By Kazim Aizaz Alam
This quick-press is just to provide you with the link of Arundhati Roy’s latest interview. She is most definitely the harshest critic of state-sponsored violence. More power to her pen. Long live Arundhati Roy – long live her noble cause.
By Kazim Aizaz Alam
Zain bhai gifted me ‘A Page From History’ – a collection of essays by famous historian Dr Mubarak Ali – and wrote “For the Shylock of the fourth floor” on its first page. He called me ‘Shylock’ because he thinks that like the Shylock of The Merchant of Venice, I am mean-spirited, and the nastiest person on the fourth floor of Al-Rahman Building. He came to this conclusion after I cast aside all mannerisms and demanded back my copy of The Algebra of Infinite Justice by Arundhati Roy. He got pissed off by my frequent reminders and one day returned it finally, along with three other books that I had lent him, and vowed never to borrow one from me in future. He had a reason: he never pesters me after lending a book (which he does very frequently, to be honest) despite that I am a slow reader. So my reminders rightly put him off. A few days later, however, he bought Mubarak sahib’s book from Thomas and Thomas, and called me ‘Shylock’ while signing it for me.
Mubarak Ali is not a new name for us Pakistanis. In fact, as Zain bhai put it, Mubarak Ali, Sibte Hasan, Ali Abbas Jalalpuri and Pervez Hoodbhoy have inspired a whole generation. ‘A Page From History’ consists of 67 short essays on history, politics and culture. That’s his third book that I have read. ‘A Historian’s Dispute’ and ‘Tareekh Kya Kehti Hai’ (Urdu) were equally delightful reads. However, his publisher, Fiction House Lahore, should be punished for ruining the joy of Mubarak sahib’s writing because the printing is very bad, there are too many typos (the book has not been proofread at all) and even the page arrangement is disorderly at some places.
To comment on Mubarak Ali’s writing will be like ‘suraj ko chiragh dikhana’. All one can say is that few people have defended secularism in Pakistan as fiercely as Dr Mubarak Ali. May his tribe grow.
PS: A few days ago I thought about searching Dr Mubarak Ali’s name on the internet. I had typed ‘Dr<space>’ when Google suggested top 10 searches with their respective results. I was stunned to see Google’s suggestions (or rather the preposterousness of Pakistani internet-users). I am giving below the 10 suggested Google searches and their results: Dr Zakir Naik (447,000 results), Dr Zakir Naik Urdu (58,200 results), Dr Israr Ahmed (130,000 results), Dr Shaista Wahidi (11,100 results), Dr Farhat Hashmi (67,600 results), Dr Abdul Qadir Khan (364,000 results), Dr Shahid Masood (88,600 results), Dr Sarfaraz Naeemi (12,600 results), Dr Tahirul Qadri (356,000 results) and Dr Israr Ahmed lectures (93,400 results). It means that out of the 10 top Pakistani searches beginning with ‘Dr<space>’, seven are for religious figures. I am speechless.
By Kazim Aizaz Alam
Title: My American Journey | Author: Colin L Powell | Category: Autobiography | Pages: 676 | Font size: Relatively small | Year of publication: 1995
A few days back while reading “My American Journey” I said to Zain bhai that Colin L Powell was a true success story. Zain bhai retorted, “So is Rehman Dakait”, the slain mafia chief of Lyari (Karachi) who, like Colin Powell, hailed from a poor family and made it big in his ‘profession’. The comment may be crude but there’s a grain of truth in it at least. Colin Powell was born in a poor immigrant family, didn’t attend any elite school, went to CCNY, joined the army when there was no concept of an all-volunteer military force, took part in a most unpopular Vietnam War, moved up in the army ranks quickly, became National Security Adviser, made it to a four-star general and eventually achieved the highest military rank of the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman. He remained in the senior-most US military command during the last five-six years of the Cold War, led the Panama and Gulf wars and was one of the main US representatives in negotiations with Mikhail Gorbachev just before the collapse of the USSR. He worked in significant positions at the Pentagon and with President Reagan, President Bush (Senior) and President Clinton in various capacities at the White House as well. After retirement from the army, he was considered by both the Republican and the Democratic parties for key political assignments – he refused because he wanted to write his autobiography. Later, in the first term of President Bush (Junior) he became the Secretary of State and spearheaded the Afghan and Iraq invasions. Not to forget, he achieved all this (speaking from the point of view of a non-white American and disregarding for a moment all the war crimes that he has been, rightly, accused of) his life is a success story. The book is very interesting and can’t be put down once you have started.
While reading it I took notes and marked important passages, thinking I would write about them on the blog. If I write about all those important events that I enjoyed reading it would become the longest entry ever posted on the internet. So in case you have got a copy of “My American Journey” in your study and thinking to start up or can find it in a nearby library, I am giving below page numbers which have most interesting personal, military and political tales to tell. These are pages 84-85, 123 (it mentions Gen Zia and his ‘down-to-earth’ attitude), 126, 129, 136, 139 (the My Lai massacre, horrible read), 141 (anti-Vietnam War comments), 142, 144, 240-241 (the American embassy fiasco in Tehran), 232, 267, 274, 275 (when the US shot down an Iranian airbus with 290 passengers on board), 280-281, 303, 311 (here Powell sympathises with security guards posted outside his army residence who had nothing to do all day long except catching an occasional glimpse of his daughter, Annemarie, sunbathing), 355, 357 (he says Castro was never a Marxist, it was America’s hostility that turned him into one), 283, 402, 413, 414 (where he says that during war it is better to have “a flesh-and-blood villain” to “arouse public opinion against political abstractions”. Remember, how he made speeches convincing the world that Saddam was an existential threat to the west and that he had WMDs?), 461, 483, 544 (Powell says that the New York Times would likely have turned his op-ed piece into a letter to the editor without any qualms had he not revised its text upon a colleague’s advice. Can a Pakistani newspaper think of doing the same with Gen Kayani?), 565 and 572 where the chief proponent of the Iraq and Afghan wars says, “We cannot substitute our version of democracy for hundreds of years of tribalism”. Well, this is the thing he should rather have said while leaving the White House at the end of his term as the Secretary of State.
I will end this post with the comment of my colleague Chris Cork who said, “Colin Powell was the best president America never had”.
By Kazim Aizaz Alam
The US ambassador to Pakistan, Anne Patterson, was interviewed recently by Dr Moeed Pirzada on Dunya TV. One was really pissed off by the fake American accent the host was constantly trying to affect during the show. By the way, Moeed Pirzada is a medical doctor, hence the prefix ‘Dr’. He has now practically nothing to do with the medical profession, still he insists on retaining the prefix. Same is the case with another MBBS-cum-news analyst, ‘Dr’ Shahid Masood, who long ago abandoned the medical field and became a full-time media man. Since most people have neither interest nor free time to google their names, these anchorpersons enjoy the general reputation of a PhD doctor. In fact, I remember that many years ago when my brother came to know that the ‘most-opinionated’ news analyst of Pakistan is a graduate of the Sindh Medical College, he said, “Hain… I always thought he has a PhD in political science from Ireland” (Ireland because Dr Masood once said on his show that he had spent sometime there).
There is nothing wrong in changing one’s profession and rather it shows that one’s bold enough to burn their boats and ready to face the consequences. But the bad part is the retention of this ‘Dr’ façade in spite of having abandoned the medical profession. And anyway, why should one add something unnecessary (and in this case, showy) to their name? We are told that when MA Jinnah was offered an honorary PhD degree, he refused it politely saying that his name was Mohammad Ali Jinnah and he would like to die as such – without any suffix/prefix attached to his name. It’s another thing that we not only made him the Quaid-e-Azam (the Great Leader) but also added, of late, ‘rehmatullah aleh (upon whom be blessing of Allah) to his name. I am not sure about the former, but the latter gem would definitely have sounded ‘uncool’ to Mr Jinnah himself.
Coming back to Moeed Pirzada’s affected accent, what particularly sounded annoying was the word ‘Pakistan’. Instead of saying the word like a normal Pakistani, what came out of his mouth was ‘Pai-khes-Tein’. And in the same programme, hold your breath for this one, he pronounced the word ‘measure’ as ‘mayeer’. There is absolutely no shame in not being able to pronounce a word correctly as just a couple of hours ago I learnt that it is ‘enliven’, not ‘enl-ai-ven’ – that’s only one, and I can recount a thousand more personal examples. But why, according to an Urdu idiom, be a ‘Buqrat’ and try to speak English like an American, which we aren’t? One can’t resist the temptation to drag Karachi Grammar School in this debate. This top-notch school, whose students know English better than their first language, produces people who speak English like an ‘insaan ka bachcha’. I have known quite a few Grammarians personally, and have worked with and under them. No one ever tried to forge the American accent, and always sounded Pakistani while speaking English. It seems that this speak-like-an-American craze exists among us Urdu medium types only.
By Kazim Aizaz Alam
For the first time in my life I stepped inside a five-star hotel last evening. The British Council had arranged an iftar dinner and my boss was actual invitee. When the British Council staff called to confirm if he was coming he instead gave my name and said that his ‘colleague’ would attend the event on his behalf. May be it is Karachi Grammar etiquette not to call one’s subordinate assistant, junior or staffer. Anyway, there I was at the Avari Towers in my worn-out pair of jeans. The evening went superb because of TV show host and columnist Fasi Zaka who I met in person first time, although we communicate every week through email and phone. In addition to Fasi Zaka, I met other British Council staff, particularly TV personality George Fulton. I also shook hands with writer Nadeem Farooq Paracha whom I am not really a fan of. Meeting FZ was a great experience because we have known each other for the last two years. He now works at the British Council as Director Marketing and Communications. Those who know him personally will testify that he is a down-to-earth gentleman and a great conversationalist. He gave me a number of useful tips on a range of subjects I enquired about.
Although I constantly felt guilty (!) for being at a five-star hotel, it would be a lie to say that I wasn’t excited. I have already received a fair bashing at the hands of Zain bhai for having rubbed my shoulders with a group of people who played an instrumental role in creating war hysteria in the last few months (with special reference to the much-despised figure of NFP). One more thing: the world didn’t look all that gloomy from the window of Avari Towers. I sensed that poverty level had suddenly dropped, people were less miserable, a decent life was possible for anyone who strove a little, and there was an opportunity for everyone to change their socio-economic condition. Only if the poor behaved a little sensibly…
Welcome to the ‘post’-communism world.
By Kazim Aizaz Alam
The MQM drama-baaz supremo is at top gear these days. The mentally-unstable ethnic-cleanser now wants Nawaz Sharif to be held accountable for the 1992 military operation. I agree for the first time with him because I am against army ‘operations’ per se. But wait a minute: why is Altaf Husain not asking for the PPP leadership’s trial as well because it too launched a (more brutal) military operation in Karachi in the mid 90s under its interior minister, Maj-Gen Naseerullah Babar? Because it will embarrass the PPP with which the MQM now sits in the federal and provincial governments?
In the past few days MQM apologists have said a thousand times on different TV channels that since Altaf Husain actually wanted reconciliation he had now ‘forgiven’ those responsible for the deaths of his brother and nephew who became a victim of the army ‘operation’. There is obvious trickery on MQM’s part because Altaf’s brother and nephew were target-killed under the second military operation which was ordered by the PPP government. As the anti-Nawaz Sharif propaganda is in full swing there is not a mention of the Naseerullah Babar-led army operation.
If the army operation is something vicious and harmful then the MQM should also have opposed the ongoing military assault in NWFP. The ongoing operation has undoubtedly cost more civilian lives than the ’92 operation while the former’s social cost in terms of mass displacement (at least 3.3 million were forced to leave behind their homes and move to other cities) is incomparably high. So why is the MQM in the military operation’s favour now? Like in ’92 the current onslaught is carried out by the same Pakistan army. Like then there is a ‘democratically-elected’ government in place. Then it was against the ‘criminal’ elements of Sindh who had dismantled normal life in the province while the current operation is against ‘extremist’ elements who have challenged the state of Pakistan. In both the cases the so-called ‘writ’ of the state was heavily challenged. In both cases innocent people became victims of the organised military oppression. So what’s the difference? Why all this fuss? The answer is to pre-empt any impartial investigation into the May 12 and April 9 massacres and to save Musharraf from a trial that he so obviously deserves. No wonder old honchos of the ISI like Brig Imtiaz and Gen Naseer have emerged on the scene suddenly from nowhere to validate the MQM’s claim (which may well be true) that the Jinnahpur conspiracy was all cooked up and fake.
Why there was no demand by the MQM for a ‘truth and reconciliation commission’ (what a farce!) in Musharraf days when it enjoyed unprecedented power at all levels? Why then did Altaf Husain never call for an apology from the army for conducting two operations against it in the 90s? The MQM says its struggle is against feudalism. Haha… that’s why it slept with PML-Q’s waderas for whole five years and now working hand-in-glove with the PPP whose top leadership mainly consists of the biggest feudal lords of Pakistan. Who does the MQM try to fool by raising such hollow slogans? Maybe its ‘Mohajir’ followers who, given their extreme servitude to the powers that be, deserve a leader of Altaf Husain’s calibre.
Karachi (and Pakistan) would be a much safer and liveable place without the hooliganism of the MQM.
Kazim Aizaz Alam
Pandemonium broke out yesterday in the National Assembly when the opposition leader and PML-N senior leader, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, criticised the MQM for its double-game in national politics. There was, however, no word on the fascist party’s long history of human rights abuses. Notwithstanding PML-N’s own inherent weaknesses, one was pleased at the battering Altaf Husain’s trusted goons received in parliament.
Chaudhry Nisar rightly said that MQM’s propaganda that it was an ‘anti-establishment’ (my foot) party actually belied the fact that unlike both the PPP and the PML-N — which assumed power twice in the 1990s after Gen Zia’s belated martyrdom (pun intended) – the MQM came into power no less than five times – and each time it was thrown out of the coalition government for its loot, plunder and terrorism it wreaked havoc in Karachi and Hyderabad by butchering its opponents mercilessly on streets. When MQM parliamentary leader Haider Abbas Rizvi accused the PML-N of extrajudicial killings in the 1992 military operation against the MQM, Chaudhry Nisar asked back why then the MQM did not hesitate to join hands with the same PML-N after the 1997 election.
As said by Rizvi, the 1990s was indeed the darkest period in Karachi’s history. But it was so mainly because of this gang of murderers called the MQM. It supported Musharraf staunchly throughout his stay in power and has held all the three tiers of power i.e. district, provincial and federal since long. After being part of the PML-Q government for five years, now it is passionately celebrating the ‘return’ of democracy by sharing power at every level with the PPP.
I remember when Musharraf addressed a joint parliamentary session back in 2004 and the opposition tried to disrupt the proceeding (since Musharraf was still a president-in-uniform) MQM MNAs self-appointed themselves as ‘bodyguards’ of the army chief and saved Musharraf from PPP and PML-N female MNAs who wanted to throw their dupattas onto the dictator as a mark of protest.
The fact is that the MQM is a power-hungry, fascist, terrorist gang and even calling it a ‘political party’ is an insult to the word ‘politics’ itself. MQM chief Altaf Husain, who is a proud British national and prefers to remote-control his organisation from London, is one of the beneficiaries of the notorious NRO along with his top leadership who all had murder cases registered against them. Small wonder the MQM was dead-opposed to the lawyers’ movement – hence the May 12 and April 9 massacres in Karachi. Don’t know if Karachiites will ever get rid of this terrorist group.
PS: Those who believe Karachi mayor Mustaf Kamal is a genius who has revolutionise the city infrastructure should read this recent Dawn report.
By Kazim Aizaz Alam
Who killed General Ziaul Haq? General Akhtar Abdul Rehman? Major Kayani? Under Officer Ali Shigri? General Aslam Beg? All Pakistan Mango Farmers Cooperative? A crow? Tapeworms? A blind woman’s curse? Maybe… all of the above.
Mohammed Hanif’s above-titled novel is a wonderful combination of wit, political satire and utter disrespect to the supposedly ‘respectful’ people and institutions of this land. The character I loved most was the Secretary General’s — the guy who is put in a dark cell of the Lahore Fort for many years by the military junta for allegedly planning an assassination attempt on Gen Zia. At the time of his arrest the poor comrade was Secretary General of the All Pakistan Sweepers Association. Other interesting characters are Gen Zia, Gen Akhtar, Baby O, Ali Shigri and Maj Kayani (who reminds me of the current army chief who was the ISI director-general when the MQM carried out the May 12 and April 9 bloodsheds in Karachi during the lawyers’ movement).
Mohammed Hanif is a gifted writer and a brilliant storyteller. His chapters on Gen Zia were so witty and hilarious that sometimes one was compelled to have pity on the general. For instance the scene where the general complains about non-stop itching in his arse and shows it to a Saudi royal family doctor, when he rides a bicycle to go out of the Army House in disguise and meet ‘common people’ only to encounter an Islamabad cop who humiliates the ‘servant-ruler’ and orders him to call Gen Zia a fagggot, and when the First Lady sees him in a picture on the back page of the Pakistan Times staring lecherously at the tits of an American lady journalist.
The point where the writer couldn’t convince me is in the last chapter when a soldier is searching the debris of the crashed Pak One on Aug 17, 1988, and he finds a copy of the Quran that is without any lick of fire or smoke, without a scratch, held in the charred hand of the dead general. One also wonders if a three-star general would put his life in extreme danger to avoid a breach of protocol that at best had only annoyed his chief.
I loved reading this novel — and advise you to read it as well.
By Kazim Aizaz Alam
We all know that the Jang group is the biggest, and probably the most influential, media conglomerate of Pakistan which owns over half a dozen newspapers and magazines in addition to multiple news, sports and entertainment TV channels. Is adopting a uniform and coherent editorial policy (however flawed, that’s beyond the point of this post) too difficult for a mammoth media empire that the Jang group has become in the last decade or so?
Its national Urdu newspaper – Daily Jang – carried a leader on Thursday, August 6, on the recent passage of a bill in the National Assembly against domestic violence. So did its sister English publication – The News International. But guess what? The two newspapers – whose respective mastheads show the name of the group chief executive as Editor-in-Chief – took different positions on the latest piece of legislation on violence against women at homes. As you can guess, The News welcomed the initiative and said that “the legislators who have campaigned tirelessly for the bill need to be applauded for their tenacity”. Full marks to the editorial writer. Let’s see what the Jang editorial has to say on it (I am translating a few bits without any personal input).
“Despite being well-meaning, the domestic violence bill doesn’t have any relevance to our existing social and economical conditions.” | “There’s no harm in adopting some of the western values that are good but following the west blindly will cause damage… here it is unacceptable for parents to let their daughter marry a non-Muslim when he is unwilling to convert to Islam.” | “The domestic violence bill doesn’t seem to be beneficial – rather it is likely to be misused.”
The domestic violence bill can either be good or bad. It can be good but the Jang group may choose to call it bad. Or it can be bad and the group can term it benevolent. After all an editorial says what the editor thinks is right or wrong. But in this unique case the editor says one thing in the Urdu newspaper and its completely opposite in the English publication.
Maybe a mainstream newspaper prints only what its readers want to read. If The News is read by dwellers of Karachi’s up-scale DHA area, Jang editorials are consumed by the mosque-going residents of the across-the-road, slum-like Manzoor Colony. In the end it’s all about making ad money, selling maximum number of newspaper copies and earning high profits, isn’t it?
By Kazim Aizaz Alam
Much has already been written in the press and the parallel media about the Gojra carnage on the weekend in which seven Christians were burnt alive and around 80 homes belonging to minority members were set alight by a group of Muslims over alleged desecration of the Quran. Even though the district police officer and other senior government officials have been booked and an FIR lodged against 800 ‘unknown’ protesters, I am damn sure that not a single culprit is going to be caught and punished. No political, administrative or judicial authority can afford to harm a Muslim accused of attacking minority community’s members/property on the pretext of blasphemy in Pakistan. Incidents involving false allegations of blasphemy and the subsequent persecution of an already victimised community are not uncommon here.
Reports say that the whole desecration episode was forged by a drunken (Muslim) man who was politely escorted out of a Christian wedding reception after he misbehaved with guests. Thus he made up the story and told the people that Quranic verses were desecrated in the ceremony. Maulvis, always ready to take part in violence against minorities, joined hands with the bastard and announced on mosques’ loudspeakers that the Christians had committed the gravest of sins by disrespecting the Muslims’ holy book. People gathered, a few sermons were delivered to further incite people and then the gang of thugs and hooligans went on a killing spree in the Christian Colony and burned down 80 homes to rubble, set on fire six people alive, including a woman, and shot down one person – all in the name of guarding the honour of the Quran. Emma Goldman was right in saying that ‘the most violent element in society is ignorance’.
The PPP should stop blaming Gen Ziaul Haq for enacting blasphemy laws because it is in government right now, and the notorious MQM and the fraud ANP – both claim to be ‘secular’ – are in the ruling coalition. Moreover, many religious parties are out of parliament due to their boycott of the Feb 18, 2008, elections. Thus it will be much easier to do away with the blasphemy laws for good. But alas, all the PPP is concerned about is legitimising the crooked president by preserving the NRO – the epitome of institutionalised corruption in Pakistan.
