The hate is entrenched

Imran Khan (Image: Dawn.com)

I remember having a conversation with a friend a while back. It was about the filth that Imran Khan has mainstreamed. The uncouth language, the harebrained takes, the perversion, the duplicity. This friend of mine came back with the mother of all Teflon-esque responses; he said that it didn’t matter how Imran Khan talks, or how he behaves, or the degrading language he mainstreams, because that language is used in Punjab anyway. It was in that moment that I realized that the damage has already been done. Rational thought and argument has all but vanished from our citizenry. It is only vileness and hate that remains.

Twitter is a prime example of this exact phenomenon. Go to any tweet that offers some criticality of Imran Khan. You will not find decent discourse under it. What you will find instead is vileness, name calling, grudges and hate. Just today for example, Talat Hussain posted the letter that Imran Khan has penned to Arif Alvi asking that an inquiry be initiated against General Bajwa. Instead of taking the content of the tweet and the letter on its merit, the loafers of the cult of Imran came crawling out of the woodwork to attack Talat Hussain. They did not debate the merits or the contents of the letter. No. They just spewed their hate. 

Amongst this garbage, someone put up a response saying Talat Hussain is a journalist who’s been exposing Bajwa, Saqib Nisar and Niazi, and that he wished all pro Pakistan politicians would gather together under one banner. A perfectly innocent suggestion. But even that was not spared. He was attacked based on his looks and asked: why do you have a woman’s ponytail on your head?

Imran-Bajwa war offers a public window onto dirty games they were playing fr thr petty interests. Bajwa’s stupid bravado is biting him back.He was a small man in a big position. Imran’s own deeds r no less self incriminating. Both deserved each other. Pakistan deserved neither. pic.twitter.com/eh1Ka0o21w

— Syed Talat Hussain (@TalatHussain12) February 16, 2023

Often I am told by the cultists that Nawaz Sharif and his lackeys use degrading and defamatory language against Imran Khan too. I agree. There are certainly those in the corridors of the high castles that use derogatory language. But they don’t do it the way Imran Khan does it, or has done. For example, in Nawaz Sharif’s hard hitting recorded video about the 2018 election rigging, you will notice that he keeps using the term General Bajwa “sahib”, and he refers to him using the respectful title of “آپ”. Yet again there are those who counter this by saying so what? So what does it matter if Imran Khan uses derogatory language? So what if he uses boys locker room talk? So what if he uses sexist, misogynist tropes? At least he isn’t “corrupt”.

Facts don’t matter to the cult of Imran, so it is useless to state that Imran Khan is corrupt, and not just financially at that; he’s also morally and ethically corrupt. The extent of the corruption that prevailed under him and by him includes: laundering of hundreds of millions by his cronies including Farah Gogi, Usman Buzdar, Malik Riaz, Jehangir Tareen, Bushra Bibi; legalizing the corrupt and forceful seizure of land for housing societies; looking the other way when journalists were picked up, shot, beaten, disappeared. Pretending to make riyasat-e-Medina all the while legalizing the illegal Hyatt Towers in Islamabad, where he was presented with two flats. His corruption has had such far reaching consequences that they have corrupted the minds of the brainwashed generation. He has fed them fodder and eroded their critical thinking skills. The damage has been devastating, and the hate he has filled in those crevices is now entrenched. Remember when Naeem ul Haq slapped Daniyal Aziz on TV and Imran Khan’s response was “why didn’t you punch him instead?” There is hatred where there was disagreement. He has divided a nation that cannot afford such division and hate. 

Imran Khan is not the promised messiah. He certainly presented himself as one, and he along with the super king Bajwa was able to brainwash a lot of the people desperately looking for a savior into believing that he is one. But he is not. Leaders — corrupt or not — are supposed to lead. And when a leader is a text book narcissist, a hypocrite, a master of deceit, a grade A sexist and misogynist, a pervert, morally and ethically corrupt, he legitimizes this perversion in his followers.

Imran Khan is a 70 year old boomer. You can’t teach him to mend his ways. He is part of that classic privileged, elitist bad boy club who got away with everything. He’ll get away with this too. But the damage he has unleashed is permanent. It will take a new generation (and one that needs to be taught love, empathy and kindness, all of which we cannot because it has been systematically drilled out of us) to right this broken and hollow ship. Until then, the troll army of the grand charlatan will keep spreading their lies, filth and deceit around.

The death of Pervez Musharraf

Pervez Musharraf

This is not a eulogy. I grew up in the era of Musharraf. I was a teenager, living in a privileged bubble watching as the country flush with American dollars boomed; metaphorically and literally. Pakistan had recently discovered the concept of marking up land values, and the terrorists had discovered that you can brainwash young men and women to blow themselves up. And such was my existence. The closest I’ve come to this boom was when my family migrated from a trusty old Suzuki Khyber, to the status symbol of the newly minted middle class, the Corolla GLi; and when the parade lane suicide bombing took away the lives of friends and people I had known; and that one time when I luckily missed being caught in the middle of a suicide bombing by 15 minutes (the attack on the then Surgeon General of Pakistan, Lt Gen Mushtaq Ahmed Baig).

I remember Musharraf’s fists of power in the air as he was informed of the carnage that unfolded in Karachi. And I remember when he said Pakistan has now embarked on an era of enlightened moderation. Privilege has this uncanny habit of making you blind to the pain, misery and suffering that surrounds you. Because it doesn’t affect you and bother you. It affects and bothers others. And who cares about others when you’re privileged?

It was only later that I recognized what a poisonous and treasonous snake the man who had said “Pakistan first!” actually was. Because if he had actually put Pakistan first, he wouldn’t have tried to play with its destiny like a man flipping a house for quick money does. Selling people for dollars to satiate the American appetite of goriness; filling the country and its institutions with holier than thou army officers who had no business or knowledge running those institutions; repurposing the law of the land and landing jiujitsu chops on it to make himself the tall and high lord of the country. I believe he thought he was doing the right thing. I believe he thought he knew what Pakistan needed, and I believe he thought he knew how to do it. Back then there were only 140 million of us, and the sad reality is that one man, no matter how perfect (let alone a treasonous snake), cannot, will not and has not ever been able to fix the mess. If it takes a village to raise a child, you can bet it was going to take a lot more people than one Pervez Musharraf to raise Pakistan.

But perhaps the most iconic and stunning blunder of his era — and the example that perfectly encapsulates that he believed himself to be the Napoleon Bonaparte of our times — was before he booted Nawaz Sharif from office. It was the wild, incomprehensible idea to turn the Line of Control into an active war zone. There was no need for that. Absolutely none. But Musharraf’s stupidity was such that he decided to take Kargil by himself; without informing his Prime Minister, without informing his own corps commanders, or the services chiefs of the branches of our military. We saw this film play out before, in 1965. When another tiny IQ man fancying himself as the liberator of Kashmir didn’t inform the Air Force of his folly to invade Kashmir. Anyway, the Indian response to Musharraf’s wet dream was swift, dramatic, and intense. It got so bad, that the same chief who had decided he would take Kargil and kill India’s aspirations of ever accessing Kashmir again, had to publicly deny that the soldiers who’s dead bodies were freezing in the mountains of Kargil were his. The shamelessness of it all should’ve made Musharraf rethink his rhetoric, but a narcissist never questions his antics. He only finds blame. It was the Indian Army that buried the men Musharraf had sent in to take Kashmir from them.

Musharraf was a larger than life personality. But he was a dictator who thought he knew better, just like the narcissists before him, and the narcissists after him. Just like all his predecessors and his successors, he too sought to place blame on anyone but himself. But history is not kind to those who are immoral and unprincipled. Because ultimately, the populist rhetoric wears off and the only thing left is you, your morality, your humanity, and your principles. And when the whole basis of your legacy is based on subversion, abrogation and treason, you cannot hope to be remembered fondly.

Farewell Musharraf. 

Missing Pakistan. Terribly.

I know there's a lot wrong with Pakistan. But not today. Not now. I didn't realize my blood was so green. Pakistan NOW and FOREVER.

Clockwise from the top left: Lahore Museum, Quaid's Mausoleum,
Swat, Port Qasim, Faisal Mosque

Pakistan Zindabad