Plight Of The Left

The last week and a half was not the best time to be a liberal in Pakistan.

First, the so called capitulation of the Pakistan People’s Party Government to the religious right in the shape of that holiday. Really went down well that decision.

A more severe blow came as ANP stalwart and porn king Ghulam Bilour announced a $100,000 bounty for the filmmaker behind “Innocence of Muslims”. Not only that, he asked his “brothers” from Al-Qaeda and the Taliban to help.

Raja Pervez Ashraf has since distanced the Pakistan government from Bilour’s statement and views, as have the ANP. Talk of Ghulam Bilour being disciplined by the government or party has quickly died down.

The usual “betrayal by the PPP” line has been picked up by many in the liberal press and on social media, regards to their latest so called appeasement of the religious right. Granted there’s some genuine anger, but it will subside by next weekend and liberals will return to “their” party.

Until next time. And the time after that, and so on and so forth. Never realizing that PPP is not “their” party and it hasn’t been for a long time. But hey, better denial than anger, right?

As much as everyone wants to forget, this is a party whose lawmaker believes they have a right to corruption and defended that right on TV. That’s their ideology: corruption. They genuinely believe that they have the right to loot and steal and make money in all imaginable and unimaginable ways. Co-Chairman of PPP and President of Pakistan Asif Zardari - of course - wrote the book on said ideology and the exploits of Prime Minister Gillani are well known now.

Is there anything liberal or leftist about those two? The son of a tribal chief and a “Gaddi Nasheen”. Or about Rehman Malik? Or Raja Pervez Ashraf?

Truth is PPP doesn’t resemble a leftist party at all. Mian Mithu cancels more than Raza Rabbani, shut up. It is an apolitical entity at best and a criminal empire at worst.

Meanwhile everyone in the “party” wants a piece of the pie, which happens to be Pakistan. The ministers, the MNAs and the MPAs, down to the “jiyalas”. While MNAs get ephedrine quotas, the Jiyalas are rewarded with governmental jobs and paid bundled salaries as per the reinstatement policy. This is their politics, this is how loyalties are bought and/or strengthened.

Add to it the cult status in Sindh and new voter hiring through Benazir Income Support Program and you have a robust machine that doesn’t need to care about the left, or the right. They can afford to just do nothing, and that’s actually what they do; nothing.

So whoever shouts the loudest at them, or whoever cuts a deal, gets what they want.

Therefore, this talk of a betrayal just sounds desperate.

Liberals are a non factor for the PPP. They are useful for painting a good picture in the press, and maybe in front of Washington. So the PPP uses them, gets the columns in, gets two wise old men on TV to sing their praises and then settles to the right of Jamaat-e-Islami on Friday.

Why do the liberals go back? Well, partly because many are deeply invested in the PPP, either financially or emotionally, and partly because seemingly there’s nowhere else to go.

ANP, although staunchly secular, is more a regional party and would never be able to press ahead liberal agendas nationally. The worry now is that ANP have not only fallen prey to the disease of corruption, they have also taken up arms in Karachi. And once you cross those lines, there’s not much reason for you to shy away from anything else.

That’s where Bilour’s statement came from. Expect more of the same from ANP in an election year with anti-Americanism rife in KPK.

So what do the liberals do? The worst thing possible, of course.

The advance guard of PPP propagandists has already set foot in the MQM camp. Apparently, Altaf Hussain is the new benchmark for progressive and secular ideals and must be championed for his bravery and other assorted bullshit.

Make no mistake - the MQM is one of the biggest most lethal terrorist organizations in the world. According to Wikileaks the US believes MQM have 10,000 active fighters and 25,000 reserves in their ranks and draw funding through an extortion racket which is one of the most effective and punishing in the world. Granted MQM does have a political wing but that hasn’t made the killing or extortion go away.

Needless to say, this is a death-trap. MQM has the blood of thousands on its hands, and as other ethnic groups in Karachi start to fight for a share of the spoils, represented by yours liberally PPP and ANP of course, the violence will only increase.

I know that the propagandists have to earn bread and have already killed their conscience. They know all of the above better than me, and are not in the slightest bit bothered. The rest of you lot need to realize that this will not work, and it is not working.

The liberal cause has only suffered in the hands of the PPP, ANP and MQM the last 5 years and space for the right has expanded. These are people who do not care about any law and they don’t care about human life, what to speak of an ideology.

Pakistan needs all the liberals and progressives it can get, but their continued indulgence with the PPP and now MQM renders them indefensible and takes away any moral authority. Calls for introspection are raised regularly by the left. They would do well to know charity begins at home.

If a day’s mayhem in Islamabad shook your confidence in the Pakistan People’s Party while four years of slaughter in Karachi did not, you need to take a hard look in the mirror.

Please stop prioritizing ideology over humanity. It is time to start over.

Liberals Gone Wild

No, this isn’t about TheRealWTF in a wet T-shirt contest, this is something even wilder. A couple of days ago I was witness to a very impassioned tweet sermon by a very impassionate - I am not supposed to take names here, so we shall just call him Mr. Mehrumi.

Mr. Mehrumi is known for being a liberal voice among us backward folk, and his stances on minority rights are a particularly admirable trait. Imagine my surprise then that the moving tweets were actually directed against people taking up a minority cause.

Yes, those darned Rohingyas in Burma/Myanmar. They have not only caused much suffering there - to themselves, by existing - but also masterminded some serious turbulence in Pakistan. I don’t know what it exactly is, but the Pakistani liberalese don’t like them Burmese. I suspect it’s because of the rumoured Arab descent. Our liberals don’t take kindly to the Arabs, although they do take kindly to their American friends. Reasonable people.

So, Mr. Mehrumi didn't turn out to be the only wild one. In fact, there is plenty of outrage found amongst the Pakistani NGO running humanitarian community against the outrage against the persecution of Rohingyas. Geddit?

The liberals are angry that you give a shit about massacres in Burma. Yes.

That is not all. If you give a shit about the massacres in Burma, you are inherently bigoted AND you are against every minority cause inside Pakistan. Like Ahmedi persecution, the Shia killings, etc.

I am all for outrage, I really am, but I have got to point something out to our more enlightened brethren.

Here goes.

You are full of bullshit.


Allow me to explain.

Nobody made you the judge of my morality, or anyone else’s and nobody made you the "Thaykedaar" of our conscience. Speaking up for the cause of Muslims, and let’s face it that’s the only problem you have with all of this, does not make me insensitive to minority causes at home.

It certainly does not make it fit for you to say, or in any way imply, that I am against the cause of a Shia or an Ahmedi or a Baloch.

This “let’s call everyone out on selective outrage” thing that you have going, stop it.

Seriously. You avoid MENTIONING the daily Karachi killings by “secular” political parties, which is naked terrorism, as resolutely as Rehman Malik avoids making sense, and you have the audacity to call people out on selective outrage?

And what do you really do about the Ahmedis and the Shias of this country? They are under siege and you continue to support the PPP government which has simply turned its back on them. The Hazara MNA Syed Nasir Ali Shah staged a protest sit-in in front of Parliament House against the Government, and what do you do?

Clap when Zardari gives one meaningless statement after the other! Look up the meaning of shameless. Please.

Discuss at length the TDKR shooting and the freaking gun laws in America but talking about Rohingya massacres diverts attention from important causes? I mean. Wow. WOW.

I have to say.. Well I don’t. It won’t matter; I don’t have grants to hand out.

So. As I said. You are full of bullshit.

Bash Thy Army

Bashing the military is a favourite past time of the ones who have been enlightened, and rightly so. An increasing number of cool boys now also want to be enlightened, so they have taken to bashing the army too. The tool is a laptop; the location is their cosy house in Defence.

The new army bashers however, in my humble view, need to know a thing or two before launching into a gallant bayonet charge. So I have decided to help them out and will now try to explain how to effectively bash the malicious military, or how to do it ineffectively.

Props to my dear mentor and angry middle aged man, Nadeem F. Paracha; for the master is once again a step ahead of the pupil. He knows the young ones need guidance, so he recently demonstrated how NOT to bash the military.

“We have latest fighter jets for the military, but rickety 27-yr-old passenger planes for the people. Doesn't sound right.”

Let’s put aside the fact that it is terribly distasteful to try and use a tragedy to further your own agenda, and focus on the content.

The rickety 27-year old passenger plane that went down did not belong to the PIA; it belonged to a private airline, so the comparison with military jets does seem ridiculous. They don’t have the same source. The latest military jets also do crash and there have been multiple instances in the current year already.

In any case, Pakistan is doling out billions to the national air carrier so that handpicked Jiyalas in the management can have the prettiest air hostesses to mingle with.

NFP knows all of this, probably better than I do. However when Bhoja crashed a lot of the reactionary anger on social media was directed at the PPP. Naturally, the Jiyala in him had to alter the discourse, so he came up with the above mentioned gem.

We shall get back to this later. Let’s go through other NOT to do bashing routines first.

Another wrong way of doing it is stating incorrect, made-up figures. So vehement had the propaganda been regards the Army’s share of national budget that an army officer’s son once convinced me the military gets 60 percent.

This misrepresentation then allows Ashfaq Pervez Kayani to correct you with a smug look on his face. The share proposed in the next budget is 20 percent, although ET will tell you that coupled with the 2 percent for education, not with the many percents spent on loan repayments to our foreign benefactors. Najam Sethi will add around 5 to 10 percent for allowances and/or pensions.

One more thing I have noticed is the overzealous criticism of the military by some of its main beneficiaries. Yes, I am looking at you; supporters of the Sher who is also Ameer-ul-Momineen. Without any political achievements to boast about, certain people and their supporters have decided to just spout nonsense in this regard; framing it as their biggest draw.

It’s probably because they believe everyone has magically forgotten the identity of Gen Zia-ul-Haq’s Chief Minister in Punjab. Or perhaps they don’t know who Chotay Mian Sahab came to meet in Rawalpindi the night before Long March.

Going back to NFP, the point he was obviously trying to make is that bashing for the sake of it seems stupid. In fact, these are all examples of partisan bashing and people are able to see through them now. Therefore, all they do is harm the good cause. A large section of the population relates patriotism with the military, for good or for bad. With the unwarranted, shallow and often baseless criticism of the institution, enlightened ones continue to alienate those who might otherwise realise that the army has transgressed on many occasions.

There was much momentum gained to this end in the last few years of Musharraf, momentum that could have been harnessed to effectively curb the influence of our establishment. The shenanigans of the political elite however have slowly eroded that momentum. Whose fault is that?

I had grown tired of hearing it and now, thanks to the memo-gate, the excuse that the elite are helpless is no longer a valid argument either. To protect one of their own, they can stare down the combined might of the military and the judiciary, and are helpless only when rights violations are committed against people whose votes don’t matter to them?

In a democratic country, the onus should be on the political class to take the lead in tackling all issues. Questions are to be asked of them, and they have to provide the answers. Try doing that in Pakistan and you will get ridiculed by a certain section of the press who believes the military is responsible for all evil.

Well, even if it is, ask the people you voted for to do something about it. How does the military being wrong make the ruling class saints? It’s the most amazing, awesome logic ever crafted.

The irony is that the politicians they are trying to protect are the same ones who have benefited from the military in the past and continue to do so in the present. The relationship works both ways, appointing the Air Chief Marshal as MD PIA is just another example.

It is also a fact that the Chief of Army Staff is NOT appointed through a general vote, nor is the head of the ISI. Directly, the people cannot hold them accountable. So at the end of the day, you and I can only vote people into parliament and it is up to them to take the military to task.

Bypassing the face of the government seemed logical when a serving Army Chief was also the President. He is not anymore; Bhutto’s spiritual son has taken over. Wake up and ask him to settle matters with the man who gave him an NRO.

To Nadeem F. Paracha, for Sindh

Dear Nadeem F. Paracha,

Yes, it is me again, your devoted follower. I want to shower you with praises once more, and this time I am really enthusiastic. You blow my mind man, you really do. It was so obvious, yet I and other brain dead folk like me couldn’t see it. The memogate scandal is about Sindh – It always has been.

Asif Ali Zardari is being victimized here and that obviously means the military is out to wreak havoc in Sindh again. After all, he is a “top political leader from the Sindh province”, who couldn’t even win a district council seat in Nawabshah before a certain wedding ceremony. His political life though screams of struggle for Sindh. Among his many, many accomplishments is marrying Benazir Bhutto and being safely tucked away abroad while she was assassinated in Pakistan. A true political leader if I ever saw one.

Sindhis really love the man. His tenure as President has brought untold happiness to Sindh. Zardari, the Sindhi patriot from Balochistan that he is, showed his real love for the people when the terrible floods hit. He just couldn’t bear the sight of devastation in Sindh and therefore went away to pray in a remote makeshift tent somewhere in France! Possibly without food and water!

Is it any wonder then that the filthy Punjabi establishment hate him so much? However, no one in our sell-out media could see this coming. Their judgment is probably clouded by the facts, but you suffer no such disadvantages. You saw through the smokescreen to uncover the real agenda here, a Sindhi democrat under threat by the Punjabi military men.

They have had it in for him right from the start haven’t they? I bet Gen Musharraf and Gen Kayani had this in mind when they thrashed out the NRO and gave him complete immunity for all crimes committed – The establishment was just luring him in. Kayani also tricked Zardari into giving him the 3-year extension so that he could strike when the time was right.

The naïve among us still believe that Kayani and Zardari are fighting after failing to backstab each other. Don’t be angry at them though Mr. Paracha, they have been raised on a false education.

They don’t know the history of the Punjab – Destroying one Sindhi leader after the other. Zardari is not the first; his ‘spiritual father’ suffered the same fate because he was a Sindhi. You see, “daddy” Gen Ayub Khan didn’t really love Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. He made him his foreign minister, but kept all the best toys for the other ministers.

When Bhutto finally realized this, he denounced dictatorships and decided that democracy really would be the best revenge, at once launching his struggle against the wretched Punjabi establishment.

He swept into power riding the support of the masses from, among other places, Lahore and Punjab, but they were actually just deceiving him, as was the military. See, Gen Yahya Khan was in on it as well. The establishment hated the Sindhi Bhutto, but still supported him against Mujeeb-ur-Rehman even at the cost of breaking up Pakistan, obviously with ulterior motives in mind.

Their ploy ran deep. Just when Bhutto started trusting the military and appointed an out of turn, ill-deserving and possibly disturbed Gen Zia ul Haq as Chief of the Army Staff, tragedy struck. Bhutto bypassed Lt. Gens Muhammad Shariff, Muhammed Akbar Khan, Aftab Ahmed Khan, Azmat Baksh Awan, Agha Ibrahim Akram, Abdul Majeed Malik and Ghulam Jilani Khan in choosing Zia as the COAS, and how did that Punjabi reward him?

The complete military establishment is to blame for what an incompetent, 8th choice General did – He was Punjabi too! The plot thickens indeed.

It is also irrelevant that the number of military coups against governments of Nawaz Sharif, Iskander Mirza and Zulfiqar Bhutto, all from different provincial backgrounds, is the same, i.e. ONE.

What’s relevant is that Zardari has somehow managed to become the President of Pakistan, he didn't benefit from the establishment sponsored NRO, he wears a Sindhi topi when under pressure and there must not be any grounds for a remote-controlled tsunami, yes, I do know what you mean. *wink wink*.

Speaking of remote-controlled, Sana Bucha really fancies Mr. Nawaz Sharif. With the Americans backing Sharif to be our next ruler you have to water down your already watered down references to him being an old military stooge and current military pawn. Or else Fasi Zaka won’t speak to you for a week – Serious!

Not to worry, we will deal with these matters when the time comes. Let us rejoice in the now, for you have attained the intellectual astuteness of the one and only Dr. Babar Awan, the only other guy on TV who keeps playing the Sindh card. I seriously don’t think you can go any higher than that, but I know you have a tendency to surprise us all.

So let Zardari be, everyone – Sindh loves him. He stops target killing in Karachi at least twice a day!


Hoping to hear from you soon,

Devoted mind-blown-ed follower.

Bravo Mr. Zaka – Down with Immy K

I read a Fasi Zaka piece recently, the crux of which was that a vote for Imran Khan is a vote for Zardari.

I would like to congratulate him on such a brilliant and original point of view. It’s a point of view that has not been expressed vehemently over all media outlets by the PML-N, whose leader Mr. Zaka incidentally views as the “most progressive leader of late”.

Zaka has apparently been very impressed by Nawaz Sharif for saying “some extraordinary things for some time now”. Isn’t it wonderful how our so-called analysts love a politician bashing the military? Even though, the mentioned politician was raised by the military under Zia and re-launched by the military in the IJI.

Therefore, the writer astutely pointed out that it is not Nawaz, but Imran who is likely to promote an agenda of the establishment. It doesn’t matter that he rejected their advances during the Musharraf era, there is just something about the Khan that doesn’t fit in for our learned analysts.

The Americans have called him the only Pakistani politician outside their influence, so how can Zaka mark a tick on the box next to foreign policy for Imran? The former cricket captain is also an ally of the Taliban, whom the PML-N and PPP actively supported during the 1990s. Imran would have done so too, little jihadi devil that he is, but he was a Jewish agent back then so it wouldn’t have made sense.

I personally got a little uncomfortable with the sympathy for Zardari – Perhaps I am just biased. After all, during his tenure Pakistan has reached new heights of development in all fields imaginable. We have so much electricity we can export it, we have money to burn, people are happy, suicides are coming down, crime is non-existent, target killing is unheard of and it isn’t like he has billions in looted wealth tucked away somewhere in Switzerland.

Fasi points out the reason for my bias; it’s because our dear President had to deal with a hostile establishment. Yes, nothing says bad relations with the establishment than giving three year extensions to the COAS and his spy master – The ISI chief.

The point though, was driven home at the start. Shrewd as he is, Fasi drew parallels with politics in America to put Imran in his place. No, Imran’s not like the populist Barrack Obama who came to power by promising change in the last elections – That would be silly. He is Ralph Nader, the man who spoiled the party for Al Gore aka Nawaz Sharif and inadvertently helped George W Bush aka Zardari.

It’s a battle between the right and the left you see. We have an unemotional and educated electorate who vote on ideology. They don’t vote because of cult love for Bhutto, or because of sympathy after Benazir’s assassination. I can also testify that there was not one man who voted for Nawaz Sharif because of dislike for Musharraf – Not a single one.

No matter the situation in the country, no matter the popular sentiment, people will vote as they are supposed to and everyone knows that it has been written down for us to vote only for the two parties currently entrenched in power. We just don’t have any say in the matter – It’s not like free will exists!

To the burger boys that turned up at Minto Park in Lahore and keep telling us that we have a third option – you guys can shut up already! Don’t you know that Mr. Zaka has decided who everyone is going to vote for?

And his dear Mian Sahab has already waited an awful while to get his turn.


P.S: If you didn't get the sarcasm; don't have kids.