Pakistan, why you be so sad?

Do you remember the nursery rhymes you learned when you were in kindergarten? Well if you don't, the person in this video (he goes by the name of Edward Reid, and he's awesome. True story!) will not only remind you of them, but positively make you wish that he had sung all those rhymes.

But, and this is a big but, what has this got to do with Pakistan you might wonder? The honest answer is nothing. This has nothing to do with Pakistan. And that is exactly why it is so terrible. You see developed countries where education has helped salvage some common sense, creativity such as the one in the video, flourishes. In Pakistan on the other hand, well let's just say Edward Reid would have been beaten to death and his art form would have been decried and pissed upon.

We are not a happy people. And because we're not happy, we can never get to enjoy such surreal feats of creativity such as people in the UK or the US or any other developed country for that matter can and do enjoy. All we in Pakistan can do at best is be envious and curse our liege lords for ruining our lives and depriving the masses of education, who if they could understand it, would never sacrifice their tomorrow for today and anoint mad, selfish, hooligans to rule over us. Sad indeed.

The post with no title

This post does not a have a title. Why? I don't know. I don't really care. I meant to blog about a lot of things that have been going on but then every time I decided to do that, this thought kept coming back to me: What's the point of saying it all? It's not as if one man's ramblings or concerns will force the wider majority into action. Or will it? Of course it won't. But that's not the main reason I've stayed away from blogging. The bigger reason simply has been the fact that I've said all I've wanted to say and not just once, but many times. I'm sick of repeating the things I say, things which become hollow words after a few days. My best friend helps me keep this blog afloat (in case you haven't noticed, you guys still haven't been bombarded with ads) and he pays for the domain name and maintenance. This year I thought about asking him to stop doing that.

But that's when I realized that I can't give up. What difference then, will there be between me and the hypocrite next door? Here I am preaching you all about the virtues of being honest and being yourself. And then here would be me, running off the field to sit in a corner and cry like a baby because no one listens to me. But the truth of the matter is people do listen to me. I don't have much in the way of bragging rights but Google tells me I have had 50,000+ page views. That means that somewhere in the world people are reading what I'm saying even if they're not really believing things I'm saying.

But hey, we all agree to disagree. Me personally, I like to disagree a little bit more than your average Joe as many PTI supporters will tell you. So that's all good and nice. What I really want to point out however is the fact that even though we may be going through tough times - (actually tough sounds too easy. Harsh? No that's not right either. Barbaric? But that's too harsh -- I can't find the right word to draw this analogy here, so I leave it up to your wild imagination to fill in the blank yourself -- ) we still need to talk about the injustices et al. that come creeping up the road to haunt us and torment us. It is good to talk about stuff and let your emotions out. And words have a soothing power, the kind you cannot achieve when you 'sleep on it'.

So while this may be the end of this blog, I hope many more will follow. Soon-ish. 

Damned if you do, damned if you don't

I've just finished reading Irfan Hussain's article in today's Dawn. Normally I hold great respect for the man, but on certain fundamental points (like Pakistan's sovereignty for instance) I disagree with him to the extent of no reconciliation. His musings in today's newspaper fall in the latter category for me.

Irfan Hussain has benignly accused the government of being incapable of growing a pair when its required. Instead he accuses the government of hiding behind a facade, a mummer's farce if you will, so that it doesn't have to deal with the ugly realities of life. But on what points one may ask? Well on the point of the USA and its demonic stance of droning over Pakistan. Now I am all for these drone attacks because as we've seen they were an excellent way of killing Behtullah Mehsud and several others of his ilk. Unfortunately after this point is where I begin to differ significantly with Irfan Hussain. While he believes the government shouldn't have put the matter of the NATO supply routes before the parliament, I believe that's one of the democratic things this government has done.

Let me explain. Irfan Hussain says that because the government has decided to take this matter to the Parliament, it will be unable to maneuver around and show flexibility when the need arises to take some drastic measures as the people, and everybody in the Parliament will cause an uproar about how the will of the people wasn't taken into account. Essentially, Irfan Hussain is advocating that the government behave in a totally autocratic manner and take unilateral decisions which in essence amounts to licking the US of A's ass. Now I don't know from where he's getting these notions because if I remember correctly, he used to take very strong objection when this government or the previous government used to by pass Parliament in taking foreign policy level decision. Isn't this why he was always on Musharraf's case all the time? Well to really hit the nail on the head, isn't this extremely hypocritical?

While the thought of Pakistan licking USA's ass might get Irfan Hussain off, other self respecting Pakistani citizens such as myself realize that while it may be next to impossible to break the shackles of slavery vis-a-vis the USA, there needs to be a starting point.  The government's decision to involve the Parliament in the decision making process is 100% correct. The Parliament symbolizes the will of the people. Unfortunately for Irfan Hussain that will currently states that the USA can go to hell (but he needn't worry; our government isn't yet strong enough to say that to the USA, and probably never will be). In addition, by involving the Parliament the government is doing the legitimate and right thing. It is standing by its institutions. This also sets a precedent where all future significant foreign policy designs and ventures will be executed by the majority of the elected representatives leading up to across the board accountability.

Now Irfan Hussain can shimmy up to the USA all that he wants but let's get one thing clear. In a democracy, the majority needs to agree and be on board so that if God forbid things start to unravel, they can be patched up quickly. If the government does take a unilateral action, it will simply lose all credibility with the masses and then we would be forced to ask the question, why did we ever kick Musharraf out of the picture anyway because as I recall, he was really good at this doing-things-my-own-damn-way thing?

You've got it all wrong!

Over the past couple of months I've watched several western TV shows. Three of them stuck to mind. The first is Sherlock, a British thriller TV series that reincarnates Sherlock in the 21st century. Modern, elegant, crisp and beautifully shot, this TV show has been a particular hit in the UK. The second show that stuck to my mind is Homeland, a US TV series based around the premise (spoiler alert) that two US marines taken captive in northern Iraq have turned on their country, become Muslim and are now sleeper assassins ready to bring down the mighty USA. And finally the third TV show is another US based series called Shameless which is about a dysfunctional family and their various problems. But why am I talking about western television shows you might be wondering? Well I'll tell you why. They've got something very wrong. And that something is the image of Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad.

Now we as citizens of Pakistan know how cool and exciting Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad are. Unfortunately these westerners have absolutely no iota of an idea about their awesomeness and they have depicted them as terror havens with burqa clad women, turbaned mullahs, and terrorists roaming around as if they are on vacation. In Sherlock for example, Sherlock Holmes actually saves someone from getting beheaded in Karachi. In Homeland, Lahore is depicted as being a breeding ground for terrorists, and Islamabad is depicted as having safe houses of terrorists. And in Shameless, well they pretty much bulldoze the entire country in to the ground.

The problem is because the majority of the western population has no idea about Pakistan and its cities, they will more likely than not form negative, unjust and cruel opinions about these Pakistanis cities. They will never get to know about the calmness, serendipity and relaxing charm of Islamabad. They will never get to know about the unique Lahori hospitality, the colorful life, the amazing food (some say its the best food in the world and I agree wholeheartedly) that Lahore offers. And these same people will never get to know that Karachi never sleeps, has malls, parks and recreational places that rival Madrid's, has a diversified and multi ethnic community that happens to be the most educated amongst all of Pakistan's cities.

And this is what alarms me most. An average Westerner who watches TV, goes to work, comes back, goes to his regular hang out place with his regular friends will grow old thinking Pakistan is the country where terrorists are born and bred. The whole image of Pakistan stands broken and shattered. It doesn't help our cause that the law and order situation in our cities isn't top notch, but Pakistan simply isn't the country that its made out to be. For example Karachi's problems are no different than Mumbai's so to speak, but while the Indians show the world how fun and classy Mumbai is, we are left with defending Karachi as not being the place where terrorists go to shop.

And this leads me on to my second point. It's all about the image perception. Even though India has some dramatic domestic problems, the world does not get to hear about them. What they do get to see and hear instead are the "Incredible India" ads that show what a classy, true to its roots eastern, modern, vibrant, happy and colorful country it is. Which makes me want to ask this question: Why can't we do the same? Where are our image managers? Oh that's right, we don't have any because nobody cares. What we do have however is a President who is tainted with corruption charges and who refuses to acknowledge those blemishes, we have a Prime Minister who goes to the Supreme Court for disobeying its orders, we have an army that is constantly berated for harboring ties with the militants, we have an administration that is repeatedly told to do more because inadvertently the majority of terrorists are found to have visited Pakistan and most importantly we are the country where Osama bin Laden was found.

We really need to pull our act together and fix our faults. Because even though all of the aforementioned things are true, we know what a great culture and a beautiful country we have. We can't let the world's idea of us ruin our heritage and our pride like this. This propaganda needs to be countered because these festering notions about Pakistan will lead to a greater scrutinization of Pakistan which considering how many problems we already have with the world, will hurt us even more. It's time to show the world what Pakistan really is. It's time to take this cause into our own hands because our elected leaders are incapable of projecting our image the right way.

Stay in your limits, general

"Can't say anything to the military, that's treason; can't say anything to the judiciary, that's contempt of court; can't say anything to the Mullahs, that's blasphemy; but the Prime Minister, President and Parliament, let's lynch them because it is our democratic right."

Or so read the Facebook statuses of thousands of Pakistanis. And apparently also on Twitter. So why is everybody being so queasy about treason and contempt of court and blasphemy? Well that's because the lot of Pakistanis with some common sense and rationality are increasingly being cornered with no way.

PM Gilani in an interview to a Chinese daily hinted that the replies filed by the Chief of Army Staff General Kayani and the Director General ISI General Pasha were unconstitutional and held no legal merit. He of course forgot that they were both respondents who were served notices by the court directly and then had to reply to the court with or without Gilani's approval.

Now we know that Gilani is not a very clever man and doesn't think things through properly. But we have been led to believe like the little black sheep who only bleat and follow whatever comes in their way, that Kayani is super perfect and that he has Kim Jong Il type powers of awesomeness. In addition we have also been told rather repeatedly that because Kayani is so perfect, he can never do any wrong. Oh how sorry were we.

You see in response to Gilani's rather stupid hinting capabilities, Kayani hit back at the "civilian democracy" in the place where it hurts the most. Kayani via an army statement said that Gilani's statement could have "serious ramifications" for Pakistan. But hold your horses! He further goes onto threaten the civilian baddies with "potential grievous consequences for the country."

As a citizen of this poor, shunned, brow beaten shell of a country that this once was, I stand hurt and well mighty damn angry. How dare Kayani who is nothing more than a grade 22 officer threaten the democratic institutions of Pakistan? Who does he think he is? Does he think he is God (naaoozubillah)? Does he have a magic wand that he will wave and make the problems of Pakistan go away? Oh wait. That can't be it because he was asleep in his king size bed at home when Pakistan's sovereignty was raped for 2 whole goddamn hours on May the 2nd!

It pains me, disgusts me and shames me that even now there are people in this country who support a martial law imposition; who think Kayani coming to the helm of affairs will fix everything. Well let me just bust your bubble: It will not. The favourite argument of these self professed cleansers of Pakistan is that because Zardari is corrupt, he has done corruption. Because he has done corruption, his whole party has done corruption. Because PPP has done corruption, the army needs to come to fix everything. Wrong!

So Zardari is corrupt and Gilani is stupid and Firdaus Ashiq Awan is an affront to the intelligence of women, the fact of the matter is they are only criticised because there are no "ramifications". Because criticizing them will not land you in jail, or your deathbed. Let's talk about another type of corruption today shall we?

Rs 800 billion was allotted to the army last year. Rs 800 billion. Now let's recount what took place last year. First there were the drone attacks. But it turns out Kayani was hand in glove with the Americans on that one. Let's all laugh about how stupid we all were for thinking the army was defending the frontier while in fact they were the ones providing spot locations for drone attacks. And lest you forget I'm all for drone strikes to wipe out militants. I'm just amazed at the sheer hypocrisy of those (read: army) who proclaim that the Americans will not be allowed to toy with our sovereignty. What sovereignty do they talk about? But I digress. Then came May the 2nd. A day that will forever go down in history as being the day when Pakistan lost all morality in the comity of nations. Why didn't our army defend us? Why didn't our Air force defend us? Why didn't the army shoot down the raiding American helicopters while they fluttered about in Pakistani airspace for two hours? Why didn't the army take action when all the action could in fact have been live from the Pakistan Military Academy? Why? And when the civilian baddies tried to fix that (via the Memogate, wrong method but correct intentions) the army just got pissed. What about the navy base attack? When 4 "Star Trek" characters set a whole base on fire and laid siege to it for 16 hours. How incompetent is our army? Even with Rs 800 billion a year in its pockets. And they talk about defeating India in war when can't even defend their own shoddy selves. Why does no one talk about this corruption?

And lest we forget, yes Kayani is the rat bastard who is responsible for putting this country under the water and making it sink. Now he trespasses the halls of morality but let me jog your memory. In 2007 Musharraf wanted an NRO with Benazir Bhutto. He sent his DG ISI to draft an agreement and get it signed. That agreement was called NRO. And who was that DG ISI, the architect of that agreement? Why yes it was Kayani. Who rules this country behind the facade of Gilani and Zardari? Why it's Kayani. And who has burnt this country down and sold it to the dogs? Why yes, it is indeed Kayani.

I don't have a problem with the army, or the soldiers who stand day and night watching these insolent generals who have nothing better to do than to fart all over the destiny of Pakistan. I have a problem with the generals. Making Kayani the chief executive will be the final nail in the Pakistan's coffin. Let's make that clear.

So how do we go about sorting through this mess? By letting the PPP complete its 5 years in power. You see we have now seen how inept the PPP has been in power. In the next elections people like me who have never voted before, are going to vote it out of power and vote somebody better in its place and so on and so forth. But instead if Kayani comes to the helm, well then bye bye Pakistan. You were truly loved and you will sorely be missed.

By linking the performance of the governments to the voting process and by empowering the common people, in only 20 years' time this country will be a much, much better place than it is today. People themselves will see how democracy is a million times better than the army mounting coups. Kayani should not sully the good name of all those nameless soldiers who have died, who stand upright during the night to protect his highness, and who when the time comes become brothers to those Pakistanis who need them. Kayani would be well advised to keep his fantasies to his self. Kayani should stay within his limits.