quo marching in. It was good while it lasted.

dharnadynamics

The Nation, December 22, 2013

The day of the dharna is upon us. The skipper has marshalled his cornered tigers and is preparing to push back, in the face of certain adversity. Leading from the front, he has captained polio drives, championed the cause of hapless drone victims and called attention to massive wrongdoing that was the General Election of 2013, which will widely be remembered by members of the Poor, Trusting Incontinents’ party, as the greatest sham ever perpetrated in the history of democracy since someone in the Roman Senate said, “Hey Brutus, what’s with the dagger?”
To be fair, Imran Khan has delivered a lot of the change he promised in the run up to the general elections. He promised to take a stand against wrongdoing wherever he saw it, and he has followed up with that promise by staging a sit-in in KPK, ostensibly against his own party’s government there. Apparently, hell hath no fury like a Khan scorned. Therefore, it comes as no surprise to anyone that he has once again turned to his top minds to try and get him out of the latest jam he’s gotten himself into. Luckily for him, however, his loyalists include some of the country’s top exponents of dharnadynamics, which, in this day and age, is all you need to win over the hearts and minds of “The Common Man” [capitalized here because it has now become a proper noun]. These common men suffer from an acute affliction of the pituitary gland. This condition renders subjects immune to, among other things, the onset of nausea following a vastly rhetorical and hollow campaign speech. Its symptoms include violent disagreement with differing opinions, a failure to see reason and an irrational belief in the powers of one man.
dharnadynamics, then, is the study of the impact of sit-ins – also popularly known as dharnas in our mother tongue – on the conscience of the powers-that-be. Some of the most pioneering work in the field of dharnadynamics was conducted by Agha Waqar, one famed for having saved the Muslim world with his invention of the Water Kit. Of course, Waqar was ridiculed at the time for claiming that water could feasibly power a vehicular mode of transportation. Unbeknownst to Waqar, a crack(pot) team of scientists allied with the Poor, Trusting Incontinents and led by Dr Evil himself, Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, had already begun to weaponize Waqar’s discovery, turning it into a dharadynamic nuclear warhead. This rogue faction of the otherwise harmless PTI was bent upon destroying the world as we know it and replacing it with an alternate reality, one where rivers flowed with milk and Android phone batteries never died. Of course, in normal circumstances, this would be the point where Keifer Sutherland or Captain America would show up, open up a can of whoop ass onto the rogue scientists in question and disable the warhead so that we could all live happily ever after.
But after all, this is Pakistan, the land where even Batman fears to tread. The closest thing we have to a superhero is a geriatric philanthropist who has nothing better to do than help people. His superpowers are so lame, there isn’t a single explosion in the upcoming film about his life. Not even the slightest hint of alien technology. Just a whole lot of illegal aliens.
But dharnadynamics is a complicated science. When Agha Waqar envisioned this new branch of science, hitherto unknown to man, he came up with four laws that governed the universe of sit-ins and violent protest. These included:
The zeroth law of dharnadynamics: If two political parties are in a deadlock, with a third party, both parties will gang up to rig the elections so that the third party has no chance of winning the elections. This helps define the notion of political temperature and the resultant backlash.
The first law of dharnadynamics: The cult of personality is a form of electoral system. Because personal charisma is conserved, all forms of electoral systems are rendered null and void. Equivalently, non-corrupt governance of the first kind is impossible. But there is nothing to stop corrupt politicians of the second order from swelling the ranks of said political party.
Second law of dharnadynamics: Political systems spontaneously evolve towards revolutionary equilibrium. This means that no matter who is running the engines of government, a revolution is inevitable as long as DJ Butt provides the sound system.
There is great dispute around the third law of dharnadynamics: some say it deals with trolls and their proportionality with the amount of rational discourse. Others maintain it deals with the concept of militant wings and thugs. However, since this law was not conceived by Agha Waqar himself and was cooked up by the PTI’s rogue scientists, it does not achieve the generality of the first three laws.
Today marks the greatest test of this groundbreaking science. Will the PTI-secessionists finally be able to detonate their dharnanuclear warhead? Will Javed Hashmi rejoin the Noon League? Will Shah Mehmood Qureshi’s charisma and enunciation save PTI from another embarrassing showing? Stay tuned to your TV sets.

To whomsoever it may concern...

The Nation, December 15, 2013

My name may strike fear into the hearts of human beings and cause grown men to soil themselves. My voice may be amplified, telegraphed and telephoned into TV screens, projectors and PA systems mounted alongside otherwise crowded streets, continents away. I may be a playback singer par excellence, bar none and without peer for miles around. I may also be the world’s only armchair insurgent, a drawing-room separatist, an expatriate nationalist and a budding hedonist. I may be the bestselling author of The Hitchhiker’s Guide To W-11 and Other Bus Routes, among other masterpieces. I may be retired patron of a selfless social and political organization with roots in philanthropy, operating soup kitchens, homeless shelters, free-of-cost transportation services and protection rackets in the world’s third largest city (proper). I am living in sin, the life many only dream of, and I’m not even into my forties yet. Alright, alright, maybe I’m a tad older than 40, but I’m still young at heart and – now that I’m retired – I have all the time in the world to enjoy the finer things in life.
But that doesn’t mean I enjoy my retirement. Quite the opposite actually, I hate it.
I hate being cooped up in this birdcage these Brits call a house. I hate not being allowed to install a Muslim Shower and I loathe these slimy handkerchiefs these white people call Toilet Paper. I’d rather wipe myself with the PPP’s election manifesto; its texture is less surprising than most Toilet Rolls here. I hate that there’s not a single proper biryani place in the Greater London area. I hate that my backyard is overrun by overzealous members of the London Metropolitan Police carrying pitchforks and spades, looking for mass graves. I hate that all my friends are dead, dying or in parliament. I hate that upstarts and old farts are running a country that obviously needs younger blood. I hate that my beloved Karachi, er… I mean Pakistan, has fallen into the hands of beard-toting, gun-slinging, grenade-popping vermin: the Taliban. I mean, it obviously belongs in the hands of clean-shaven, pan-chewing, cap-popping badasses such as my unit commanders. After all, they get the pick of the lot in everything: animal hides, extortion slips, ballot papers; you name it, they’ve got it.
There is nothing I love more in the world than women. Women are the apple of my eye, the jewel in my crown, the icing on my cake and the cherry on top of my ice-cream sundae. They are the philosophy on which I have penned several volumes. These wives, mothers, daughters, sisters and mistresses are what makes my world go round. I cherish their company and long for the days when I was a heartthrob at my alma mater. While photos of my youth still adorn walls, street corners, bathhouses and barber shops; the women don’t really go weak in the knees for me anymore, at least not for reasons I’d want. But my attractive qualities aren’t just limited to women. Many men have confessed their undying love and devotion to me, mostly as I have been fighting back crocodile tears of rage and despair. These twenty-to-thirty somethings come to my house, lean in my ear and whisper sweet nothings, like, “The job’s done, guv’nah!” or “Luca Brazi sleeps with the fishes”. But that doesn’t excite me, it’s not the same as when a nubile young thing slithers up to you and nibbles your earlobe while informing you that your closest confidant has been put on ice. Much like those two boys from that film with Priyanka Chopra and Desi Girl, I’m just looking for love in all the wrong places.
But my professional accomplishments more than make up for my personal regrets. I am the only clean politician in Pakistan, because I bathe in Dettol every day. My credentials are impeccable and verifiable from fellow snakes-in-the-grass Hameed Gul and Aslam Beg. In the words of Mark Knopfler, “I love my ISI, my army and my MTV”.
Behold, for I am a legend with songs in my name (and my name in song). A butcher, a baker, a king-maker! Rub a Dub Dub, three men in a tub. I seek and destroy logic, fire heat-seeking missiles at Talibanisation, have the ANP’s rogues flown in for supper and then have their leftovers for brunch the next day. I walk with Johnny, I sip Bacardi, I sleep with Kahlua and I make sure my men have their merry way with anyone who dares cross their paths. I can swat right-wing flies with my morning edition of the Daily Mail and can put out the lights of any household, anywhere in Karachi, with the press of the ‘Send’ button.
I can be an indispensable ally, all I need is asylum. I can see reason, as long as there’s a cut for me in it. I can be a persuaded to see things your way, all I need is cash-in-a-bag. I can be gracious and let you live. I can be magnanimous and let you die, painlessly. But most of all, I can be myself. There’s no one like me. And there’s no place like home. You may confiscate my passport, but you will never take my cell-phone. A.H. will phone home!
P.S. Will allow unconscientious multinational companies to operate with impunity in Karachi in exchange for an apartment in Manhattan. I’m quite bored of living in the outskirts of dreary London-town. The cold weather hurts my hip.
Sincerely,
Your man in Scotland Yard’s backyard

Reporting period

The Nation, December 8, 2013

Disclaimer: This intercept of a Taliban development report from their Doha office is in no way a work of fiction. Registered as a non-profit, charity organization, the Tehreek-e-Taliban are a civic minded people who take pains to perfect their craft. We should all appreciate the work put in by these tireless soldiers of mayhem.

Bismillah! Fazlullah!

By the grace of our great lord, a Multi-Detonator Task Force (MDTF) has completed the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan’s (TTP) latest capacity building project, which aims to improve the competence of low-level operatives and extremist partners in key areas of IED preparedness and tactical mayhem. Funded by a spree of kidnappings-for-ransom, and a donor agency that wishes to remain Al-Anonymous, this project seeks to improve local preparedness to cause disasters of any kind. The project aims to strengthen both individuals and institutions and support the MDTF’s longer-term commitment to enable disaster implementation and terror management through empowering local partners across the country.
The first phase was carried out in the Pre-Fazlullah period, and ran from April 01 to November 1, 2013. The initiative was, Alhamdolilah, facilitated by a team of consultants from Al-Shabab, Jundollah and the ruthless terrorist organization Cobra who work in the relevant terrorist sectors and provide militant safety trainings to guard against law enforcement and emergency response personnel. This also includes a special module administered by the producers of the popular American documentary, Prison Break.
During Phase l, 10 pilot events were staged in district capitals. Each pilot sought participants from adjoining districts to ensure an even distribution of payload and a broader base of mayhem. In total, participants from 25 districts (including Karachi) attended the pilots. By the grace of Allah, all 25 achieved martyrdom with a total of 967 casualties between them. The priority districts selected for Phase l were identified by a Needs Assessment based on vulnerability to sectarian strife, in particular through flooding by propaganda pamphlets.
Brothers from consulting agencies MOSSAD, RAW and the Central Intuitive Agency contributed by providing experienced staff to facilitate the modules and coordination of the events with expertise in the specific sectors. Each five-day training included sessions on: Mass Communication of Hate Speech, IED Preparedness, Management of Widow Expectation, the Trigonometry of Ball-Bearing Distribution, Chain of Command Elimination, Mainstreaming Gender Oppression Principles, the Moral Implications of Payload Delivery Through Children, Farrari Camp Coordination and Management, MisInformation Management (MIS) and a multi-hazard simulation exercise, Alhamdolilah.
Gender Oppression was also highlighted and participants renewed their commitment to ensuring quality conditions for women in the home. In order to disincentivize disobedience and promiscuity, workshops on cross-cutting themes such as Sandwich-Making is Next to Godliness, The Health Risks of Late Night Mobile Phone Usage and Malala: The Problem Child, were conducted. Informative films used to highlight these themes included Irreversible, 8mm and Bowling For Columbine. Astaghfirullah.
By the end of PhaseI, a total of 642 households were uprooted by sectarian conflict across Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan, KP and Pakistan Occupied Kashmir. The average behavior change recorded was 37%, which is within acceptable levels. However, a marked decrease was noticed in the turnout at Friday congregations. This is an expected side effect of our Mass DisInformation Campaign, designed to filter out Shias, Ismailis, Barelvis and Mormons from attending prayers at any establishment that is a signatory to the Universal Declaration of Hostage-taking Rights (UDHR).
The Office of Ozymandias Bin Laden requested the exercise be replicated in in Abbottabad. A 72-page proposal to this end was returned with track changes by the Quetta Shura’s Communications Officer, declining the request as government policies were not friendly to terrorist intervention and sentiment among beneficiaries was decidedly against the TTP. The proposal has now been escalated to the Shura’s Procurement Department (Astaghfirullah), which is expected to implement it within 16 to 18 years. You know how lazy Procurement is with their bidding processes and invoicing.
Four dedicated staff was hired to facilitate logistics and provide administrative support for out-station assignments, recording footage of key events, monitoring and evaluation of the media coverage and outreach to individual journalists through bullets in brown paper envelopes. Priority areas districts targeted for the pilot were identified by informants in the law enforcement agencies. The Needs Assessment found there were only three prisons catering to the needs of over 6000 operatives. A public letter to the local EDO (Health) and DIG (Prisons) addressing the issue has, Mashallah, been placed in the Nawa-i-Waqt to manage beneficiaries’ expectations.

Our top story

The Nation, December 1, 2013

Good morning and welcome to the bulletin. Our top story this hour: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has banned voting on election day.
In a statement issued a few days ago, the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) announced that in view of the prevailing security situation in Balochistan, FATA, parts of KPK and Punjab as well Karachi, the exercise of the right to franchise has been banned in these ‘sensitive areas’ and section 144 has been imposed inside all polling stations. According to the statement, “In order to ensure a continuity of the democratic process in the country, the Chief Election Commissioner is pleased to announce that the ECP has spared the voter of the cumbersome task of deciding who to vote for on election day.”
“Through anecdotal evidence collected by the honourable CEC’s most honourable spouse in her native village, it has come to light that the right to vote is more a bane than a boon; far too heavy a burden for a single man or woman to bear alone. Being able to vote for a particular political party is a power too great to simply leave into the hands of unqualified civilians. This also leaves them open to exploitation through bribery and often land precious votes in the coffers of bloated politicians simply because of relations through blood or marriage. These so-called politicians then proceed to misuse their financial resources to influence voters, whose precious ballots end up furthering the hegemony of repressive feudal systems.”
“Oftentimes, the individual cannot understand which candidate is most suited to their ideological needs and lacks the analytical ability to ascertain on their own which candidate will cater to their needs best. Such people end up voting in the wrong man simply because they are swayed by campaign rhetoric and lofty promises. Such individuals are also responsible for the breakdown of law and order 90 or so days after the elections, when they become disillusioned by the “empty” promises and then damage public property and hold precious NATO cargo hostage as they protest against the very party that they voted into power.”
“In this age of free media, the ECP feels that the common man is far too influenced by the opinions and ideas of subversive journalists, who have not the fear of God or ISPR in their hearts. This makes their unbridled expression a threat to national security. However, the common man is not a good judge of what is in the national interest and what is contrary to it. Therefore, the influence of talk show hosts and biased media owners is a malfeasance and a pollution of the purity of democracy.”
“It is therefore not feasible, in the opinion of the CEC, for the common man to properly use their right to franchise in a way that conforms with the true essence of democracy. Acting in the supreme interest of the nation, the ECP is instituting a system of mandatory battle royal or Mortal Kombat –a duel to the death – to decide the leader-elect from each constituency. This interpretation of the election process comes from the Greek tradition. The Greeks were the creators of democracy and this Hellenic influence on the nascent democracy in Pakistan will be a welcome breath of fresh air for a populous burdened under multifarious issues of varying complexity.”
“With the abolition of voting, the national exchequer will remain fuller, longer. Superfluous expenses such as the printing of ballot paper, fabrication of special tamper-proof ballot boxes and the import of toxic ink for use on hapless thumbs shall be spared. The threats posed by separatists, militants, terrorists, opportunists and botanists will be rendered harmless and there will be no need to deploy military and civilian law enforcement personnel to handle a spiraling security situation. Election-motivated violence, therefore, will come to an all-time low.”
When we come back, we’ll have analysis from some leading armchair pundits and an international democratic consultant. Also, our special ‘beyond-the-grave’ segment today invites the ghost of Aristotle through séance to pontificate on the finer points of democracy-through-selection”.
In other news: The Taliban have claimed responsibility for the selection of Gen Raheel Sharif as the new COAS; and milk outflows recorded in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa rivers are at an all time high. More on these stories after these messages from our sponsors. Stay with us.

Whackjobs and whistleblowers

The Nation, November 24, 2013

Much like US black ops on foreign soil, our country too has a penchant for abandoning its loyal sons in the heat of battle. This bad parenting trait is justified by our leaders and pundits as being “in the greater national interest”. Of course, this means that the funds transferred into the numbered Swiss and/or Bahaman accounts in exchange for such forgetfulness in the battlefield are in the “lesser national interest”.
But who defines national interest? Who is the keeper of the keys to the Mecca of strategic depth? Is it really necessary to keep sending our offspring into battle and orphaning them halfway through? Is it really that hard to follow up on actions or stand behind decisions taken for the greater good? Why can’t we all just get along? Messrs Lennon and Kobain died of asking questions exactly like these. The diagnosis: AssasinatumNosey Parkerium; an all-too-common affliction that rears its ugly head when a celebrity smokes too much Khyber Hashish and starts to think too deeply about the intrigues that surround them.
No matter what their vocation, our nation can find a way to hate its heroes, torch their effigies, storm the Bastille and burn their memory at the stake; all over the minorest of misdemeanours, such as taking a bride whose skin is the wrong shade of pale, or accepting the million dollar prize that is the most coveted thing amongst the scientific community since the Philosopher’s Stone. Mass murderers, genocidal nut-jobs and your friendly neighbourhood rapist, meanwhile, is canonized, carried on the shoulders of the adoring masses all the way to parliament and deposited in the corridors of power to rape, pillage, plunder and make merry till such time as we find a reason to hate them.
In Pakistan, everyone is afraid of doing the right thing, lest someone find out and expose them for the goody-two shoes they are. The government figured they could eliminate electricity theft by getting neighbours to rat each other out; the army figured it could take down the Taliban by paying off hapless tribals to do their dirty work for them; Hussain Haqqani thought he could rat on the army and get the US to name him Viceroy of the Leader of the Free World to the Land Formerly Known as Pakistan. But none of these underhanded tactics worked. That’s because in Pakistan, much like when in prison, we don’t take very kindly to snitches.
Tattling is frowned upon from a very young age, so it comes as no surprise that Malala Yousafzai’s book has been banned by educational institutions across the country. Of course we can’t have a teenager spilling the beans on the largest drug and gun cartel North of Colombia. That would destroy our reputation as a country friendly to foreign investment. Indeed, FMCGs such as the Central Intuitive Agency, MI6000 and the Research into Anal cavities Wing have, in the past, considered Pakistan a lucrative market with multiple opportunities for enterprising operatives. The insurgency in Balochistan, the rise of the Tehreek-e-Taliban, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf are all successful examples of startups funded and launched by the Proctor and Gambles of the spy world.
Here’s the rub. Those courageous enough to write on the real issues are mocked as ‘satirists’; hard-hitting journalism is dismissed as mere ‘comedy’ while press releases and statements that mock the very basis of coherent language are considered the paragon of credible journalism. He said, she said, they said, KABOOM! I always say the best reportage is where you can hear the sounds of bullets and bombs flying over your head, all in the comfort of your hammock, suspended between two banana trees, on the Cayman Islands. Unfortunately, Geo TV doesn’t transmit that far South, so most of us have to stream second-rate channels such as the CNN, or tolerate the clearly biased reporting of BBC or the pro-terrorist narrative of Al-Jazeera. Of course, when you’re on vacation, the last thing you want to do is bore yourself with “realism”, so one must steer clear of all the movie channels, especially if they are playing Zero Dark Thirty or G.I. Joe 2: The Rise of Cobra, lest you learn the truth.
Take it from me, no other channels offer fiction more compelling than news channels, and nowhere is the fiction more scintillating than in Pakistan. India is a close second, but even they cannot claim to be the pioneers of ‘Ticker Wars’; where two warring media groups go toe to toe on the bottom halves of your TV screens. It’s a lot like The Untouchables: He airs an expose, you dig up a whistleblowjob. He sends one of your men to the gallows, you present one of his before the Coalition for Ethical Journalism; that’s the Karachi way!

Logical phallusies

The Nation, November 17, 2013

On the periodic table of militants, the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan top of the Halogen pops. Time and again, they have proven themselves the most reactive of this pugnacious line up, which includes incendiary performers such as the Artists Formerly Known as Al Qaeda, the Afghan Tally Ban and the Al-Shababi Kababis from Yemen. However, much like Fluorine, that most violent of dental products, the TTP are an anomalous entity. By rights, Fluorine should combine with Hydrogen to form the most powerful acid known to man. But in a twist worthy of M Night Shymalan, the bond between Hydrogen and Fluorine isn’t as tight as it’s supposed to be. Therefore, rather than being a lean, mean, metal dissolving machine, Hydrofluoric Acid is but a mildly seasoned Mojito in the face of the Harvey Wallbanger that is Hydrochloric Acid.

The TTP are no different. By rights, you would expect them to be most compatible with forces that share their hopes, dreams, aspirations and donor agencies. However, most Shariah-compliant institutions - such as the Dubai Islamic Bank – find themselves at odds with the aims and objectives of Fazlullah The Hood and his merry men. This should come as no surprise to the trained pundit; indeed, many well-seasoned analysts have speculated that these subversive sociopaths harbor no honourable intentions and, if given the opportunity, would strap ball-bearings and heavy explosives to their own mothers, if that would destabilize the Pakistani security apparatus.

Perhaps the greatest trick the Taliban ever pulled was convincing the people of Pakistan they didn’t exist, at least, as the ruthless terrorist organization that they are. Indeed, Ehsanullah Ehsan III, the unrelenting spin doctor currently in the employ of these high priests of mayhem, has launched a highly effective media campaign to counter the Zionist propaganda being spread in the global media. The narrative he is selling is not a new one: the Talibs are merely students, maligned by vested foreign interests. These fair-weather friends are the ones who snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in Kashmir; the same ragtag band that conquered the graveyard of empires. They are also the ones who brought an end to the hate-fuelled insurgency financed by pro-Malala elements and, God willing, they shall be the ones to end Rabi Peerzada’s brutal assault on impressionable young pantaloons.

A Freudian slip is all it took to bring the PTI to its knees. The newspaper responsible for the faux pas insisted it was a mere typographical error. But soon after a retraction was printed, members of the editorial staff were seen at their local dhaaba, consorting with the Quetta Shoora. While these contacts are no secret, the US intelligence community hasn’t been able to collect one scrap of evidence to implicate staffers of the daily Yawn. I believe it will take more than just a crack team of cryptographers and Dan Brown to crack this code, for the #TTPTI nexus communicates via the ancient art of tea leaves, which can only be read in the light of a full moon and only by toothless gypsy woman, or Shireen Mazari, which ever comes first. At a recent meeting, it was proposed that the two partners develop a system of smoke signals, in order to get their message deeper into the hearts of Waziristanis. However, this plan was vetoed when it was discovered that TTP messages were being intercepted by GHQ and in their place, smoke rings blown by General Kayani were being used to mislead the Insafian horde.

Asset declaration was all the rage in the days the Tehreek-e-Insaaf was campaigning for office. Now, however, even the slightest mention of a strategic ass… can trigger alarm bells within the Pentagon. Ironically, that is where most of our military strategy (and technology) comes from. Saying that Pakistan’s own military is capable of dealing with threats to its sovereignty is like saying that women enjoy a privileged position in Pakistani society because they don’t have to stand in line to deposit utility bills. Granted, this is a luxury not many women from around the world can claim access to, but then the Taliban aren’t exactly your garden variety separatists.

For eons now, the government of the land has been arming militias to do their dirty work for them. This is not unlike the Sri Lankan experiment with the militias they armed to fight the Tamil Tigers. While we may have a success story to work off, it must be said that the Lankans had a distinct advantage: they could Pied Piper their unpleasant rats right off the edge of the cliff into the Indian Ocean. Rather than trying to do something similarly brutal, the timid Pakistan Army has resorted to using USAID funding to buy truckloads of Afghan rugs. Not only is this a valuable contribution to the impoverished economy of the AfPak region, but it also makes it convenient to sweep all errant dirt bugs under the aforementioned rugs. I always say a smuggler with a rug is better than two in the Hindu Kush. Maybe it’s time the generals warmed up to my kind of hawkish thinking.

Bad Command or Filename

The Nation, November 10, 2013

There are no stupid questions. A question, by its very definition, indicates the presence of (artificial or extraterrestrial) intelligence. Mind you, this is not the same as ‘credible intelligence’, which usually gets people killed. Nor is it the same as ‘false intelligence’, which tends to keep stupid people in office beyond their half-life simply because they cater to the interests of US defence contractors and the interests of Rear Admiral Oil and Gas and Major General Petroleum Products. As they say, artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity.
No, intelligence is a prerequisite for making smart decisions. The converse, however, is not necessarily true. Archimedes ran naked in the streets after making his most ground-breaking discovery, but had to live the rest of his life in relative obscurity and anonymity because the mullahs from the Jamia Athenia issued an edict declaring him a freethinking heretic who liked to dance naked under the moonlight. This was also the origin of the werewolf story, still used by mothers around the worlds to scare their sheep, I mean children, to sleep.
But mothers are not the only ones who rule through fear. History is literally littered with examples of despots who burn books at the stake, hang ideas till death and sacrifice civil liberties at the altar of national security. This has been standard operating procedure for the likes of Barack Hussein Obama, George Walker Bush and William Jefferson Clinton, ad infinitum ad nauseum. It has also meant that they consider impunity a virtue and truth a vice. Dollars and not facts are their currency, and they will go to any lengths to sex up dossiers, seduce interns, ratify draconian surveillance laws and generally have a good time.
But the birds of prey now unleashed over the tribal badlands of FATA are causing them all sorts of trouble. In exchange for assassinating the most wanted man in the country, Pakistan has upgraded the Great Shaitan from Public Enemy Number 2 to Public Enemy Number 1. This is a great honour, because the last person to occupy the top spot was recently canonized by all leaders of major opposition parties, as well as the Sheriff of Chakri. A shrine dedicated to the memory of Hakeemullah Mehsud, drone wali sarkar, is currently being erected outside parliament and is expected to be inaugurated by the prime minister. This will strain the already tense relations between the two unhappy partners, who have been enduring their loveless arranged marriage for well over 50 years now. The history of their matrimony is steeped in lies, deceit and homicidal defence contractors. But it’s not like there’s a bed of roses waiting for bride Pakistan when she comes back home to her neighbourhood.
The bully, Ivan In The North, barely acknowledges her existence but regularly bitches about her behind her back. To the West, Brother Iran has all but written off its Sunni Twin, because Pakistan has been sleeping with his enemy. The final straw came when, in a bid to please their bankrollers, Pakistan turned down the more than generous offer of building a viable and sustainable energy corridor. This, the bankroller thought, was far too much cleavage than should be displayed by any ‘Muslim country’ and immediately told Pakistan to lower her gaze and guard her modesty.
To the East, the evil twin brother that is India marshals his troops, preparing for the endgame and all but ready to move in to pick at the carcasses left behind by the US in its departure from the Afghan playground. The Afghan playground too has long shunned us on account of the dangerous double game that we play: carrying on with the Taliban behind Captain America’s back. In their efforts to plumb the depths of strategy, the generals and the specifics of the military have exposed themselves, sheltering the villainous and murdering the innocent. Their ‘credible intelligence’ is not always the most accurate and sometimes, leads to innocent lives being lost. Of course, the military is complicit in these attacks from on high: how could they not be? A force that can keep a secret like Osama buried for so long is obviously playing Julius Caesar: The Board Game at the hardest difficulty setting. The government too has put the flute of denunciation to its lips simply because it cannot afford to play a cheerier tune. There is far too much support for murderers, rapists, pillagers and looters for there to be any real justice meted out.
There is really no one point to this rant, one can try their best to make sense of nonsense, but for that a brain with processing power greater than a 486 IBM compatible PC is the minimum requirement. The people in power really need to upgrade their internal RAM if they are to be able to process the massive amounts of corrupt data they have been accumulating.
The Taliban are smarter than your average computer virus and it will take more than Norton Suite to cure the ills that plague our fair backwater. The irony is that the average 12-year-old not only knows how recover your laptop from a fatal crash, he or she has also consumed enough Hollywood to know that the United States does not negotiate with terrorists. Pakistan can, but that does not mean that the US has to like it, or support the process by funding capacity building sessions for impoverished militants. The terrorists too are no Friends of Democratic Pakistan and will not begin contributing to the Army Welfare Fund anytime soon. The program we are currently running is bound to crash. It’s just a question of when.

Protective Custard

The Nation, November 03, 2013

Over the past decade or so, the people of Pakistan have had to contend with many an evil doer and their malfeasant disciples. Such as Louie, leader of the dengue mosquitos. That ruthless terrorist, claimed many lives before his reign of terror was ended heroically by the First Servant of the Punjabi Peoples, who sacrificed his nasal cavities and laid down the shelf-life of his toupee when he detonated a Mortein Bomb on Nullah Leh, killing exactly 9,058,342 mosquitos, 29 houseflies and taking out a Phillips 60-watt light bulb in the process.
But as collateral damage goes, no one does it better than the Americans. Or should I say, worse? Instead of bombing everything back to the Stone Age, the megalomaniacs in the White House have begun to prioritize precision, those bastards. No longer are Taliban leaders safe in the comfort of their own fortified compounds. Big Brother is always watching and Predators are always circling overhead, ready to pick at carcasses and fire Hellfire missiles at innocent civilians carrying RPG-launchers and hapless rubble. After the NSA blowout, only the best intel is allowed inside 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and the CIA has even changed the passwords on the free USAID Wifi Hotspots installed in various parts of FATA (to facilitate informants who don’t have satellite phones with intelligence gathering). The CIA used to issue satellite phones to informants, but they kept going missing. Both phones and informants. A few years later, it was discovered that the Taliban had obtained Thuraya technology and were attempting to weaponize it. It took all of SEAL Teams a total of three and a half movies to bring down this Nexus, only to discover that the ruthless terrorist organization that has threatened to take over Bannu (and later, the world) was running on Apple iOS. That’s almost like IBM selling punch-card machines to the Nazis in World War 2. Almost.
As per tradition, though, the government of Pakistan is doing its best impression of an ostrich that has contracted a particularly nasty case of syphilis by running helter skelter like a headless chicken, crying fowl and demanding a DRS review of the latest airborne attack against the sovereign state of the Taliban. The case of Hakimullah Mehsud, the latest victim of American disregard for human life, is being handled by only the best human rights activists, political spin doctors and pharmacists. Everyone from Hakimullah’s third wife to his latest mistress has been put in protective custard. This is not unlike protective custody, except it is delicious and nearly always fatal. Death by custard asphyxiation comes swiftly and has been deemed to be “completely humane” by the Pakistani Association of Custard Manufacturers, or Rafhan.
Firing a missile at a Talib is no small feat. But killing him in the first go is nearly impossible. The Taliban may be hiding in caves, but their capabilities for 4G warfare (not the successor to Sprite 3G, a devilish product patented by the Coca Cola company to wage war on non-believers’ kidneys) are state-of-the-art. You cannot simply kill a TTP chief: you have to confirm, reconfirm, wait for the government to first issue a denial, then wait for an independent source – such as the US State Department – to reconfirm the news. The Foreign Office will, of course, issue a statement condemning India and Afghanistan for their hand in the notorious leader’s exploits. The Interior Ministry, alongside patting itself on the back, can be expected to keep up the ruse and vociferously denounce the attack as “a blatant violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty and a brutal act of war against an otherwise peaceful terrorist”. Sometimes, I find it hard to distinguish between Interior Ministry officials and exponents of British slapstick comedy, particularly Sir Rowan Atkinson. Only, this smacks more of Blackwater than Blackadder.
The political spectrum can expected to be polarized. The hawks and liberals will (hopefully) band together to praise the Great Shaitan’s efforts in bringing peace to the troubled badlands of Waziristan. NGO workers will arrive by the lorry load to help local victims cope with the aftermath of the traumatizing attack. PTI and its bedfellows will, obviously, attempt to create a mountain out of a hardly-sovereign molehill and sermonize from a moral ground higher than the Everest. The people of Balochistan cannot be expected to care much, because they already have a lot going on. But it is the moralizing urban classes that will have the most to say about this. They will denounce it as unilateral American hegemonism, state-sponsored terrorism and a war crime. Twitter will be awash with journalistic narcissism and egotistical moralizing. “Ground realities” will be flung around like so much dirt and nuance will be sacrificed at the altar of “First-To-Break-The-Story”.
Unlike a Charlie Chaplain film or a Marlowe-esque morality play, there are no blacks or whites in this tale. Good and evil are overlapping concepts in this twisted Victorian romance. The US is no Mr Darcy, and Hakimullah Mehsud is no Heathcliff. There will be no heroes bursting out of posters, no Sultan Rahi wrestling with lions and certainly no Shaan spewing profanities at the enemy’s honey pots. Drone attacks are an evil, and so is the Tehreek-e-Taliban. Drone attacks that target innocent civilians cannot and should not be compared to strikes that don’t miss their mark. If the first person to have adverse side effects from taking penicillin, antibiotics would not exist and chickenpox may still have been a fatal disease.
The question is not a new one: Are we not capable of taking out our own trash? Do we really need General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman and Boeing to do our dirty work for us? Does US foreign policy have to be so closely tied to our internal affairs? The answers are simple, but they are not for me to say.

Do you feel lucky, punk?

Pakistan Today, April 18, 2013

All manner of terrorists, ruffians, thieves, murderers, pillagers and assorted psychopaths are celebrating election season. You should too

Thanks to the march of democracy upon Pakistan, we have been blessed with two consecutive parliaments that have completed their tenures. One of them was a dictator’s parliament and is hence ineligible for any sorts of records, while the other marked the successful return to “proper democracy” that was envisioned by our sage political leaders. But is the current political process truly democratic? The answer, unfortunately, is that the best revenge need not be truly democratic. Just democratic enough to tick all the relevant boxes!

Face it. Over the past two decades, only one of two major political parties has held power: the conglomerated acronyms of the Pakistan People’s Party and the various karmic incarnations of the Pakistan Muslim League. This is not to say that they are the only two parties worth voting for in the country, nor is it a reflection on the quality of their “leadership”. It just means that they have the most effective electioneering infrastructure and they were the most broad-based of the available crop.

To be honest, I have nothing against the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Imran. Right before the 2002 elections, I remember a PTV crew approached me and a few friends and asked us who we would vote for. Without missing a beat, I remember saying, “Imran Khan, of course”. Today, I look back on that naïve remark and wonder, why not?

Truth be told, I will never really forgive the PTI for boycotting the 2008 general elections, because then, that uber-annoying slogan that all PTI-wallahs stuff down your throats today would’ve been off the table. I am, of course, referring to the, “Give us a chance, we’re still untested and untainted” mantra. It would’ve been far better for democracy had Imran and his allies jumped into the fray on the 18th of February, 2008 and hoped for the best. That they chose to boycott and deprived their (potential) voters of the chance to vote for a “real” third option is a slight I will not soon forget.

The democratic process, contrary to popular belief, is far more important than democracy itself. Grass-roots representation is the key to ensuring a level political playing-field for all segments of society. As it stands, the current polls seem to be yielding more of the same: sundry electables are being awarded tickets on all sides and the promised “change” is nowhere in sight. Yes, sure, the PTI will point to its youth leaders and the PML-N will point to its sidelining of stalwarts such as Ayaz Amir in the favour of “fresh blood”, but the truth is, this is just more of the same.

The greatest political tragedy of our country is that the democratic process was never allowed to continue, democracy was not allowed to nurture leaders. Today, politics is a kin-based and bankrolled affair. The independents, by and large, do not stand a chance. Opportunists such as Shah Mehmood Qureshi and others who seek to caucus with the winning party post-polling, rather than contest on one predetermined platform, are doing exactly what I would’ve thought they would. The 18th Amendment was a masterstroke of exclusionary politics and the anti-horse trading stipulation will sideline and expose the selfish streak in many-a politician. Our people, however, fail to see through the façade.

Anecdotally, I have heard from many observers that those who have no sustained access to media, mainstream, social or otherwise, are far more informed in their political decisions. I would have to agree. Politics is a constituency-to-constituency game. There is no such thing as national politics, except maybe at the center. Of course, you need leaders with a national vision to run the country, but the process they must follow to rise to the top must be one that is entrenched in – not divorced from – local politics at the grass-roots. The man at the constituency level understands this; the social media pundit from Islamabad is still struggling with the concept.

All manner of terrorists, ruffians, thieves, murderers, pillagers and assorted psychopaths are celebrating election season. You should too. Not because you have a death wish, but because you don’t. Stay home for fear of death and you’ll rue your life for the next five years. You may end up ruing it anyway, but at least if you vote – and that too for a candidate of your choosing, you’ll be able to sleep better at night. The objective of all detractors, no matter what their methods, is to stall, delay or guillotine the electoral process. The more they attack, the more their desperation shows. The only way to defeat them is to stand up to them. We cannot cower at home while these scumbags run amok. The show must go on.

Come election day, every stained thumb is as good as a beaten and bruised terrorist. Remember that.

A staged drama?

Pique Magazine, April 2013

@AbidSherAli: “Ask your mom if I am burden? She will say hell no.” 

The social media, much like Forrest Gump’s life, is like a box of chocolates: you can never tell a good one from a bad one just by looking at the instructions on cover. Actually you can, but Forrest Gump was ‘special’ and hence did not know better. We in Cyberistan refer to these bad Kinder eggs as ‘trolls’. They are usually anonymous and have very little in the way of a real identity, choosing instead to hide behind monikers such as ‘StoodUpForChange’ and ‘Out_to_kill’. My personal favorite is ‘Tsunami786’, an obvious homage to the terrible power of the Almighty that inflicts natural disasters such as the PTI upon us. But I digress.

The hallmarks of a textbook troll are:

1.     An inability to conduct a civil conversation

2.     A reliance on slogans and empty rhetoric

3.     An unyielding sense of moral certitude

4.     An unflinching belief in the power of their political/religious system

5.     A tendency to descend into trash-talk rather quickly

Such sociopathic qualities may qualify any normal human being for a psychiatric evaluation. However, it’s all fun and games as long as their identities are anonymous and there’s no physical harm being done. After all, public figures and celebrities have to put up with a fair amount of unfair scrutiny, criticism and abuse from sad, anonymous folk as it is. However, it is a different story altogether when the source of that abuse is a known entity. All pretense of normalcy flies out the window by the time that you discover that the troll is actually a prominent figure and, up until recently, the holder of a very high public office.

Cervantes’ greatest work

Enter Abid Sher Ali, or Sher, as he likes to identify himself on Twitter. Rambunctious, pugnacious and vicious; the Sher is a vehement Noon Leaguer and a (now former) member of the National Assembly from the Punjabi heartland. Sher rose to prominence as a self-styled vigilante, a Quixotic figure charging the windmills of corruption, wherever he found them. His political allegiances and in his capacity as chairman of the house Standing Committee on Education, it was a little obvious whose windmills he would be charging.

Ancient history

In 2009, he picked Farrah Dogar, the daughter of Mr Abdul Hameed ‘Stricken-From-Judicial-History’ Dogar, as his first victim. Daddy’s girl had her heart set on going to medical school. But the evil examiners at the Intermediate Board did not see it that way. Like any ambitious little girl, Farrah went to daddy for help. He leant on a few cronies at the Inter Board, who called in the ruthless examiners, gave them a good talking to and told them to mark Farrah’s papers correctly. Our hero singled out Ms Dogar because she was a soft target tied to a big fish. The controversy dragged on for nearly a year, and many a talk show host and newspaper columnist, especially National Conspiracy Custodian Ansar Abbasi, made hay with the allegations and the media circus that ensued.

This is not all. The next year, the Don chose to play More-Literate-Than-Thou and using his brand new MBA from the Punjab University (Pakistan’s most credible degree awarding institution), decided to open the can of tapeworms known otherwise as the Fake Degrees Case. Yes, the same life-changing  event that yielded hits such as Degree, Degree Hoti Hai! by the Fresh Prince of Raisani and DJ Dasti’s Love of the Common People. Many expected the lion to go as red-faced as Rudolph the Reindeer when it was eventually discovered that most of the offenders actually belonged to his party. That, sadly, was not to be. And one by one, all fakers were shown the door.

So far, you might think that this chap sounds like a stand-up guy. And he would’ve been too, had it not been for his penchant for shooting right from the hip. You see, Punjabis have never been really good marksmen. Which is why the predominantly Punjabi army has been unable to hit a single key militant hideout in over five years of fighting in FATA. But they find the officer’s clubs and messes with the grace of a vampire bat, bouncing sonar off treacherous mountainsides in zero visibility. But that’s beside the point. The key thing you must remember here is that the right honourable Sher is from Faisalabad.

Faisalabad and the great Punjabi tradition

Often dubbed the Manchester of Pakistan, Faisalabad is known for exporting two things: textiles and jugtain. The former are globally marketed products which earn millions in valuable foreign exchange for our GDP, and the latter earn the intended target a fair bit of ridicule and the assailant a good laugh.

For generations, the people of Punjab have been using the art of jugatbaazi to cut the more arrogant down to size. There are those who think this practice crass and vulgar, but the fact is that hundreds of thousands of people across the country buy, rent or steal CDs and DVDs of Punjabi stage dramas. In fact, Punjabi stage dramas are a big hit around the world as well.

It starts with the mannerisms and the appearance. One can wax poetic about the state of the victim’s hair and look for resemblances with disheveled farm animals. One can also explore the possibility of cross-breeding, at which point the entire family tree gets dragged in to the discussion. Then the discourse descends into the fantastical and hypothetical world of interspecies matchmaking.

Thinly veiled barbs regarding virility and spousal satisfaction levels are traded and a winner is declared based on the perceived length of one’s manhood after the first thirty-seven salvos. This is not much different from the old days, when kite-flyers would yell observations about their opponents’ wives and sisters’ characters across rooftops. In such cases, the unmarried, only-child is the automatic winner.

Jugatbaazi does not require a degree in rocket science. Just a razor sharp wit and a way with images. One of the greatest exponents of this art, Tariq Teddy, also hails from Abid’s hometown. Once the scourge of the stage drama circuit, his on-stage rivalry with the late great Mastana was the stuff of lore.Other famous comedians from Faisalabad include Rana Sanaullah and Raja Riaz – the Heckle and Jeckle of the Punjab Assembly. But unlike stand-up comedy, which is hard work, you don’t need research to indulge in some good jugatbaazi. In fact, the more outrageous the quip, the heartier the laughs. Needless to say, no one escapes with both their honour and manhood intact.

Man against the world

Anyone who owns a TV set has probably seen the maestro in action at one time or the other. A thorough ladies’ man when on TV, the Sher turns on his charm. The likes of Kashmala Tariq, Sharmila Faruqi, Fehmida Mirza and even the late Fauzia Wahab were all too familiar with his wily ways. On Twitter too, the Sher’s colourful character (unrestrained by censor laws) flows as freely as diarrhea. To date, the Sher has dubbed Fawad Chaudhry a canine, Mubasher Lucman a purveyor of loose women, Altaf Hussain a primate and has been continuously asking Imran Khan to work on his “no balls”, whatever that’s supposed to mean.

The right honourable gentleman from Faisalabad makes it a point to refer to the inferior genetic makeup of most of his detractors, often asking them to check their parentage and boasting about having had relations with their mothers and sisters. He has also volunteered to “fix” many, including women, leading casual observers to believe that he may have a motor workshop and spare parts racket on the side somewhere.

But not everyone appreciates the Sher’s comic genius. Zainab Jameel, one of the pretty faces on the primetime satire show Khabarnaak, recently complained that Sher was “mannerless… and mentally sick”. The fact that she regularly shares the screen with four of the most uncouth Punjabi stage comedians in the industry today should not throw you off. Sher’s misogyny is a class apart.

Recently, with the mushroom growth of pretty young things in news anchor slots, the Sher has taken to prowling the timelines of the likes of Geo rookie Rabia Anum and SAMAA veteran Nida Sameer. He is also known to spar with Dr Shahid Masood, Mansoor Ali Khan and Gharida Farooqi. It’s not always pretty, but it makes for entertaining reading. Phrases such as “Listen don’t make me squeal you like a pig. And I will” are pure gold. But the Sher reserves a special space in his heart for that most dou number of talk show hosts, Mubasher Lucman. One-time Twitter chums, Lucman and Sher are now arch-rivals. Their contempt for each other is matched only by the contempt the early Bond villains had for all things MI6. Indeed, the Sher makes potty-mouth Lucman seem tame in comparison.

Too good to be true?

When the account first surfaced in late 2012, many were skeptical about the authenticity of the Sher’s identity. Most dismissed it as a phony, but some followed it in silent horror. Over the course of the last few months, it has slowly started to sink in: this is The Real AbidSher Ali. Sources within his party confirm that not only do the tweets come straight from the horse’s mouth (or smartphone, as the case may be), they are stomach-churningly hilarious and provide a steady stream of entertainment for party workers and spectators alike.

What has been most distressing, however, is the rate at which Sher is taking down women. By early March 2013, statistics collected by various fake accounts showed that Abid Sher Ali had offended nearly 73.4 percent of all women on Twitter, as far afield as North America and Europe. This is a very disturbing trend, especially for eligible bachelors who support the Noon-League. Pretty soon, feminists and normal people will be starting Change.org petitions against the Lionheart of Faisalabad and will seek to have him removed from the public eye.

Such forces cannot be allowed to succeed. In today’s world of political correctness and diplomacy, where nobody’s shit stinks, there no one tells it like it is anymore. Sometimes, trapped in the utopian social media bubble of tranquility, people lose sight of ground realities.

Once among the sea of accepting voices, we forget that out there is a sea of piranhas, bottom-feeders and wolves in lion’s clothing. Abid Sher Ali serves as a reminder of all those things and more: he keeps us in check. One day, in the not too distant future, mothers will tell their sons cautionary tales of the man who had no respect for women, children or the elderly.

They will tell of a politician so outspoken that he talked his way out of parliament. One day, not too far into the future, we will reminisce of an outstanding statesman whose ego (and mouth) wrote checks his party couldn’t cash, and had to pay the price for. Someday, they will write of Abid Sher Ali, the greatest stage artist to ever come out of Faisalabad. I just hope that I’m still around to set the record straight.