The Elusive Last Straw

I am such an idiot. I thought we should get that out of the way early.

Remember September?

When the whole blasphemy video thing happened? When the PPP “capitulated” to the religious right?

I remember certain people, who hold sway in the media, people who claim to be on the left, being deeply scarred by all of it. I remember their anger and outrage, and I remember them finally running out of patience with their beloved party.

I remember it being “the last straw”. And I remember believing them.

See. Idiot.

Corruption, poverty and just plain slaughter that goes on in Karachi everyday is not of much concern for the intellectually gifted. It’s the pandering to the religious right, the targeting of minorities and the evil machinations of the military that fuel their fury.

Admirable. And perhaps why September seemed like a turning point; a last straw. It was and it wasn’t.

September was a last straw that came after many last straws, and many last straws have come after it. Many will come. What will change? Nada.

There might be some noise made when the circumstances don’t allow otherwise, like in September, but most last straws don’t even register. The camel quite obviously is on steroids and the last straw is but a myth.

Proof, you ask me?

Well, what do you know about the Sunni Ittehad Council? Forget that religious parties are inherently against the “we want a secular state” brigade, the SIC also openly supported Mumtaz Qadri. Mumtaz Qadri, in case you have trouble recalling, is the man who killed Salman Taseer. Salman Taseer, in case you have more trouble recalling, is the man certain people remember every day as the hero who fought darkness, the knight in shining armour and other stuff in that category.

Now, there’s been an alliance involving the SIC and a “liberal” party Salman Taseer called his own. Et tu, anyone? Well, no one, at least no one in the “independent” media and hence; no last straw.

Moving on we observe that the independent media doesn’t only exercise its independence by giving the PPP a free pass. Enter Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz, hail Nawaz Sharif, the lord and owner of Punjab. There’s a strange kind of love for his highness Nawaz Sharif in our “leftist” press, despite his very Zia-ish roots.

I first noted that last year and asked Mr. Nadeem F Paracha about this most peculiar phenomenon. A reply has not been forthcoming.

It so happens that the saviours of our Shia community never question PMLNs shady links with Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, past or present. And whilst PMLN might have entered into a declared alliance with ASWJ again, during the by-polls, chances are Sana Bucha will talk about the weather when Mr. Sharif graces her show.

Here too the last straw, needless to say, remains unattainable.

What about the military then?

Military = Evil. So, Military+PMLN+PPP = Outrage. This is just simple math, right?

Not quite.

All of you will be pleased to know that in light of Supreme Court’s Asghar Khan case judgement, which stated that military was indeed involved in rigging elections, PPP have done the honourable thing.

The party proudly announced that they will not be probing Punjab owner Nawaz Sharif for taking ISI money and the Asghar Khan case was, their words not mine; buried.

The military interference and the ISI money and the stealing of the people’s mandate; all forgiven. Surely this is the bloody last straw?

In your horny dreams.

So to recap, in the space of a half a week, the PPP and PMLN have combined to

1) Protect election rigging, the famed will of the people.
2) Give cover to military interference and protect culprits in this regard.
3) Form alliances with sectarian outfits blamed for much of the violence against Shias in the country.
4) Form alliances with religious outfits supporting the murder of a sitting governor over the blasphemy law.

And yet no last straw. Actually, no straw at all.

Since 3rd December, when SIC-PPP alliance came to light, till today, 9th, here’s how the honest and upright, the “dissenters”, have reacted:

Express Tribune, famous for their knack of spotting ASWJ flags, did not have an editorial on ASWJ-PMLN, nor did these teary-eyed Taseer fans give space to PPP-SIC. The newspaper also abstained from commenting on PPPs general amnesty for military interference.

Not a single one of Tribune’s “always excellent” op-ed writers was bothered by these trivial happenings. In fact the folks in this “newspaper”, God bless their unbiased heart, did not even report the SIC-PPP alliance.

Dawn News did not see it fit to write an editorial on ASWJ-PMLN, PPP-SIC or Amry-PPP-PMLN. They did not publish a single op-ed column on these developments as well.

Zero editorials or op-eds by The Nation. I could go on.

Beyond pathetic isn’t it. Depressing even.

All is not lost though, for these people will find their voices again once the PPP and PMLN are not in the picture.

Now when that happens, and it will happen, I would be thankful if everyone, respectfully, tells them to take their appreciation for Taseer, their concern for the Shias, their disdain for the deep state, alongside that elusive last straw, and shove it up their ass.

I condemn evil Jemima Khan’s vicious attack on Najam Sethi. Too.

Don’t you hate evil people? And don’t you love twitter? I know I do and I can’t stand the level of evil currently permeating on the twitter that I love.

Thankfully though, there are some selfless ones out there who have devoted their lives to identifying such evil and taking it to task. This blog post is inspired by the gallant words of one such heroine, who goes by the name of Tazeen Javed.

If you haven’t heard of her, shame on you. Tazeen recently took down the evil witch Jemima “Yahoodi” Khan, after the latter had hurled unholy incantations at the saintly Najam Sethi.

In a brave act, she consented to her “Op-Ed” being published at the Express Tribune website. Even though ET would never publish a rebuttal, there have been instances where critical comments get through their screening process.

Tazeen didn’t care. Respect.

You see the elderly journalist Najam Sethi, who is only the Chief Editor of the Friday Times and once or twice has been on a Geo News show, is clearly at a disadvantage against Jemima, occasional columnist who has a twitter account.

He obviously can’t take her on with his limited resources. Enter Ms Javed.

Morality demanded of her to help an old man in trouble and Tazeen, a champion of the oppressed, stepped up. In her Op-Ed, she broke off the shackles and destroyed the notoriously cruel Jemima Khan step by step. It was beautiful. Seriously, must read stuff.

As you all know, Jemima’s vitriol against Mr Sethi was based on “false accusations” that he referred to her as a Jew, despite her being a Muslim who had formerly been a Christian. So Ms Javed dismantled that notion right at the beginning.

It was crafty, because it needed to be. Najam Sethi sahib clearly states, within the first five minutes, that Imran Khan married a Jewish woman, in his casual gup-shup style. Damn Youtube. I know.

With the truth being muddled by the, umm, other truth on YouTube, Tazeen used the old diversion strategy to bring clarity. She started beating on about some clips of Fazl Ur Rehman and some bullies who had wronged her and helping Jemima, among other very profound … reasoning.

The fact that Jemima’s vile rant was actually against Sethi sahib’s “British media Jewish Heiress” tweet didn’t get space in the eloquent article. Instead, Ms Javed slid in some real wise ass digs at Jemima, the Express Tribune editor LoL-ed at those.

Some column space still needed to be filled and Tazeen was running out of ideas. Fortunately, she had just watched the hilarious Brit comedy “The Invention of Lying”. Believing events in the movie to be real, Ms Javed decided to give it a go. Thus she next implied that Najam had been targeted because it was easier to do so, and Fazl-ur-Rehman let off.

Yes, I know Jemima had come down much harder on Maulana Diesel, but it’s ET. Honest people. And that movie is quite funny actually. So, you know… It’s for a good cause.

Now we get to closing the piece. Throw in a reference to Saleem Shehzad, because that was completely relevant in Jemima vs. Sethi, and complain about PTI trolls. That’s the standard recipe to get a smoking piece of shit published these days.

Tazeen Javed knows that and the editor at ET doesn’t know better. Prompt a first comment that says “I watched the show. I swear what’s written above is true”, a very recurring coincidence, and the smacketh down has been laid. Counter that you Jewish heiress. Power of the pen, ET style.

There’s a lesson here for Jemima. Since “she was never considered particularly bright by anyone of note”, I am going to have to spell it out for her.

We Hate You.

By “we”, of course I mean the Pakistani press. It’s annoying to us that you don’t get it already. Have you forgotten what we did to you in the nineties? We are going to it all over again baby, just you see.

Actually, it’s not just the media. It’s pretty much the whole country. You married a national hero, but we still kicked your ass. You have already lost your marriage because of us, you have been driven out of the country, and we weren’t even being mean back then.

We won’t stop coming for you either. So please do the only thing that we will tolerate; shut up.

Comprendo?

Shut Up.

Just keep mum as Fazl-ur-Rehman attacks your children and Najam Sethi wonders about your religion. You have no right to speak up.

If you do, we sting. You can’t win no matter what you say. For instance, in the month of February, Nadeem F. Paracha is going to put on his smug face and call you a hypocrite every time he thinks of Hafiz Saeed. He thinks of Hafiz Saeed ALOT, btw.

We don’t care about making sense. You think you can mess with Najam Sethi? You Jehadi Jew hypocrite, NFP judges you.

And so do the rest of us.