Posts
By Kamran Shafi
HOW absolutely lovely London was in the two weeks that I have been away from the Fatherland visiting my younger boy who lives and works there.
The sun shone almost all of my time there; the thrilling polo final for the Queen’s Cup kept us on the edge of our seats; God was in his heaven, and all seemed well with the world.
Until, that is, out of force of habit, you switched on one of the Pakistani television channels and saw the usual bad news pouring out of the box. Quite apart from the domestic scene, reeks as it does with ill-intent and chicanery and lies and deception and intrigue, what really took the cake was the hairy situation on our Afghan border.
Let me add here that there was a time when we did not have any satellite channels beaming bad news from the Citadel of Islam across the world, when the BBC was the only television channel that carried some news some of the time. One could relax a lot more in those days than one can now. Especially someone like me, who simply cannot cut himself off from what goes on in our country no matter where I am.
But back to the bad news. Leave the stupid ‘Nato’ action that Admiral Mike Mullen, Chief of Joint Staff of the United States, no less, says was “very much by the book” (so much for your ‘protest’ to Nato, Shah Mahmood!) and which killed 11 Pakistani soldiers aside, even little old Karzai, the one with the chogha, a man who hires American contractors to protect himself, has threatened Pakistan with war!
Could this little man have the gumption to challenge his far mightier neighbour (we may be a basket case but compared to Afghanistan even we are a mighty military power) by his lonesome self? Especially when the mass of the people of Afghanistan stand against him and his policies? By golly, we had to see this day too!
This is what the Commando, who clings to the “President’s Lodge” aka Army House by his fingernails, defying the laws of gravity itself(!), has brought this country to, that even refugee Karzai, who and whose family was given succour by this country when they fled Afghanistan 30 years ago, has the temerity to talk down to his great benefactor.
I suppose, however, that Karzai’s gall and supreme confidence grows from the same seed from which grows the Commando’s impudence, nay cheek, too: that of unstinted American (read Dubya administration) support. What a lovely pair, the two of them: both shaming Afghans and Pakistanis by zealously toeing the American line.
There were other matters that upset one no end too: reports that the democratic government had taken a leaf out of the MQM’s book word for word and brought in 40-foot containers to ‘seal off’ parts of Islamabad the Beautiful from the attentions of the long-marchers. Most people who saw that sight immediately said that the government itself had made the long march a success by over-reacting in this way.
‘Super’ Advisor Rehman Malik aka The One Man Demolition Squad was not only credited with the fiasco of the containers which Sherry Rehman told us had been removed but which were brought right back a few hours later showing like nothing else the Super Advisor’s clout.
He also announced that the peace deal painstakingly negotiated by the Frontier government with the Swat militants was no more, for the second time leaving that government reacting with ire to his shenanigans. The first, we remember, was when he machinated an EC announcement that the by-elections had been postponed. One wonders just when the PPP leadership will put a halter on Mister Malik.
If you think that was all that bothered a person such as I, minding his own business in salubrious London Town, you are mistaken. Far more upsetting than any of Mister Malik’s handiwork were reports in the press that the Governor, Punjab, is about to press the boy Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari into service, politicking in the Punjab come August and the young man comes home on leave from his college at Oxford.
Whilst there is no shortage of foolishness and self-serving nonsense that one comes across in the Fatherland on a daily basis, I have not heard of a worse idea in decades. I mean this one absolutely reeks of a hard-heartedness and selfishness and outright cruelty such as few ideas before it.
Bilawal, from all that one knows about him, is a gentle and intelligent young man who is intent on studying further. He is only in his first year at university, and from what we hear, is doing well at his studies. More than this, he comes from a long line of well-read politicians on his maternal side: his grand-father, the ever-popular and iconic Zulfikar Ali Bhutto excelling at studies in two of the finest universities in the world: Berkeley and Oxford and his mother, another Pakistani icon, following in her father’s footsteps by attending Radcliffe and Oxford.
Both went on to achieve the highest honour a people can bestow on any one. The father founded the Pakistan Peoples Party and took it to victory in the elections in West Pakistan, sweeping all before it. He became the country’s leader after East Pakistan broke away as a result of decades of mistrust and bad treatment at the hands of the West Pakistani ruling elite.
What a leader he was too, picking up the pieces of a truncated Pakistan and giving it some little respect after negotiating a quite impossible deal with India which had steamrolled our forces in 1971 and taken 90,000 prisoners of war, mainly army; and vast tracts of land in the West too.
The daughter too became prime minister in her own right, the first time ten years after her father was judicially murdered; and when she was criminally removed from office, once again five years later for another three, when her own friends stabbed her in the back.
Bilawal, therefore, has a rich heritage to look after. But, Laat Sahib Punjab Bahadur, let the kid be. For God’s sake. Let him get on with college and complete his studies so that he can better prepare himself for the long struggle against dictatorship which is not about to let go of real power in our country in a hurry.
Bushism of the Week: “And so the fact that they purchased the machine meant somebody had to make the machine. And when somebody makes a machine, it means there’s jobs at the machine-making place” — President George W Bush, visiting the Silverado Cable Co., Mesa, Ariz., May 27, 2008.
kshafi1@yahoo.co.uk
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Really, sirs!
By Kamran Shafi
I mean, really sirs! What is all this about the whole shebang being in imminent danger of collapse through another intervention by the men on horseback, some would say in our case, on donkey back? Several op-ed writers are going blue in the face reminding us of the ‘danger’ that lurks.
Some of them, aghast at our stupidity, ask if we did not know that the Pakistan Army considers Pervez Musharraf the legitimately elected President of Pakistan! And that it would therefore do what it had to do to ensure that he stays president for all of his (so-called) term! They do not explain, of course, why the army should be in so exalted a position, and if indeed it is, why it should be allowed to maintain it so that it is the arbiter of what is constitutional or not, legitimate or not.
Others tell us that if there was any move at impeaching the man/hauling him up before a court of law, the army would consider it was being tried as an institution, and would therefore, ‘act’! They leave the rest to our imagination as Pakistanis who have seen army intervention all of our miserable lives. They do not explain how the army would have the gall to go against as clear a verdict as that delivered against Musharraf on Feb 18, 2008.
What utter tripe and nonsense! In so many ways, that it isn’t even funny. For, just look at the four army interventions and what state the country was left in after respective dictators left the scene. Ayub Khan laid the foundation stone of corruption and of the break-up of Pakistan; Yahya Khan saw the job through — boy did he! — in the process making it convenient for the army to be humiliated as few armed forces have been humiliated.
Then came the beauty Ziaul Haq who brought the country drugs and the Kalashnikov and obscurantism and sectarianism and hate and strife; followed by the general who drove a knife into the very heart of Pakistan by his macho and swaggering attitude towards the smaller provinces: “They won’t know what hit them”, when he engineered, say, the murder of Nawab Bugti and the tamasha in Fata.
And towards politics in general, speaking down to the main political parties and their leaders and putting in his lot with what he thought would be more pliable partners, the Chaudhrys. In view of the above, how many times should one have to say that the sooner the army acts and overthrows our emerging democracy the better for democracy and by extension, for the people of the country? For we shall then be rid of any last vestiges of respect some Pakistanis still have for the army.
For, quite apart from the fact that martial laws in Pakistan have always been dismal failures in every way and in every single department of governance, this last experiment takes the cake for being The Mother of Inept Governance. As our American friends would say, Gen (retd) Musharraf spectacularly failed, ‘every which way’, to provide the country even a semblance of governance.
Whether it is the food crisis with flour virtually unavailable, and when it is, at exorbitant prices; to the lies told to the nation re: its economic health by shamelessly massaging the figures; to not one new electricity generating plant set up in the nine very long years that he held the country by its throat; to delaying a hike in POL products and therefore in every consumer item just to help the King’s party in the elections, his rule was an unmitigated disaster.
Indeed, reflect upon the disastrous way in which Pakistan’s relations with America were/are going if only because of his thoughtless and self-serving subservience to American dictates in virtually every department of statecraft.
Indeed, many of us writing in the press cautioned Musharraf repeatedly that America would not stand as a silent spectator while he went about running with the hare and hunting with the hounds as re: the way he was handling Fata: now running hot, now running cold, and standing the whole political system there, on its head.
But wait. Did one of the ‘official sources’, read the President’s Lodge (once Army House), not say as recently as April 6, that Musharraf was only staying on in the President’s Lodge because if he were to leave office the Americans would attack Fata?! So what was this attack all about then? Could it have been a warning from Dubya that his buddy should be let alone, or else?
No sirs, no. If the English, under orders of parliament could dig the corpses of Oliver Cromwell who overthrew parliament in his coup as a warning to other wannabe dictators, why can we not try Musharraf in a court of law?
To the matter of the judges restoration now: how is it that Aitzaz Ahsan is now being vilified by op-ed writers mentioned above, and who side openly and subjectively with the dying (or is it?) dictatorship and its henchmen? I thought Aitzaz stood up for what is right and moral and constitutional when he opposed the acts of a uniformed general to sack the superior judiciary! A general, mark, who admits he acted illegally and unconstitutionally!
I have oft said, in these very pages, that Pakistan is indeed a ‘unique’ country, and we a very ‘unique’ people. I must be right!
As to the behaviour of the People’s Party, silly constitutional package and all, all one can say is that it is shameful beyond words; and that unless its downward spiral is halted immediately if not sooner the party will simply disintegrate.
Finally, even if you take Sherry Rehman’s assurances that the government of the Citadel of Islam had nothing in the world to do with the re-banning of two talk shows as the truth, shame on the federal government for allowing the Dubai authorities to do what they have done, and therefore giving the PPP a bad name.
What sort of government is it that, unbeknownst to it, any Tom, Dick or Harry can get up and telephone someone in Dubai and two popular shows go off the air?
kshafi1@yahoo.co.uk
I mean, really sirs! What is all this about the whole shebang being in imminent danger of collapse through another intervention by the men on horseback, some would say in our case, on donkey back? Several op-ed writers are going blue in the face reminding us of the ‘danger’ that lurks.
Some of them, aghast at our stupidity, ask if we did not know that the Pakistan Army considers Pervez Musharraf the legitimately elected President of Pakistan! And that it would therefore do what it had to do to ensure that he stays president for all of his (so-called) term! They do not explain, of course, why the army should be in so exalted a position, and if indeed it is, why it should be allowed to maintain it so that it is the arbiter of what is constitutional or not, legitimate or not.
Others tell us that if there was any move at impeaching the man/hauling him up before a court of law, the army would consider it was being tried as an institution, and would therefore, ‘act’! They leave the rest to our imagination as Pakistanis who have seen army intervention all of our miserable lives. They do not explain how the army would have the gall to go against as clear a verdict as that delivered against Musharraf on Feb 18, 2008.
What utter tripe and nonsense! In so many ways, that it isn’t even funny. For, just look at the four army interventions and what state the country was left in after respective dictators left the scene. Ayub Khan laid the foundation stone of corruption and of the break-up of Pakistan; Yahya Khan saw the job through — boy did he! — in the process making it convenient for the army to be humiliated as few armed forces have been humiliated.
Then came the beauty Ziaul Haq who brought the country drugs and the Kalashnikov and obscurantism and sectarianism and hate and strife; followed by the general who drove a knife into the very heart of Pakistan by his macho and swaggering attitude towards the smaller provinces: “They won’t know what hit them”, when he engineered, say, the murder of Nawab Bugti and the tamasha in Fata.
And towards politics in general, speaking down to the main political parties and their leaders and putting in his lot with what he thought would be more pliable partners, the Chaudhrys. In view of the above, how many times should one have to say that the sooner the army acts and overthrows our emerging democracy the better for democracy and by extension, for the people of the country? For we shall then be rid of any last vestiges of respect some Pakistanis still have for the army.
For, quite apart from the fact that martial laws in Pakistan have always been dismal failures in every way and in every single department of governance, this last experiment takes the cake for being The Mother of Inept Governance. As our American friends would say, Gen (retd) Musharraf spectacularly failed, ‘every which way’, to provide the country even a semblance of governance.
Whether it is the food crisis with flour virtually unavailable, and when it is, at exorbitant prices; to the lies told to the nation re: its economic health by shamelessly massaging the figures; to not one new electricity generating plant set up in the nine very long years that he held the country by its throat; to delaying a hike in POL products and therefore in every consumer item just to help the King’s party in the elections, his rule was an unmitigated disaster.
Indeed, reflect upon the disastrous way in which Pakistan’s relations with America were/are going if only because of his thoughtless and self-serving subservience to American dictates in virtually every department of statecraft.
Indeed, many of us writing in the press cautioned Musharraf repeatedly that America would not stand as a silent spectator while he went about running with the hare and hunting with the hounds as re: the way he was handling Fata: now running hot, now running cold, and standing the whole political system there, on its head.
But wait. Did one of the ‘official sources’, read the President’s Lodge (once Army House), not say as recently as April 6, that Musharraf was only staying on in the President’s Lodge because if he were to leave office the Americans would attack Fata?! So what was this attack all about then? Could it have been a warning from Dubya that his buddy should be let alone, or else?
No sirs, no. If the English, under orders of parliament could dig the corpses of Oliver Cromwell who overthrew parliament in his coup as a warning to other wannabe dictators, why can we not try Musharraf in a court of law?
To the matter of the judges restoration now: how is it that Aitzaz Ahsan is now being vilified by op-ed writers mentioned above, and who side openly and subjectively with the dying (or is it?) dictatorship and its henchmen? I thought Aitzaz stood up for what is right and moral and constitutional when he opposed the acts of a uniformed general to sack the superior judiciary! A general, mark, who admits he acted illegally and unconstitutionally!
I have oft said, in these very pages, that Pakistan is indeed a ‘unique’ country, and we a very ‘unique’ people. I must be right!
As to the behaviour of the People’s Party, silly constitutional package and all, all one can say is that it is shameful beyond words; and that unless its downward spiral is halted immediately if not sooner the party will simply disintegrate.
Finally, even if you take Sherry Rehman’s assurances that the government of the Citadel of Islam had nothing in the world to do with the re-banning of two talk shows as the truth, shame on the federal government for allowing the Dubai authorities to do what they have done, and therefore giving the PPP a bad name.
What sort of government is it that, unbeknownst to it, any Tom, Dick or Harry can get up and telephone someone in Dubai and two popular shows go off the air?
kshafi1@yahoo.co.uk
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Politicians must stand by their word
Politicians must stand by their word
By Kamran Shafi
SEVERAL readers have sent me emails asking what I meant by the term ‘Shamelessness Quotient’ in an earlier article. Let me clarify. Just as there is an Intelligence Quotient (IQ) in every being, denoting his or her or its intelligence, there is a Shamelessness Quotient (SQ) too, denoting the degree of his or her or its shamelessness. More about which later.
Straight to the establishment now and to its new mantra, mouthed ever shrilly by its agents and many good people too. And that is that there are matters other than the restoration of the judiciary (that was dismissed by a chief of army staff after he suspended the constitution, mark) that need the politicians’ attention. An action, mark again, the man himself said was “illegal and unconstitutional”.
These agents and almost-agents among whose number the largest political party in the country, a political party that spans the federation and which is considered by many including myself a national asset might soon be counted, also pour scorn on the PML-N and particularly its leader Nawaz Sharif for its/his ‘stubbornness’ in insisting on the resolution of the judges’ issue before anything else.
While it is absolutely right that the country has been left in such an unholy mess by the Commando and Friends (Pvt.) Ltd., that there is much wrong with it which demands immediate attention, why is sticking to one’s word now a matter of denigration? Are we that changed because of repeated interventions by the army that we no longer have any sense of right and wrong, honour and dishonour?
Or are we to think that it is correct for politicians to say one thing and do entirely another? Are we to consider, then, that the shifting stand of the PPP is correct and beyond reproach? That Asif Zardari was right when he said that the PPP had merely signed a political statement in the Bhurban Accord, not written Ahadees? And that Nawaz Sharif was wrong in standing by his word?
Why cannot those who criticise the politicians that stand by their promise to see to it that the judiciary is restored to its Nov 2, 2007, position, appreciate the fact that the real problem is the almost decade-long dictatorship that has to be got rid of in very many more ways than one? And that the real culprit in this whole drama is the Commando and his foreign masters aided and abetted by certain politicians and wannabe politicians, led ably by those that today lead the People’s Party’s leadership by the nose?
But what a tamasha has been made of our country, seen on YouTube too, that an official as high as the chairman of the Federal Bureau of Revenue, a former federal secretary, should be dancing nautch-girl style for his boss, the Commando, and an assemblage of upwards of 100 people including the Private Banker with the smarmy smile.
Whilst I agree absolutely with those who hold that people can do as they please in their private time and that it is not right to show their acts to the public, I have to say that when you are partying at government expense, it can’t be a private matter.
Which brings me to ask, when the agony of this country will end? What a sigh of relief many heaved last week when rumours of the president’s imminent departure were heard — it was as if a huge weight had been lifted off one’s shoulders.
Yet here we are still saddled with him, with the quite sorry-looking George Dubya Bush phoning his tight buddy and assuring him of his undying love and support. While Dubya himself is embattled and disgraced like never before as all of his lies and half-truths are caught out, the latest knife in his side coming from none other than his own former press secretary, he still has the gall to telephone the Commando and interfere so blatantly in Pakistan’s internal affairs.
We talked about the Shamelessness Quotient (SQ) earlier on, and while I had remarked some weeks ago that the Commando’s seemed higher than we thought, I have to say now that it must be very high indeed. The people of Pakistan want him out and yet he clings to his illegally attained (as admitted by himself) office.
More than which, he is now seen as more of a Bush stooge than ever before.Bushism of the week: “You know, when you give a man more money in his pocket — in this case, a woman more money in her pocket to expand a business, it — they build new buildings. And when somebody builds a new building somebody has got to come and build the building. And when the building expanded it prevented additional opportunities for people to work.” — President George W Bush; Lancaster, Pa., Oct. 3, 2007.
kshafi1@yahoo.co.uk
By Kamran Shafi
SEVERAL readers have sent me emails asking what I meant by the term ‘Shamelessness Quotient’ in an earlier article. Let me clarify. Just as there is an Intelligence Quotient (IQ) in every being, denoting his or her or its intelligence, there is a Shamelessness Quotient (SQ) too, denoting the degree of his or her or its shamelessness. More about which later.
Straight to the establishment now and to its new mantra, mouthed ever shrilly by its agents and many good people too. And that is that there are matters other than the restoration of the judiciary (that was dismissed by a chief of army staff after he suspended the constitution, mark) that need the politicians’ attention. An action, mark again, the man himself said was “illegal and unconstitutional”.
These agents and almost-agents among whose number the largest political party in the country, a political party that spans the federation and which is considered by many including myself a national asset might soon be counted, also pour scorn on the PML-N and particularly its leader Nawaz Sharif for its/his ‘stubbornness’ in insisting on the resolution of the judges’ issue before anything else.
While it is absolutely right that the country has been left in such an unholy mess by the Commando and Friends (Pvt.) Ltd., that there is much wrong with it which demands immediate attention, why is sticking to one’s word now a matter of denigration? Are we that changed because of repeated interventions by the army that we no longer have any sense of right and wrong, honour and dishonour?
Or are we to think that it is correct for politicians to say one thing and do entirely another? Are we to consider, then, that the shifting stand of the PPP is correct and beyond reproach? That Asif Zardari was right when he said that the PPP had merely signed a political statement in the Bhurban Accord, not written Ahadees? And that Nawaz Sharif was wrong in standing by his word?
Why cannot those who criticise the politicians that stand by their promise to see to it that the judiciary is restored to its Nov 2, 2007, position, appreciate the fact that the real problem is the almost decade-long dictatorship that has to be got rid of in very many more ways than one? And that the real culprit in this whole drama is the Commando and his foreign masters aided and abetted by certain politicians and wannabe politicians, led ably by those that today lead the People’s Party’s leadership by the nose?
But what a tamasha has been made of our country, seen on YouTube too, that an official as high as the chairman of the Federal Bureau of Revenue, a former federal secretary, should be dancing nautch-girl style for his boss, the Commando, and an assemblage of upwards of 100 people including the Private Banker with the smarmy smile.
Whilst I agree absolutely with those who hold that people can do as they please in their private time and that it is not right to show their acts to the public, I have to say that when you are partying at government expense, it can’t be a private matter.
Which brings me to ask, when the agony of this country will end? What a sigh of relief many heaved last week when rumours of the president’s imminent departure were heard — it was as if a huge weight had been lifted off one’s shoulders.
Yet here we are still saddled with him, with the quite sorry-looking George Dubya Bush phoning his tight buddy and assuring him of his undying love and support. While Dubya himself is embattled and disgraced like never before as all of his lies and half-truths are caught out, the latest knife in his side coming from none other than his own former press secretary, he still has the gall to telephone the Commando and interfere so blatantly in Pakistan’s internal affairs.
We talked about the Shamelessness Quotient (SQ) earlier on, and while I had remarked some weeks ago that the Commando’s seemed higher than we thought, I have to say now that it must be very high indeed. The people of Pakistan want him out and yet he clings to his illegally attained (as admitted by himself) office.
More than which, he is now seen as more of a Bush stooge than ever before.Bushism of the week: “You know, when you give a man more money in his pocket — in this case, a woman more money in her pocket to expand a business, it — they build new buildings. And when somebody builds a new building somebody has got to come and build the building. And when the building expanded it prevented additional opportunities for people to work.” — President George W Bush; Lancaster, Pa., Oct. 3, 2007.
kshafi1@yahoo.co.uk
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)