Working Paper On Political Implications Of Disease In Journalism

A strange cosmic event occurred yesterday. I saw a number of people criticising MQM for putting someone’s life in danger. The someone being Khursheed Shah of the PPP, the number of people being the many past & present PPP loyalists in the media. 

This shouldn’t be a surprise then should it? If PPP were threatened, PPP would come to the rescue. Not exactly. Over the last 6 or so years, the MQM have not only threatened, they have killed plenty of PPP people. It hasn’t really bothered the gents in question. Of course the lives of low level party workers or caught in cross fire innocents are less dear to intellectuals than the lives of venerated meter readers/leaders, but that’s not the complete story.

A closer look at the situation reveals that the enlightened people are angry not because of the destination, but because of the route MQM have chosen to get there. Blasphemy allegation. Thou shall not mix religion with politics, lest bad things happen. 

Or a wonderful thing. For the last 6 years, the same people have been so quiet about the MQM that you would think they were too busy shitting their pants, or that their drugs were being held hostage, or that they were just plain incapable of sight or comprehension when it came to the party. Because the party that has somewhere between 10-to-35 thousand armed combatants at its command, which it uses to kill political opponents, to kidnap and to extort, (when they are not secularizing the environment) never had to hear any complains about its conduct from our friends.

Yet they have now found their voice. As soon as MQM played the blasphemy card, it became evident that the avowedly liberal are capable of not only witnessing MQM’s activities, but also adept at speaking up to the Namaloom among us. 

Which is why we must perhaps rethink the label of PPP loyalists, for these are men, and women, persons, loyal not to any political party, but only to ideology. So much so, that they do not see anything outside of an ideological context. 

For example. Killing people in the name of religion.  *Blood boiling*. 

See, religion is a no go, religion based politics, religious violence. So killing people in the name of religion is wrong. Their definition of any title they grant each other is simply “one who opposes any ills that befall us because of religion & religion alone”. Hence the blasphemy outrage. 

Once you take the religion part out of it, they become placated.

For example. Killing people.  *crickets chirping*

Nothing. This is why as MQM, PPP & ANP have murdered thousands upon thousands in Karachi, to go along with extortion and other minor offences, our friends with ideological clarity have remained at peace with these parties. The reasons for killing and extortion by these parties are strictly secular, so it’s ok. 

Consider that in the many, many, many decades between 2007 and 2011 around 7,000 people were shot dead in Karachi. Also consider that in the short while between 1947 and 2014, around 6,123 people have been killed in the whole of Pakistan via suicide bombings. Now contrast the outrage.

Again, here’s why; they simply do not see a murder if it is not a murder in the name of religion. In fact the concept of crime as a whole is lost to these folk. Whether it be money laundering, stealing, kidnapping, extortion, land grabbing & of course killing, it simply does not register as a crime unless it is done in the name of religion or done by religious outfits (because they do it in the name of religion, duuhhh).

People who suffer from this condition are called Non-Facetious Peeplyas or NFPs for short. The condition is called NFPtitis. And its discovery helps explain many aspects of the, much talked about yet hitherto unexplained, political deadlock at the journo-worker level.

See, NFPtitis has political choice implications and it renders the moral, legal and magnetic compass of a patient obsolete. This in turn leads to a lot of confusion & anger when NFPs are dealing with political opponents. A great example to consider would be their interaction with PTI folk.

The new party on the block is largely fuelled by affluent upper middle class types from urban areas. These are largely non-ideological individuals who stayed away from politics until half a decade ago. Their view of crime is not shaped by an ideological leaning.

That is to say; they consider killing people a crime, and this is important, even if it is not done in the name of religion. This holds true also for stealing, kidnapping, extortion & other offences. Also worth noting is that they harbour  disdain for the excesses committed by political elite & can’t shake of a sense of injustice borne from the old guard parties, metaphorically speaking,  literally getting away with murder.

So when they interact with an NFP who’s propagating the case for, say, PPP or MQM they would have a certain aloofness or aggression. The aloofness because they have not, & the aggression because the PPP has, been involved in killings, corruption & other such stuff.

On their part, an NFP believes that PPP has done no killing & corruption because, as explained earlier, the NFP is programmed to register a crime only when it’s done in the name of religion. NFPs are thus, in their mind, presenting the case not of criminals, but normal politicians. The NFPs also tend to believe that middle class focused politics is not the best way to go. They constantly hallucinate about a young feudal billionaire prince as the messiah who can shout the lower classes into prosperity.

Encounters between the two thus leave the PTI folk amazed that there are people asinine enough to defend such criminals. While the NFPs are left wondering how people can be so self-righteous & vicious, not to mention who mock Marx’s vision of dynastic rule by billionaire capitalists to empower the lower classes. Crazy talk comrade.

This is a genuine problem which has gone unaddressed for too long. The PTI folk, unable to comprehend how seemingly educated people in media can openly support criminals & murderers, conclude that NFPs are on the party payroll. The NFPs, impervious to crime committed by a PPP type party because of NFPtitis, are unable to comprehend how seemingly educated people on social media can be so hateful. They conclude that the PTI folk are intolerant trolls. Fascist, say those in terminal stages of NFPtitis.

All the hate because they don't understand each other, and that because of one silly disease. Sigh. 

This chasm greatly pains me, and needs urgent redress. So people can live in peace & harmony. And Karachi. However, great challenges mar this endeavour. On the one hand, cleansing lifelong ideology from the NFPs is too much to ask for. On the other hand, indoctrination of all middle class urbanites is too tedious a task. 

What to do? Have no fear, for my suggestion to resolve the issue at hand is both, like me, brilliant and simple. Legalize marijuana. 

I mean crime. Legalize crime. It solves everything.

The NFPs’ worldview comes in line with the rest of the country, AND the urban middle classes lose their sense of injustice & hate towards parties that NFPs love. We can thus live in an ideological utopia where nonsense concepts like crime & law won’t hamper us from siding with the thief of our choice. And you know there won’t be murder in such a society, because we won’t admit that anyone was murdered. Like Murtaza. 

You’re all welcome.

Why Pervez Hoodbhoy, Why?

How much bullshit is enough bullshit? That’s the question Dr. Pervez Hoodbhoy ought to ask himself, or you ought to ask Dr. Pervez Hoodbhoy, after he produced some high quality bullshit in Express Tribune this Saturday.

Cricketer Khan and Maulana Qadri? Really, you were a professor? Do you also use Lohar Sharif and Husband Zardari?

The corruption in Pakistan, which amounts to billions of rupees daily according to a government friendly and government appointed NAB chief, is not really an issue. The youth are over-zealous pawns and contraceptives will save Pakistan! Right.

How desperate, bitter and biased do you have to be that you invent a country to justify your bullshit?

Have any of you heard of Italy? It’s a country in Europe, shaped like a boot. It’s where Pizza came from.

Well, there’s a separate Italy, the real Italy that only Mr. Hoodbhoy knows of. It’s a land filled with joy, ruled by the happy go lucky Silvio Berlusconi. It is totally unaffected by the corruption and ineptness of its rulers and it just keeps getting “richer and better”.

The fake Italy we know has fallen on tough times. Berlusconi’s corrupt government coincided with a steep decline in the country’s fortunes. It doesn’t keep getting “richer and better”; in fact the economy has shrunk in the golden corrupt hands of Mr. Berlusconi. Things were so bad that they ushered in a technocratic government to fix the economy. That’s exactly what we have been dreading since Maulana Qadri came onto the scene.

Mr. Hoodbhoy though isn’t only an expert on Italy; he also knows a little something about the USA and her devious presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Thing is, the Americans have it as bad as we do, have you ever heard them complain? I mean Romney only paid as much tax as our “unscrupulous parliamentarians.”

Very accurate on all counts.

The Americans don’t mind at all. The occupy Wall Street movement was actually a protest against skin tight pants. Long overdue, I know. The institutionalized corruption and lending to banks hasn’t hurt them either, just that people don’t have jobs, the country’s debt keeps soaring and it narrowly avoided a so called fiscal cliff.

Romney paid almost $2 million in personal income tax in 2011. That is 20 Crore PKR. That is almost 19 Crore more than what Lohar Sharif and Showbaz Sharif paid combined that year. That is 20 Crore more than what our President Husband Zardari paid. That is not “only a little more”.

Anyways, let us not dwell on the details. Bottom line is that corruption obviously isn’t Pakistan’s problem, or Italy’s. Or America’s. Then what is?

The professor seems to have sourced a 7th grader’s essay to answer that question. Saving the issues of poverty and illiteracy for another time, he chose to focus on 1) population. His insight really is unparalleled. He would also like you to believe that this problem would have been brought under control if it weren’t for the big bad Jamaat-e-Islami and their 2/3rd majority in parliament.

Then we move to 2)terrorism, which Lohar Sharif and Husband Zardari would have defeated by now if it weren’t for Maulana Qadri’s three weeks in Pakistan or Cricketer Khan’s objection of drones. Contrary to what the mad cricketer says, drones work. Just look at how North Waziristan is now a terrorist-free zone thanks to drone attacks.

Last is the economy. You don’t have to collect taxes and redistribute wealth, you just have to 3) create more wealth. Husband Zardari has been creating wealth by printing wealth, doesn’t seem to have worked.

Not to worry though, Lohar Sharif will do it. The pathetic GDP growth in Lohar’s two stints as PM, the even more pathetic GDP growth of Punjab the last five years, and PMLN’s vision to implement Bush style tax cuts that left US economy in tatters all tell Dr. Pervez Hoodbhoy (PhD) that Lohar is the man.

Mind-blowing analytical skills.

Meanwhile, “the fist shaking, rostrum pounding” Cricketer, whom the professor desperately wants to group with the Maulana, has included both terrorism and the economy in his “empty thunder” that offers “nothing real”. He has been out administering polio drops, demanding justice for the Shia-Hazaras and his party has actually given an economic policy, which the heroic PMLN have not.

This is obfuscation of the most shameless kind. Lies and more lies. There was no point to Hoodbhoy’s piece apart from attacking anyone threatening the two established parties. Not an inch of substance.

Why?