I MEAN, really! It is another matter for Mr Altaf Hussain, the Quaid-i-Tehrik of the MQM to go to the extent of asking ‘patriotic’ generals to act against the legally and constitutionally elected government of which his own party is part not only in Sindh but at the centre too.

Bizarre, because the least he could do if he was halfway serious, was to pull his party out of the two coalitions. But it is totally another for analysts and pundits to say that whilst they are against martial law, they could countenance generals using their clout to pull politicians into line. Is this not bizarre too? For, what if the politicians concerned were to tell the generals to take a hike; what then? Would these pundits then support an army takeover? Mindless.

Whilst every manner of commentator and talk-show host on most channels has taken serious exception to Altaf Bhai’s incendiary statement made worse by all of the furious back-pedalling by himself as well as his party’s senior leadership, let us dwell awhile on the progenitor of this whole shemozzle.

Should a man who has built the MQM into a non-questioning, monolithic, disciplined force that says it believes in democracy, a force that can turn out hundreds of thousands of mostly literate, educated cadres every time he wishes to address them on the telephone from north London on any street in Karachi, say any of what Altaf Bhai has said?

Could it indeed be, as some have already suggested, kite-flying to test the wind as to the return of the Commando? After all, it is being bandied about in the press as I write this, is it not? There are murmurings that Musharraf’s acolytes are sussing out whether the turncoats aka lotas of the PPP and the PML-N can once more be galvanised into yet another Muslim League. So, is Mr Hussain’s earthshaking call to ‘patriotic’ generals a part of a grand scheme?

We will find out soon enough as we inevitably do, but the question to ask is why the People’s Party is not taking a firm stand against what the MQM leader has said. Why is it not lending its support to the PML-N’s firm opposition to Mr Hussain’s clarion call to ‘patriotic’ generals? I have said this before to the PPP and the PML-N, the two major parties in the country. For God’s sake control your respective hawks, and there is this bird on both sides and come together once more in a coalition in the centre too. United you will stand, divided you will fall, one after the other.

Amidst all the furore unleashed by Altaf Bhai, which came in the middle of the flood that has destroyed millions of lives, come the latest allegations of match-fixing by Pakistani cricketers. These allegations, while they centre on the Lord’s Test that we lost so ignominiously just the other day, also include match-fixing in our disastrous tour of Australia last year.

Let me say this to the government: enough! If the allegations are proved to be right (if they are false, the News of the World can and should be sued for a hundred million pounds) dismiss the entire cricket shebang and ban international cricket in Pakistan for at least five years and build up an entirely new team by invigorating tehsil and district level cricket clubs.

Hockey and squash are in dire straits in Pakistan too as we well know, so rise above politics, abolish the sports ministry and hand over the entire shoot to Imran Khan, making him czar of sports in Pakistan and giving him every authority. Let him refuse to do the job as some say he will, but be big and make the offer with an open heart. Let the onus be on him.

As a further reminder to those who are attempting to play the Great Game, here is another excerpt from Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef’s My Life with the Taliban. The mullah who was the first and only ambassador of the Islamic (Taliban) Emirate of Afghanistan to the Citadel of Islam and I are polar opposites in every sense of the term: I could not agree with him on anything, whether it is the treatment of women or minorities, or so-called Islamic jurisprudence as practised by the Taliban; but he is a truthful man from all that one has read about and by him.

This is what he has to say about us: “Pakistan, which plays a key role in Asia, is so famous for treachery that it is said they can get milk from a bull. They have two tongues in one mouth, and two faces on one head so they can speak everybody’s language; they use everybody, deceive everybody.

They deceive the Arabs under the guise of Islamic nuclear power, saying that they are defending Islam and Islamic countries. They milk America and Europe in the alliance against terrorism, and they have been deceiving Pakistani and other Muslims around the world in the name of the Kashmiri jihad. But behind the curtain they have been betraying everyone.”

Er, which Taliban are we championing now please, sirs?

kshafi1@yahoo.co.uk