Everybody gets it, right?

Pique Magazine - April 2012

Every country has its own way of expressing its gratitude to people that have been of service to them. People who have made invaluable contributions to the fields of science and technology, the arts and literature and, of course, the political campaigns of the ruling party incumbents. In England it’s the Queen’s Honours that are passed around like pass-the-parcel parcels, in Pakistan we have the Civil Awards, the investiture for which occurs on the 23rd of March. It is perhaps the clearest manifestation of the direction that the policies and favours of the ruling party (whichever it may be) will take; coming on the day that the basis for our country was laid out in a historic speech by the venerable Mr Jinnah himself more than half a century ago. Jinnah’s Pakistan was supposed to be a meritocracy. Ours is more like a it’s-yours-if-you-can-buy-it-ocracy.

The British version of the honours comes with a hefty reward: peerages entitle one to a seat in the House of Lords. In Pakistan, however, you get the next best thing: an honourary arms licence. Strange as it sounds, recipients of these coveted Nishans, Sitaras and Tamghas get the right to own a gun. This is probably a remnant of the old Raj days anyway, when your place in the proverbial food chain was dictated by the size of your muzzle. Not that things have changed a lot now. But still. Treating the national civil awards like an Oprah Winfrey giveaway is a tad bit retarded. “You get an award, YOU GET AN AWARD, EVERYONE GETS AN AWARD” may work now, but did anyone ever think what this would do for the credibility of the government that is shortly going to seek re-election.

But if you glance through the list of honourees at this year’s awards, you can see just how bad a job the current administration has done of hiding their inherent bias... for themselves. Of the five recipients of the Nishan-e-Imtiaz, one is the cabinet minister famous for his outrageous ties and even more outrageous statements on camera. His competence for the job entrusted to him can be gauged by the fact that today he is not only an honourary doctorate-holder, but was promoted to the job of Interior Minister i.e., the guardian of the peace, after he failed to protect the life of the late great Benazir Bhutto. His citation states that in his time in office “he remained and is still in the line of fire by all anti-state elements” (sic!). This no doubt refers to the nefarious Pakistani media, which is out to get Dr Rehman Malik, for no apparent reason. Must be the ties he wears. The speakers of the two houses, the president’s right hand man Salman Faruqi and the late Salmaan Taseer round off the purely political segment of the awards. Faruqi would be an especially proud man this year, as his daughter Sharmila, the fire-breathing face of the Sindh government, also received a Sitara-e-Imtiaz.But the real eye-brow raiser has to be the award of the Hilal-e-Pakistan, a title reserved for true servants of the state, has been presented to the man who is currently at the center of a major treason case. The erstwhile ambassador Haqqani’s award must’ve come as a surprise to Nawaz Sharif, since he has done everything possible to push the former envoy off the edge of a political cliff. While the doctrine of ‘innocent until proven guilty’ justifies the award, the message this sends is a mixed one. Especially if you’re the Supreme Court.

It was business as usual for the right honourable Sultan Lakhani, a man with many companies and many more millions to his name, who received his second civil award this year. While the media tycoon’s special relationship with El Jefe Zardari is the stuff of legend and cigar-room small talk, what is not so public knowledge is his role as an honourary media manager for the big man himself. So devoted is he to the cause of the sun-king that he can not only pull stories that are unflattering to the president, but has also been known to surgically remove from his channel’s screen footage where El Jefe is seen to be stroking his moustache in a manner too reminescent of other evil dictators of the world.

Mian Amer Mehmood, the ex-mayor of Lahore and the owner of Dunya News, makes the list too, despite his recent run-ins with the Punjab government, or let me rephrase that, because of his run-ins with the Punjab government. While the moustachioed man has not had good press lately, given the scandal surrounding the death of college girls during a concert stampede at one of his many educational establishments, it is clear that the current regime wants to keep their media magnates on a tight leash, hence your Nazir Naji, Zahid Malik (of Pakistan Observer fame) and Murtaza Solangi (of Radio Pakistan) make the list.

This also explains the much-touted award presented to Herr Mubasher Lucman. This modern day news evangelist, who can be best described as Pakistan’s answer to Glenn Beck, is most famous for not paying debts to Thai production houses, sucking up to unconstitutional military dictators and ‘buying’ followers on Twitter. Mr Lucman is also well-known for having a very flexible moral agenda, something that allowed him to rise to great heights in leaps and bounds. Once the host of a relatively unknown show on the now-defunct Business Plus channel, Lucman moved to the big leagues when he took up a key spot in the caretaker cabinet of Pervez Musharraf.

Shortly afterwards, he joined Mr Lakhani’s media group and quickly became a thorn in everybody’s side. Unimpressed by his boss’ Express instructions, Lucman then decided to jump ship again, this time landing squarely in the lap of the Q-controlled Dunya TV, where he dabbles in pro-PTI rhetoric and anti-Nawaz league sentiment.If one recalls the epic British comedy ‘Yes Minister’ or ‘Yes Prime Minister’, one would be hard-pressed to find a better fit for the role of Sir Humphrey (from the current cabinet lot) than Miz Nargis Sethi.

A thoroughly dyed-in-the-wool bureaucrat, Ms Sethi has the auspicious honour of being the one signing off on her own Hilal-e-Imtiaz, seeing as she was the one who issued the notification for the awards. But contrary to popular belief, the civil service is not a complete boys club. In fact, so qualified is Miz Sethi for so many positions that she currently holds charge as the cabinet secretary, the defence secretary and most importantly, the administrator of the Islamabad Club. This last position is sufficient to seal someone’s reputation as the king or queen of the capital, simply because you control the entire golf playing population of the city.

And as everyone knows, any decision worth its weight in gold bullion is made on the fairways. This is not to say there is nobody on the list who deserves an award. Indeed, this list of 190 honourees is full of names such as the late great literary scholar Dr Suhail Ahmed Khan, Oscar winner Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy, playwright Saira Kazmi, PTV pioneer Aslam Azhar, outspoken educationist Dr Muhammad Farooq Khan, Farzana Suleman – the first blind Pakistani woman to obtain a PhD – and countless others. The names awarded the Tamgha-e-Shujaat, for gallantry, are worthy of even greater praise. But these names only constitute the bottom half of the awards list, that reads more like a who’s-who of the current administration.

These awards, which are supposed to be a celebration of those who toil away in anonymity day-in day-out to make a name for themselves and their country, have been reduced to mere handouts, in true Oprah spirit. In trying to be more inclusive, the awards have become hollow acclaim, full of sound and fury and yet signifying nothing.For an administration that is bent on righting past wrongs, there was still no mention of any sort of recognition for Pakistan’s greatest hero, our sole Nobel laureate, Dr Abdus Salam.

For a man more patriotic than he was accomplished (and he was as accomplished as they come), to have been unacknowledged in his own country was the last greatest regret. But even this government, with all its promises of setting the record straight, has, even in its final year, neglected the great man and has chosen not to honour his legacy.But even in trying to award and reward those who have been involved with the PPP and their time in power, the government has failed miserably.

If the prime minister’s office was actually serious about rewarding the right people, they would have started with an award for Army Chief Ashfaq Parvez Kayani. He is the real man to thank, as he has been quite abhorrent of a coup and has allowed the PPP to complete its term in office. Also of ‘chief’ importance is erstwhile ISI chief, Ahmed Shuja Pasha, who can be thanked for ‘discovering’ Mansoor Ijaz. Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry should be among the top honourees as well, for having volunteered to run a country that has been running around like a headless chicken for quite some time now. His one-time sidekick and now presidential counsel, Aitzaz Ahsan, was also conspicuous by his absence. As were the Sharif brothers, who have played the part of the friendly opposition to perfection. Renegade politician Imran Khan also deserves an award for single-handedly splitting the Sharifs’ voter base in half and ensuring that no matter what happens, the PPP will be able to pull through come election day. Another most deserving candidate would be the current Attorney General.

Maulvi Anwar ul Haq is the one person in the government who we can sympathize with, since he is never briefed by his clients and is pushed into trial usually with only the most basic understanding of any major issue, be it Mehran Bank case, the missing persons’ case or the many cases against former law minister Babar Awan.

This would also have been a good forum to honour the wives and girlfriends of Karachi, who have, in the past one year or so, reduced the burgeoning population of that city by at least several hundred. Or Osama Bin Laden, for having gone without a fight and without having implicated any senior military of civilian leaders from Pakistan in an alleged plot to harbour him.But if there is still hope, it is to be found in the svelte and slender shape of our beloved Meera.

What does it matter that she’s been cheated out of an Oscar, a Filmfare and even a Lux Style Award. She is now an honoured member of society and, as such, free from the tyranny of those jealous gossip mongers who were out to usurp her fortune. But for a lady that signs more marital contracts than acting gigs, it was only a matter of time before she would’ve been awarded by the current government. After all, they both have the same catchphrase i.e., “We will be the back.”

Prison break

Pakistan Today, Monday, 16 Apr 2012

How much ammo does it take for the Taliban to breach a ‘maximum security prison compound’? The answer, sadly, is “not much”. If you’re Constable Firdous Khan, one of the guards who was charged with guarding this infamous Taliban den, you would be quite mad at the powers that be. Firdous was only one of 36 men that were on duty at the time of the attack. That’s the number of officers that are on duty at an average precinct over holidays such as Eid. For goodness sake, it takes more officers to populate KPK Chief Minister Ameer Haider Hoti’s motorcade. How anyone in the law enforcement establishment expected to keep a lid on nearly 700 vicious, blood-thirsty, flesh-eating militants by posting a skeleton crew armed with what can only be described as AK-47s with lilies in their muzzles, is beyond me. Or is it?

Whenever I think too hard about the ‘good Taliban versus bad Taliban’ conundrum, my brain blows a fuse. But I’m sure the ISI has better mental wiring and cerebral circuit breakers than I do. You see, the fact that Pakistan needs to keep these troublemakers on a leash is common knowledge. In the longer run, our generals figure, the US will leave Afghanistan; Hamid Karzai will eventually be unseated and Afghanistan will return to business as usual: warlords carving up the country any-which-way they want. That is when the cunning Pakistani fox will trounce all others with its foresight. No one will know what hit them and we’ll be in the VIP enclosure, singing the “We Told You So” song.

But it’s not quite that simple. Before the US plots a hasty retreat or, as they prefer to call it, a ‘smooth transition’, they need guarantees. These guarantees include commitments from the Pakistani intelligence community that no matter what their interests or advantages, Pakistan will not support, harbour or arm groups that are hostile towards the United States, in any way shape or form. Ironically, unbeknownst to them, the US is inadvertently funding the largest anti-US militant force in the world: the Pakistan army. The irony is not lost on those of us who can see the joke: for decades, the US has been pouring money into the pockets of unsavory majors, colonels, brigadiers and the odd Lt General. In return for these favours, the Yanks have had almost unrestricted access to a host of intelligence, military and other assets. Assets cultivated by the Pakistan military and the ISI. All is well as long as the Americans don’t try to cut us out of the deal. But being shrewd businessmen, it’s never long before they hatch a plan to do just that.

Now, the ISI is not as bad as it’s portrayed. They may have missed the Al-Qaeda leader hiding in their backyard, but they certainly don’t miss a beat when the CIA tries to outflank them and brings people like Mullah Baradar, a known Pakistani collaborator, to the negotiating table – all without the guidance of his ISI handlers. When the ISI gets wind of this, the proverbial hits the fan and before you can say ‘Freeze, police!’ the errant militant is picked up by Pakistani law enforcement agencies and taken out of the equation, just like that. It is obvious that our spooks don’t take being dealt out of the game very lightly at all.

But what clues does this latest Shawshank Redemption afford us? Apart from the fact that the KPK political and civil administration is asleep at the wheel while massive corruption eats away at the foundations of our most conflict and turmoil prone province, all is quite well. The military establishment is well and fully in control and can engineer events such as the jailbreak on Sunday, if only to increase pressure on the Americans who are trying to short-sell what Pakistan has invested in the war on terror. An unidentified Taliban commander, who claimed to have masterminded the operation, told the highly unreliable Reuters news agency that they had spent around Rs 20 million on planning and executing the operation, which lasted a little over an hour and yielded several hundred high-value targets. Mind you, this is a far cry from the lax-guarded Police Training Academy in Manawan or the Elite Force Training School in Bedian or the FIA Headquarters in Lahore, which were all located in the sleepy suburbs of Lahore and were guarded just as heavily as the Lahore petting zoo. No, this was an actual prison where the baddest of the bad were being held, ostensibly against their will. Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?

Bad romance

Pakistan Today, Monday, 9 Apr 2012

Modern man has learnt to live comfortably with the advantages offered to him by technology. Even the most stubborn of old-timers have learnt to embrace newfangled gizmos such as electricity, iPads and curling irons. Thanks to the cycle-makers Wright, we now have contraptions that soar over the night skies, much like Pterodactyls, compressing centuries of distances into mere hours. Sitting down is now the most activity most of us are required to do. Of course, this leaves us all a lot of free time to do absolutely nothing.

But one must have an outlet, even if it is for absolutely nothing. Hopscotch, deer hunting and tent-pegging were alright for the pre-Internet generation, but in the age of WiFi and 3G, even these pastimes have been confined to the touch screen. In fact, as soon as a kid discovers the projectile powers of the rubber band, he is handed an iPhone with Angry Birds preinstalled. Just so he doesn’t hurt himself trying to fire a pebble into someone’s ear. Or get his parents called to school. In which case, mommy will have to cancel her spa appointment. This usually makes her really mad. And if mommy gets mad, daddy doesn’t get any, which makes him doubly mad. All of this is very traumatising for the little rascal, who just wants to make friends with the little girl who sits next to him in Social Studies class. But since he has the social skills of a baby walrus, speaking to her is not an option.

Cut to 10 years later and the little munchkin has grown into a larger troublemaker than before. He has now traded in his rubber band for a Moltov Cocktail and totes a bandana. He rides a motorcycle, even though he cannot legally do so for a couple of years still. All his friends smoke and he eats a lot of supari to conceal the tell-tale smell of tobacco on his breath, in case mommy wants a sniff when he gets home. Even the local hooligans are afraid of him and the traders union pay him and his merry me ‘protection’ money, if only to ensure that they don’t start breaking shop windows when the mood takes them. But when it comes to talking to the girl who has moved out of his Social Studies class and into the house across the street, he still draws a blank.

When he goes out with his crew, he makes sure no other girls feel ignored. At traffic signals, in the marketplace and even at concerts, he lets no opportunity slide in making them feel ‘special’. In a heaving mob, he cops a feel; at a traffic light, he sticks his tongue out and pretends to be a cunning linguist; in the marketplace he gets in the way and doesn’t get out. Anything he can do, in fact, to make sure that any of the ladies that come his way do not leave feeling at all comfortable. And at the end of the day, he and all his friends go sit at a shady establishment to compare notes, exchange high-fives and crack obscenely lewd remarks about the size of, well, you get the picture.

Before you get back onto your high horse and tell me that its just kids being kids, allow me to master debate. Social awkwardness is not a disease, it’s a condition; one that comes with years of conditioning and over (or under) protective parenting. That your society is more closed and unforgiving than a Catholic confession booth on the day of judgement also helps stunt the boy’s emotional and sexual growth. To him, the acclaimed comedy ‘40-Year-Old-Virgin’ was actually a real-life drama that left him trembling with fear. And no, even at age 25, he still hasn’t gotten up the courage to go and talk to the pretty girl from fifth grade Social Studies, who has now blossomed into a pretty young thing herself. “So much so, in fact, that she is now being courted by the rich kid from four blocks the block. Yes, the same kid who drives into their street in his Audi off-roader and holds his nose as he steps out the car. The same kid who holds her hand as he leads her to the passenger seat. Heavens! He is stranger and he’s touching her. God only knows what else he does to her. And she probably lets him. What a slut!”

A few years later, he finds out that the slut is marrying Mr Moneybags. “What a waste. She was so beautiful, so charming. She could’ve made me a fine wife. Now she’s becoming his slave. He’ll probably use her and throw her away, just like a razor blade. This won’t do at all. I have to stop her. But how? I know, I’ll go to her wedding and shoot her. That’ll teach her to not go out with me. So what if I didn’t talk to her in 25 years, she saw the way I looked at her everyday. She should know that she’s supposed to be mine. A bullet in her head will teach her. Sure, I’ll get caught, but they’ll let me go. After all, it’s a man’s world, isn’t it?

Bold and balanced?

Pakistan Today, Monday, 2 Apr 2012

The line between ‘outspoken’ and ‘insensitive’ is quite fine. I should know, because I tread it every other week. Being an armchair analyst is hard work and I’m sure most newspaper columnists will agree that the key to a good piece is knowing your audience. Which is probably why most respectable journalists and columnists – who write for both the English and the Urdu press – engineer their columns in such as way that they do not antagonise their respective audiences. Therefore, a Talat Hussain column in the Urdu press will not be as Left-leaning as his English pieces may be. Mind you, the man is an established journalist who is, at this time, working for a channel no one watches. Therefore, he may be said to be flying ‘under the radar’.

The esteemed Javed Chaudhry, on the other hand, is not under the radar. His primetime show on the second-highest rated news channel in the country is widely watched and people from all socio-economic backgrounds await his columns with a sense of longing. And why shouldn’t they? Mr Chaudhry provides his readers with something that others do not: he tells them a story. His monologues at the beginning of each show are legendary for their wit and the invaluable history lesson contained within. As far as the rest of his show is concerned, I cannot vouch for the veracity of content that flies out at random from the mouth of a political mouthpiece. What I do know is that Mr Chaudhry is somewhat respected figure in the world of TV news and has some credibility when it comes to mainstream journalism.

So imagine my surprise when, one fine day, I wake up to find that said journalist has written an ‘outrageous’ article in the vernacular press; one that tries to sympathise with acid-attackers as well as their victims. Now, while one may find the very thought of doing so vile and disgusting, think about it from Javed Chaudhry’s perspective. In his mind, he has written something that hitherto no one, not even the most testicularly fortified of columnists has written. He has, in fact, tried to empathise with the attacker to try to get into the mind of a sick, twisted and deranged individual. Only, he did so from the comfort of his highly syndicated newspaper column, which is a far cry from the mental institutions where such empathy is usually employed. But the dilemma this incident poses is quite a maelstrom: on one hand, you have the moral imperative of siding with the victim; while on the other hand you have the journalistic duty to report both sides of the story, no matter how gruesome. There is difference between trying to tell a story and trying to become the story. In this case, no matter how noble his intentions, Mr Chaudhry seems to have fallen into the latter trap. And this is where it all went wrong.

For those of you who are old enough to remember, even the most vicious and vile of individuals have had their day in court. The Nuremberg Nazis, Milosevic, Karadic, Saddam, Timothy McVeigh and even our very own Javed Iqbal, were all accorded trials (whether fair or not is a question that I do not wish to answer). What matters here is that the due process of the law was carried out and justice took its course. That there was insufficient evidence to try these individuals was never a stumbling block: each trial had a foregone conclusion. While there is something to be said about the swift and summary style of justice practiced in certain countries and certain parts of the world, the fact of the matter is that what makes us ‘civilised’ is the presence of a process for redressal of grievances, be they civil or criminal.

In the pursuit of ‘justice’, the state is compelled to hear out even the most despicable of criminals. Saddam got his spiel, as did all the others. Similarly, as journalists, we are required to present at least two sides of each story to avoid the impression of prejudice. However, when you apply the same principle to a case which has sparked widespread moral outrage and an outpouring of grief previously unheard of, something strange happens. Rather than being acknowledged as a thorough reporter, one is sticked and stoned into submission by the very people who would otherwise champion the cause of a free press. This applies across the board to all persons: be they activists, political workers or your average Jamil the Plumber.

I cannot offer a defence for Javed Chaudhry, because I too question deeply his approach to the balanced reporting that I talk about above. What I do wish to communicate, in black and white, is that our society has a very bad habit of sweeping things under the rug. We always aim for retributive justice rather than rehabilitative systems. It is this preoccupation with ‘revenge’ that has brought our society to this point where vigilante justice is the norm and moral outrage equals a media trial which then leads to summary executions and that the people will not accept anything less.

I say we must hear out even the most psychotic ones. We must do this because we need to understand what goes on in the mind of the man (or woman) who abandons all notions of civilised behaviour and pursues a homicidal agenda. Our society obviously offers a fertile breeding ground for all types of deviant behaviour. Rather than simply relying on death and defamation as a deterrent, it’s time we learn to face our demons. Cliched as it is, I do sincerely believe that it is better to know the demon that haunts you than to continue to live in the fear of the unknown. I just hope you can understand that too.

Another day in Outrage-istan

Pakistan Today, Monday, 26 Mar 2012

There are just too many –ists roaming the streets and back alleys of our fair backwater. Apart from journalists, satirists, feminists and activists, a not-so-new breed of –ists has recently taken root. They feed off the outrage that TV channels, newspaper columnists and radio jockeys with bad accents spread and are driven by the knowledge that they know best, no matter what the currently accepted scientific view of the situation is. The widespread presence of these parasites (mind you, not all of them are all that bad) gives us the impression that a lot of activism and voice-raising is going on in society. Unfortunately, however, these voices are restricted to the confines of local press clubs, Facebook pages, Twitter accounts and blogs at Wordpress. Those of these –ists who manage to make it to the mainstream media are just too ‘happy to be here’ to actually say anything meaningful. Don’t believe me? You shouldn’t, either.

Sharmila Farooqi, the fire-breathing face of the Sindh government, has invoked the ire of social media hacks by ‘trivialising’ the suffering of one Fakhra, who took her own life after being let down by the justice system and the world. Fakhra’s story is heartrending to say the least, and serves as a grim reminder of the barbarity of the society we live in. Unfortunately, all of the outrage has been focused towards how much of a pig the alleged perpetrator Bilal Khar was and how all men should burn in hell for his crimes. I know that I too will get a lot of flak for using the word ‘alleged’ in the previous sentence, but so be it.

What is sadly absent from the picture is constructive discourse and national dialogue on ways to make sure that no one has to suffer the same fate as Fakhra, ever again. Whether this means overhauling the laws that govern the punishment meted out to perpetrators of violent crimes against women or the development of a Khaadim-e-Aala-style ‘swift-justice-through-one-window’ mechanism to punish such monsters extra-judicially; the point is that rather than looking backwards, one must look forwards and make sure that Fakhra’s death goes not in vain. Unfortunately, the outrage squad is up in arms and wants Bilal Khar re-tried, ostensibly on the basis of the same shoddy evidence that allowed him to be acquitted in the first place. Face, meet palm. Repeat until it sinks in.

The point here is not to criticise those demanding ‘justice for Fakhra’, because it is, at the end of the day, a noble cause. What is criticism-worthy is the fact that everyone’s intentions are purely retributive and cannot affect the sea-change necessary to curb and eliminate violence against women in all its forms. This is the kind of sentiment that is missing. What is in plentiful supply is the kind of knee-jerk activism that is all too characteristic of us as a nation. I ask thee, if the young lady had not chosen to end her life and make a statement against the morally bankrupt nature of our society, who would’ve even remembered poor, disfigured Fakhra? Do a Google search and you see no, I repeat, no search results from the past two years. This means that no one was talking about the poor girl, from the time that her case was closed, up until the point she decided to end it all. Says a lot for the conscience of our society, doesn’t it.

I’m a simple guy. I like the small things in life, like my mum’s parathas, chai from truck driver hotels and driving on the Murree Expressway. In the West, I would be described as a creature of habit. One that lounges around on the couch, waiting for life to happen to him. That, unfortunately is the way that most of us have now become. There is no longer any motivation to actually do something. Now, we just talk about doing something, or as the hirsute and rotund blogger Adnan Rasool puts it, talk about talking about doing something. Where are all the petitions, open-forum dialogues, legislative lobbying and actual change that we love to dream about? In fact, how many of us know what amending the Pakistan Penal Code would entail? Not many, eh? Well, there you go. That’s our problem right there, not knowing what our rights, duties and responsibilities are. Our intentions are pure, yet we would rather use them to pave the road to hell rather than actually putting them to some kind of constructive use. Under the current circumstances, we couldn’t get ‘justice’ for Fakhra even if we tried. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is a greater crime against Fakhra than Bilal Khar ever could’ve committed.

How not to go out of business

Pakistan Today, Wednesday, 21 Mar 2012

I am almost never asked the question “Why are all Pakistani media houses losing money?” What people do end up asking me is, “Is it true that your paper isn’t paying its employees?” My answer to them is always an honest, “Yes, that is correct.” But when I am pressed for more information, I cannot give them any, because, to be honest, it’s been nearly a year that I last set foot in a newsroom.

But even when I was in the news business, I didn’t really understand why newspapers didn’t make money. Sure, there are mitigating factors, such as a circular debt in the revenue stream stemming from a lag in payments from advertisers; a lack of ads to be begin with; or even a dearth of creative ideas to keep the thing going. But one can never truly have the complete picture as long as one is on the inside. To find out what the world looks like, you have to be on the outside. Fortunately for me, that paradigm shift came sooner rather than later. So today, when asked why paper X or channel Y shut down or is on the brink of shutting down, I have something to tell people. Something which makes sense, at least in my head. I don’t know about you though.

You must understand that there are two kinds of mainstream media institutions in this country. By saying ‘mainstream’ I seek to exclude the two-penny eveningers and the one-room studio broadcasters that clutter newsstands and the airwaves. The first kind is the ‘conglomerate’, which is a euphemism for ‘Big Money’. These include the truly multimedia groups, such as Jeem, Red and White, The Nationalists etc who deal in both print and electronic and have multiple publications/channels operating under one umbrella. These are usually backed by corporations that have even deeper pockets than their ‘journalistic’ sister concerns. Interests such as shipping, manufacturing, banking and what-not, all of whom do make cartloads of monies, serve to supplement the revenue stream of said groups, thereby enabling them to absorb late-payment shocks and allow them to continue managing the day-to-day running of a newspaper or a TV/radio channel.

Then there are those minnows that put all their eggs into a few baskets. These include the now-comatose Hard Times group, the Morning News network and, incidentally, the newspaper that you hold in your hands right now. These publications/broadcasters, while viable and established in their own right, do not have the kind of financial resources or the competence necessary to sustain themselves in the post-Musharraf world. Where these publications and channels owe their existence to our erstwhile military head honcho, they also curse him for opening the floodgates for every Tariq, Daud and Haris who has some cash to spare. Or needs a front for shady activities. More on that in a later column, though.

Far more current and relevant to our discussion is lay-offs. As of late, it seems that more and more people are being fired from news organisations. Everyday, the parallel media (such as Internet websites and media watchdog-type publications) is awash with horror stories of mass firings and en masse resignations. Most of these exoduses are money-driven. But some, such as the one that gave you this newspaper, are also ideological. That a group of professionals would dare to separate themselves from the institution that made them what they are today is a notion that would normally be unthinkable to most of us. But given the success (or lack thereof) that such ventures have enjoyed, this initiative is not an ignoble one, i.e. that you seek to cut out the businessman and try to establish a newspaper which is designed for the reader by the people who know how to do it best. Unfortunately, however, this leads us to one of life’s greatest ironies, i.e. the media is, after all, a business. No one, not even the most open-source of paid journalistic publications, can claim to be completely free of corporate control.

So when you cut out the business minds and rely solely on the petty sahafi to work his magic with content rather than circulation figures, you’re clearly missing a key ingredient, i.e. sustainability, which means that you will be able to pay your staff even if last month’s ad revenues don’t come in or that you will be able to continue publishing even though your seed money is all but exhausted. This was the model that everyone strove for, in the beginning. It was supposed to be a purely journalistic enterprise. But we later discovered that there is no such thing.

People are always telling me to lose weight. Something about an increased life expectancy. In the past, I would never pay any attention to such haters. I always believed that they were out to rob me of my mojo. But as I look at the news publications and channels of today, I see a metaphor emerge. For too long now, the old guard have been retained by organisations as a sort of Jedi Knight squad, paid to do nothing but watch over the young knaves who now populate newsrooms. These knights, battle-hardened and weary, are unfortunately the relics of an era long gone. They are from a time when newspapers had a whole department known as the ‘Pasting Section’ and when footage was edited manually. Now, thanks to Mac and Adobe, the publication process has been made far cheaper. This means that now, such media can pay more attention to content and devote less funds to expensive printing and broadcasting solutions. But this has, somehow, not happened and media houses find themselves paying mammoth sums to dinosaurs who do nothing but rant, harass staffers and sip tea in their offices all day long.

This is the excess fat that media organisations now need to cut. ‘Down with the moneybags’ should be the battle cry. Leading the charge are the young professionals: subeditors, layout designers, producers, editors and copywriters who do all, repeat, ALL of the donkey work, while some fossilised animal takes all the credit. It is time employers woke up and smelt the curry. Dump the extinct animals. Before the country takes a dump on you.

-ist, -ising, -isation

Pakistan Today, Monday, 12 Mar 2012

What would you say is the most vile, revolting, loathsome and hated phenomenon to come out of Pakistan? Wife-beating? Husband-cooking? Acid-throwing? Suicide bombing? Child bride-ing? Drone attacking? Minority rights violation-ing? Economic catastrophising? Fuel and gas shortage-ising? Sugar and edible oil hoarding? Target killing? Ethnic cleansing? Chances are, if you’re a normal, sane type person, you would’ve agreed with one, if not all of the above problems. But if you’re a PTI-ian and an Imran-ist, you will shake your head violently, vehemently denouncing the ludicrousness of the above problems.

Instead, you will argue; it is corruption-isation which is the most evil, most foul, most horriblest of maladies to befall this land of the pure. You will also, in the same sentence – if not the same breath – lay out your roadmap for replacing the brown silt-ful water in the country’s canals with white, creamy and frothy milk; all within 13 days of Mr Megalomania becoming ‘first among equals’. I doubt not the veracity of this claim, for indeed, said megalomaniac would love nothing better than to have the Lahore Canal filled to the brim with milky, colloidal cow juice. Does wonders for the skin and the calcium is good for the bones too. Also, it would be helpful if a Milk of Magnesia rivulet were diverted into the greater Zaman Park area. May be better for the health of the country’s most reactionary and revolutionary leader. On the whole.

But coming back to the problem tree; it is quite heartening to see a political leader that takes such a headstrong approach towards the country’s problems. You can be sure that if you vote for the PTI in the next general elections (given that the party decided to take part in the polls in the first place), you will be rewarded with sound municipal and civic management, a national transmission grid that never breaks down and, of course, zero corruption. How do I know this? Well, not to brag, but I have managed to get my hands on the ‘real’ policy outline document that Senor Khan-a Dilbarjana has been working on for the past decade or three. Ever since that fateful night in Melbourne, actually. And this document offers us some valuable insight into the mind of the man who would be king.

Corruption, this document states, is a cardinal sin for which there can be no atonement. No matter what form this unspeakable evil might take, be it a small payoff to your cable guy for letting you view restricted channels without any hindrance, or a larger payoff to a government official by a multinational octopus-like corporation with horns and pointy tail – ostensibly to obtain the contract to supply pitchforks to the Pakistan Moral Outrage Society. This also includes all those ‘luxury taxes’ that every citizen ends up paying at places such as the passport office, a NADRA registration centre and your friendly neighbourhood patwari. What was once considered a small, token guarantee that your kaam will get done will now be an outlawed offence, punishable by death, dismemberment and castration, or all of the above.

Sound logic, really. I never appreciated the having-to-part-with-my-money aspect of public life. This is why I never tip at restaurants or pay valets and guards for holding my car door open for me. These are all things I can do on my own. Better, in fact, than the simpletons that would charge me an arm and a leg to do the most menial and meaningless of tasks. Self-reliance is the name of the game and the skipper plays it best. Mind you, this would also mean the abolition of ridiculous burdens-on-the-common-man such as the ‘On’ one must pay when purchasing a motor vehicle, the postage one must pay when mailing a letter or the Value Added Taxes that one must fork over when loading a scratch card into one’s prepaid cellular contraption.

Despite my being a member of the privileged class that can afford to pay these paltry sums, no one would be happier to see these frivolous expenditures go than I. No longer will I be held hostage by meter readers looking to make a quick buck. I will simply use my connections in the Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited to ensure that the reading on my meter never changes, ever. This would definitely put me head and shoulders above those who don’t know anyone in SNGPL and cannot avail similar concessions. A sound idea, utopian even.

But I understand why this document, this plan of action that could save the country and Imran’s fledging political ambitions in one fell swoop, has never been made public. We must not allow the plebeians to find out what the game plan is. Otherwise, false prophets such as Sana Bucha or Kamran Khan may start poking their noses where they do not belong. Intrepid reporters such as Rauf Klasra and Co may begin to wonder who stands to benefit most from such a perfect, harmonious system. And worst of all, the pundits, the ones that espouse all the –ists, -isms and –isations, may well brand this a tsunami-sation-ism-ist approach, thereby reducing it to the crass, pagan and morally bankrupt level of a coherent ideology. So shush, all of you. Never ask what Imran can do for you. Ask, rather, what your country can do for Imran. The Khan has spoken. Now shut-up and get back to work.

Victims of outrage

Pakistan Today, Monday, 5 Mar 2012

Moral outrage is the one thing us Pakistanis are good at. No matter what race, religious, colour or creed you are, what your sexual preference is or what newspaper you subscribe to; claiming the moral high ground and then reducing it to a question of good versus evil, much in the same way General Zia framed his referendum question, is an art best known to the inhabitants of this land of the pure.

From dispensing swift, mob-style justice on the streets of Karachi or Sialkot to the date-busting of Maya Khan and now, most recently, the damnation and disbarring of the Lahore Bar Association for crimes against soft drinks. Moral outrage sells. It’s what drives newspapers and news channels 24/7. But there is no malice behind this move. They sell you this meat because they know that you want it. Admit it, you need to complain about petrol prices shooting up at the breakfast table; grumble about the lack of road planning on the way to work; whine about inflation during smoke breaks; bitch about politicians and their exorbitant lifestyles over lunch and, to top it off, argue with your wife over dinner about which talk show host asks the most venomous questions.

This is what we’ve been reduced to. Reactive beings, responding to moral stimuli with knee-jerk reactions. It’s learning by conditioning: we are programmed to ‘like’ certain things and ‘dislike’ others through exposure to such constructs as “the greater good”, or the “moral imperative” and even the “need of the hour”. Words such as these have a sense of urgency about them, they make you feel like you can be part of something bigger than yourself. They give you a false sense of purpose which is misleading and disingenuous. These morsels of manure are fed to us daily by reporters, TV show hosts, writers and columnists on the first hand and then regurgitated by social media hacks as the Lord’s good word.

There are just too many people out there who think they have the answer and that their answer is the ultimate truth, so help them God. They will go to any length to prove themselves right and even if they can’t, will leave the viewer stunned by triumphantly declaring ‘I will be vindicated by history’ after their complete and utter intellectual demolition.

But it’s not their fault. Most of these sermonisers are actors, paid to play a part. People who may be media professionals, but not journalists. The former tend to be greedy, unprincipled and the most vicious. The latter are vicious, but in a lazier way. A journalist is nothing if not thorough. He or she would comb a football field-sized issue with a fine tooth comb if it meant getting a juicy lead. The hungry media professional will go after the obvious, his or her attacks will be more personal rather than objective. Their own morality will shine through in all of their criticism and it will take an audience of a certain type to appreciate and identify with those views. So it is smart of them, then, to adopt the attitude that his most palatable to the bulk of our audience.

This tirade against abstract concepts should not confuse anyone: we’re still talking about the media here. Especially, the power to turn fiction into fact and the ability to harness notoriety as a means of making money make the media one of the most poisonous snakes in this forest. However, if guided by the right hands, the media can grow, become more mature and realise that it has a responsibility to be objective, even when confronted by a clear conflict of interest. But talk about regulation and then suddenly the proverbial has hit the fan and is plastered everywhere you turn.

Successive governments have tried to muzzle the media, so it is logical that it is wary of state control. However, with an utter lack of internal accountability, it is fast becoming, as one insider put it, “a very expensive insurance policy”. Special interests and lobbies come into play 99 percent of the time, which means that more often than not, what you see on TV or read in the newspaper is not ‘the truth’, but merely someone’s version of the truth. And all that talk about making the world a better place, I sincerely hope none of you believe that.

At the end of the day, principles, like cigarette lighters, are meant to be disposable. Ideologies change with the times and nothing is constant. Sensationalism is dangerous because it creates its own demand. It knows no boundaries and no one is immune to it. It is the ditch that our media has fallen into and now cannot get out.

Nothing to A.D.D.

Pakistan Today, Tuesday, 28 Feb 2012

Given the amount of news and refuse cluttering the airwaves right now, temporary insanity is a condition that could affect any Pakistani with a TV set and time to spare. So it’s kinda fortunate that most of us have been conditioned into a constant state of attention deficit. Thanks to this new-found inability to maintain one particular chain of thought for too long, Pakistanis are able to digest the inedible programming on offer from nearly 89 indigenous channels and countless others playing back to back Bollywood masala movies and Mamta Kulkarni item numbers. Don’t believe me? Pick up that remote and try it for yourself.

CLICK!

The prime minister’s contempt case is old hat now. Now that Aitzaz Ahsan has the court right where he wants it to be i.e., drowning in legalese, we can now move on to other, more pressing matters.

Also, the missing persons’ case is on hold because the country is still in shock after seeing the way that prisoners are treated by our most sensitive agencies.

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Following the success of Indian reality show-slash-YouTube-sensation ‘How Can She Slap?’, Tando Muhammad Khan’s very own Wahida Shah has taken it upon herself to rid the electoral system of its moles and molars. A staunch believer in tough love, Shah meted out as good as she had received, having grown up in a feudal/patriarchal household where you slap the help around as much as you wanted. The slap heard around the country is now the stuff of legend and is being relived on TV screens everywhere, with no regard for the dignity of the hapless victim, who, in this case, was left sobbing as the burly policeman, ostensibly there to protect presiding officers from external pressure, stood silently by as this sorry excuse for a public representative spewed forth profanities, obscenities and open-palm back-handed slaps left, right and centre. When asked by an attractive newsreader “Can you hear me? How can you slap?” Shah answered, “Hello? Hello? No, I can’t hear you!”

Sounds about right.

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Have you heard of the best cover-up in history? No? Then take a look at the footage from the demolition of the compound in Abbottabad that allegedly housed the world’s most wanted man for many years. In an unsurprising move, coming from the country that hosed down the crime scene of Benazir Bhutto’s assassination, the authorities have decided to demolish the OBL compound in Bilal Town. This has been done to exonerate Pervez Musharraf, who, it now seems, knew pretty much all along that Senor Bin Laden had been enjoying doggie bag lunches from the Officer’s Mess at PMA Kakul. According to articles and interviews in both the local and foreign media, this claim has been doing the rounds for some time now and there seems to be an iota of truth in it. That, or it’ll be easier to pin this one on Musharraf, seeing as they can’t seem to make the Benazir murder charges stick.

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Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy has become the first Pakistani to win an Oscar. Hah! And pigs are flying.

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Oh, no! It’s actually true. The first Pakistani Oscar winner is a somewhat attractive woman from Karachi. Pinch me. Pinch me now.

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Balochistan is still simmering. The unhappy sardars and separatists have been getting too much airtime on national TV and this has rubbed many at PEMRA the wrong way. They are now asking news channels to stop all live shows and inform PEMRA in writing what the topic and content of each show will be before it goes on air. I think it would help PEMRA’s cause if they actually hired someone who knew ANYTHING about how the media works. That way, they’d know that show topics, guests and the colour of the host’s tie on that particular day are variables that cannot be determined in advance, ever. To borrow from the savant Forrest Gump, “Talk shows are like a box of really bad chocolates; you never know whatcha gonna get.” It would be easier for PEMRA to just issue a declaration saying “No more shows on Balochistan, it’s bad for our narrative of how this country should be run. That is all.” At least we’ll appreciate their honesty if they did.

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It’s a dirty game, this media business. Every year, the Pakistani media fires more people than Toyota recalls cars. Surprisingly, the more venomous you are, the higher paying your next job will be. This is also the case with Maya Khan, who, rumour has it, is being courted by both ARY News and Express News. A few hours after this column is written, Maya is due to appear on a TV show with the reptilian Kamran Shahid. On the show, Shahid promises startling revelations that will shake the foundations of the media as we know it. Maya also promises to put up quite a show. The question is, is this an audition or an honest-to-goodness attempt at setting the record straight? I guess with vigil-aunties, one can never be too sure. Wait, what’s a vigil-aunty? Is there a vigil tonight? Cool, I wanna go!

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Lost in transmission

Pakistan Today, Monday, 20 Feb 2012

This week, I’m taking a break from my regular rants against my former, sensationalising employers to bring you a spot of regularly scheduled programming. To be clear, this segment will be brought to you by the makers of energy drinks, the renters of rental power, the now-unemployed dancers at our many DISCOs and the past-their-half-lives engineers that run our non-existent nuclear power reactors.

It started as a joke. First the Noon League summoned a moot of technocrats to help them hammer out a coherent energy policy that could reconcile the party’s manifesto promises with growing public demand for some (not much, mind you, but some) electricity. Then the Tsunami League came out with its own, ‘original’ plan of holding an energy conference, a month after the Noon’s. A simple chronological problem arose when the Tsunami-surfers accused the Nooners of ‘stealing’ their idea, which only bent the laws of physics in ways that would make pornstars blush.

Coming to why this circus was necessary, the plebeians are clamouring, for some unknown reason, that they should be able to enjoy the electricity they pay for. As if they are doing the state a favour by paying it for the generation of delicious, wholesome 220 volt DC current. Quite ludicrous, because if they didn’t pay, the state would refuse to acknowledge their existence and they would cease to be alive. Then, Skynet would hunt them down using cybernetic super soldiers that could survive everything but liquid nitrogen… Oh wait, wrong plot!

Back to the electrifying issues at hand and the Noon League’s conference on ‘Energy for Growth and Sustainable Development’. While there are many things wrong with that sentence, grammar being the least of my worries, what does ruffle my feathers is the fact that the opposition party is the one that has had this brainwave and actually set the ball rolling. In the civilised world, it is usually those in power who commit such unspeakable crimes against journalists and academics, who are subjected to the droning of political cronies harping endlessly about how good the government’s performance has been, in spite of their actual, dismal track records. However, one advantage of having an opposition party convene a conference on such a non-serious issue was that there was none of this. Instead, there was the incessant expression of gratitude from members of parliament, academics, technical experts and concerned citizens for being invited to a free lunch at the Serena in Islamabad.

As can be expected, this was an opportunity for the pot-bellied press corps to fill their stomachs with BBQ and their bags with the condiments on offer; a chance for parliamentarians and aspiring parliamentarians alike to heap praises upon those that supplied them the invitation, and an opportunity for mostly misunderstood ‘experts’ to try and convince these ignoramuses of that very far-fetched notion i.e., “E=mc2”, where ‘m’ stands for manpower and ‘c’ stands for commitment. While we here enjoy a surplus of willing manpower, anyone with even an iota’s worth of understanding of mathematics will know that squaring a zero will only yield yet another zero.

To be fair, the conference inspired some degree of hope in me. It was the first time that I saw genuinely intelligent people being allowed to do what they do best i.e., theorise. It was also refreshing to see some young blood at the moot and even more encouraging to see them actually being taken seriously. In addition, I got to meet some of the people behind the Noon League’s facelift and was pleasantly surprised to see my contemporaries taking the lead in trying to hammer out serious policy at the highest levels. This, in my flawed opinion, is what our country has been lacking for a long time now. The drive within our younger generation, for the longest time, seemed lost. And where it was evident, energies were being wasted and not channeled properly. This is now changing.

The energy conference highlighted a key factor in contemporary politics: that the orientation of political parties and the ruling elite, in general, has now shifted from a narcissistic, know-it-all view to a more inclusive, far more democratic outlook. This bodes well for the future of our fair backwater. If nothing else, this will help ensure that ideas are not lost in transmission and good intentions will not simply be used to pave the road to hell. We all may not be singing“Meray Gaon Mein Bijli Ayi Hai” just quite yet, but hey, it’s a start.

Pretty faces

Pakistan Today, Monday, 13 Feb 2012

Do you know what the biggest problem with Pakistan’s media is? Some say its sensationalism and a complete and utter disregard for ethics and the core values of journalism. Others blame the blatant marketing of sex, the feminine form and related topics as a means to obtain ratings. Those saying that dishonesty, intellectual and otherwise, is to blame are close, but still no cigar. Many maintain there is a complete absence of worthwhile discourse on useful, academic topics and issues. That producers today are repackaging ideas done to death by American TV shows from the 1980s and remarketing them as the new ‘in-thing’ is also not quite it. So what, you may well ask, IS wrong with the media today? If you wait for the next paragraph, I’ll tell you.

According to my friend and award-winning blogger Adnan Rasool, the biggest problem with our media is that TV show hosts and anchors are unconditionally labeled ‘journalists’, where most of them have absolutely zero experience in journalism whatsoever. Think about it. What do Dr Moeed Pirzada, Mubasher Lucman, Meher Bukhari, Kamran Shahid, Dr Maria Zulfiqar Khan and Dr Shahid Masood have in common? Apart from the fact that there are too many doctors in TV news (medical, veterinary and otherwise), it is that none of these people have a background in journalism, nor can any one of these people point to any non-talk show ‘street-cred’ they may have acquired over the past many years that they have been ruling the airwaves on our favorite TV news channels.

Isn’t it remarkable then that everyday hundreds of thousands of people tune in to these glorified evangelists, just to hear them ruminate on questions of prime importance to the people of this country? Mind you, those charged with asking the questions and finding their answers can be found – before and after their shows – sitting diligently at the business end of their bosses’ oak office tables every day. During such meetings with brain-dead corporate clones, our defenders of truth and justice can be seen nodding in agreement to the most inane of ideas and responding with quips such as “That’s an excellent idea, sir. I’ll just go put on a more revealing tank top,” or “Having audience-generated dirty text messages running at the bottom of the screen will definitely generate more interest in our otherwise dull news analysis program”. Pure fertiliser, but if they don’t agree, they may not have a job the next day. Ironic, isn’t it?

Broadcast media is, generally, a very incestuous place. This is due to the nature of the medium itself i.e., it is more visual than anything else. Therefore, that which looks appetising on one TV channel may also do the same for its competitor. So for the most part, the channel logos keep changing, but the faces stay the same. This is also true for crossover stars, those that jump into the news lifeboat to escape the grind of their otherwise taxing entertainment duties. While there have been successful crossovers, such as former news anchor turned-morning-show-host Sana Tariq, we can be sure that the era of the renaissance men is well and truly over.

Giants such as Shoaib Hashmi, Naeem Bokhari, Zia Mohyeuddin, Anwar Maqsood and Ghazi Salahuddin made the transition from journalism to fluff and back again seem effortless. But that was a different time, when the TV medium was highly selective. With PTV being one of the only outlets for such creative folk, you had to be a cut or four above the rest to get any airtime at all. Not that PTV from the 80s or 90s was anything to write home about, but it had its moments. More moments than any channel has had since. But that’s all over now. Today, we must contend with pretty faces who can’t properly pronounce place names in KPK and FATA, but will still get to anchor news bulletins or primetime talk shows.

But who do we blame for this lack of talent, or training, or depth, or vision? I mean, as a chronic shortcoming, we must find a suitable outlet which is to blame for this state of affairs. That’s how things work nowadays, isn’t it? You isolate an issue out of context, find a suitable scapegoat and then proceed to berate them and their ineptitude for the remaining 40 minutes of your primetime slot. There is no effort to understand the academic issues at stake, no real effort to identify all concerned stakeholders or any constructive discussion on possible solutions. Each show starts with “Aaj Pakistan mein yeh ziyadti hogaye” and ends with“hukoomat ko iss sey nimatney keliye jamea hikmat-e-amli tayyar karni hogi”. Truth be told, horse manure makes more sense than this formula.

But that’s the tragedy. You see, as with any other corporate venture, the media is, at the end of the day, a profit making enterprise. If cut-cutting means that reporters are not held to the minimum standards of reporting, not required to verify information from their sources and are asked to sacrifice diligence in favour of speed, you can hardly blame the unqualified correspondent employed for Rs 25,000/month for not covering his bases. It’s institutional hubris at its worst. The institution itself perpetuates the laziness because it is easier and cheaper to be less than thorough. Laziness is what’s wrong. We should change that. But let’s do it tomorrow.