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  #131  
Old Monday, February 01, 2016
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Default January 31st, 2016

Smokers’ Corner: It came from within


The collective mindset of a nation is a powerful thing. Mostly built with various political and historical myths, it determines how a nation thinks as a whole.

Mindsets are often weaved from narratives invented by the state. This is mostly done to keep a nation intact as an ethnic, religious or geographical whole, or as a singular national and ideological entity.

The narrative in such a case is conceived to build a collective mindset which would inherently supplement and fall in line with the state’s policies, without much resistance.

Nevertheless, sometimes such a mindset, after it trickles down from above (the state) and is then fully absorbed by those below, becomes a domain of the people.

So much so, that even when the state decides to change the narrative to suit its new-found needs, it struggles to make the people shrug-off the old mindset. Because after decades of propagating the narrative, the mindset that it produced, becomes powerfully ingrained in the social, political and spiritual DNA of a nation. Eradicating it or replacing it with a new narrative and mindset, becomes an extremely tough task.

Mindsets are often weaved from state-invented narratives to keep a nation intact as an ethnic, religious or geographical whole, or as a singular national and ideological entity
This is exactly what has happened in Pakistan. And this is why the current government and the military-establishment is finding it difficult to implement those parts of the National Action Plan which seek to transform the collective mindset which was propagated by the state to make Pakistanis believe that they, as a nation, were a bastion of belief, surrounded by enemies who were plotting to destroy their faith.

Today, with an unprecedented military operation against extremists in full swing, the state and government of Pakistan, however, have somewhat struggled to change a collective mindset which almost automatically generates numerous ‘apologetic’ voices whenever the military takes action or whenever the militants retaliate.

Such voices are the outcome of the mentioned mindset. This mindset still cannot fully reconcile to the fact that the militants weren’t, after all, faithful soldiers out to purify Pakistan and defeat its many enemies.

How can they not be? It doesn’t matter that over 60,000 Pakistani civilians, soldiers, cops and politicians have perished in the country’s long-drawn conflict with religious militancy. The mentioned mindset still hasn’t come to terms with the fact that rampaging militants, chanting faithful slogans and flexing their flags, guns and bombs, are not quite out to make Pakistan a mighty bastion of faith.

It is thus correct for many observers to suggest that Pakistan’s recent battle against extremism cannot be solely won through the barrel of a gun. Because one of the most powerful facilitators of the internal security situation we are faced with today is more psychological in nature. It’s that prevailing mindset which is yet to fully comprehend what’s at stake.

What’s even more disconcerting is that many such facilitators from this mindset are probably not even aware of how they might be helping extremism to continue flourishing, even if some of them believe otherwise.

Such a phenomenon was captured rather brilliantly in the classic 1956 film, Forbidden Planet.

In the sci-fi genre, the film is sometimes placed right alongside director Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 masterpiece, 2001: A Space Odyssey, as being one of the most intellectually rich sci-fi films. The Forbidden Planet takes place in the 23rd century where a spaceship is sent from earth to a planet that is 16 light years away. The ship is launched to find out what happened to a space probe that was sent to the planet 20 years before. On reaching the planet, the captain and crew members of the spaceship find a scientist and his family who tell the investigation party that an unknown force had destroyed the probe and killed the inhabitants of the planet.

After facing attacks from the same entity, the crew of the spaceship finally figures out that the entity is actually the subconscious manifestation of the scientist himself, triggered by a machine invented by him.

The scientist continues to deny this until he is finally convinced that the elusive entity which is slaughtering the planet`s inhabitants is indeed the expression of his own subconscious mind and / or the manifestation of what German psychologist, Sigmund Freud, called ‘the id’.

The film’s plot has always fascinated me; especially when I have wondered whether the unprecedented spats of violence by extremists that have been haunting Pakistan for years now, may actually be the physical manifestations of our own collective subconscious and mindset.

This might also explain the inexplicable state of denial or silence that we as a nation usually fall into every time some entity goes on a killing spree in the name of faith.

Maybe our Jekyll is simply refusing to realise that the evil Hyde is actually an extension of our own selves. Laying within us have been illusions of bravado and a macho worldview that has no room for any grey areas. These are the imaginary notions of the self that fuelled a collective mindset which now has become difficult to replace with something that is quite the anti-thesis of what we were once programmed with.

Source:Smokers’ Corner: It came from within
Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine, January 31st, 2016
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  #132  
Old Wednesday, February 10, 2016
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Default Feb 7, 2017

Smokers’ Corner: Generation landslide


In the early 1930s, three young German academics, Theodore Adorno, Max Horrkheimer and Herbet Marcuse, formed an intellectual clique that came to be known as the Frankfurt School.

Based in the German city of Frankfurt, the three men developed a way of studying Marxism (in Europe) with the aid of Freudian psychology and, in the process, came up with an intellectual and analytical tool called ‘critical theory’.

With the rise of Nazism in Germany, the three men moved to the United States and set themselves up at New York’s prestigious Columbia University. Here they applied critical theory to the emergence of fascism in Europe, and concluded that fascism was the outcome and by-product of ‘advanced capitalism’.

Today’s young parents should be prepared for some awkward questions from their children when they grow up
Some 30 years after the three men had first published their study of the rise of fascism in Europe, their thesis were enthusiastically picked up by sections of young middle-class Germans, many of whom were not even born when the Frankfurt School and critical theory were being formed.

Suddenly, the idea that fascism was the outcome of advanced capitalism became all the rage among a large number of university and college students in West Berlin and Frankfurt.

But why did it take almost 30 years for German youth to embrace the idea? Journalist and author Hans Kundani in his excellent book, Utopia or Auschwitz, informs us that many Germans who were born during Nazi rule in Germany (1933-45), entered their teens and 20s in the 1950s.

By the late 1950s and early 1960s, university students associated with the left-wing German student outfit, the SDS, had begun to question the silence adopted (on Nazi rule) by their parents and the German state after the collapse of Nazism in 1945.

Articles began to emerge in radical youth magazines, and treatises authored by the intellectual wing of the SDS, denounced their parents’ generation for remaining quiet or even supporting the ‘murderous rise’ of Nazism in Germany.

Why were you quiet even after thousands of Pakistanis were slaughtered by extremists? What was the state waiting for before finally launching a military operation against the extremists? Were you looking the other way when schoolgirls were being shot in the face and then called agents?
They coined the term the ‘Auschwitz generation’ for their parents and accused them of destroying Germany by facilitating the emergence of Nazism and then trying to repress the gruesome memory of it after its collapse.

By 1967, membership of the SDS and other progressive youth outfits witnessed a threefold rise and many of the young intellectuals and leaders associated with these organisations began to apply the theoretical conclusions of the Frankfurt School to the prevailing situation in Germany.

According to the students, their parents had facilitated the rise of Nazism in the 1930s and had looked the other way when the Nazi regime was committing violent crimes against those Germans who had refused to submit to the dictates of the Nazi regime.

They added that even after the collapse of Nazism (in 1945), Germany had rebuilt itself with the help of advanced capitalism that was being facilitated by their parents’ generation, that by keeping the memory of Nazism repressed, was now forming an authoritarian state run by former Nazis and their sympathisers.

The rage associated with this sentiment finally exploded in 1967 and the student movement turned violent. The violence continued across the 1970s until the German state finally decided to confront the country’s violent past, instead of suppressing it.

Now imagine what might happen when Pakistani children born in the early and mid-2000s, enter their late teens and 20s. Hopefully, by then Pakistan would be a largely extremism-free country, but will that be enough?

Today’s young parents should indeed be prepared to be asked some awkward questions by their children when they grow up. Why were you quiet even after thousands of Pakistanis were slaughtered by extremists? What was the state waiting for before finally launching a military operation against the extremists? Were you looking the other way when schoolgirls were being shot in the face and then called agents? How did you react when students were being cut down at schools and universities? Why did you allow such a situation to exist? Why don’t you talk about it? Are you ashamed of it, or did you actually defend what the extremists were doing?

Pakistani children today are living in extremely testing times. Their memory of such a time is bound to finally make them ask some pointed and difficult questions from their parents and the state of Pakistan when they grow up. So be ready, and more so, be honest.

Source: Smokers’ Corner: Generation landslide
Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine, February 7th, 2016
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  #133  
Old Saturday, February 13, 2016
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Default Feb 12th, 2017

The greatest show on earth: A report


The Pakistan Super League (PSL) has been a smashing hit with TV viewers. The ratings of the three sports TV channels, which have been telecasting the PSL matches, have experienced a manifold rise.

Viewers have been unanimous in expressing their glee and appreciation for the efforts made by the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) in organising the event which has also attracted the participation of international cricketing stars.

However, not everyone seems so happy about the PSL.

Leading the pack, in this regard, are some talk show hosts from various local news TV channels. The ratings of their respective shows have plummeted ever since the PSL kicked off with a colourful opening ceremony a week ago.

Though most talk show hosts have somewhat quietly grumbled about the challenge that they are facing from the PSL matches being shown on TV, Dr. Daantist, a veteran talk show host from the Pakistani TV news channel Agitated Reactionary Yahoos, recently conducted a whole show that rather convincingly exposed the diabolic conspiracy unleashed to ease out honest, patriotic and revolutionary TV talk show hosts from the screens (through events such as the PSL).

In his popular show, Root Canaling with Dr. Daantist, he invited two leading members of a recently formed intellectual and scholarly think-tank who helped him bring to light some startling facts about the PSL.

The guests were Mr. Hamid-bin-Saladin-Peshawari and Mrs. Beena-bint-e-Meena-Muneeb. Both are the founding members of the @#%&$%&! think-tank. The think-tank came to light late last year when it published a book which was a scholarly anti-thesis of Malala Yousafzai’s book, I Am Malala.

The book published by the think-tank became an instant bestseller in the northern most part of South Waziristan and in the canteen of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provincial assembly building.

Titled, I Am Not Malala; I Am Coca-Cola, the book not only has essays exposing Malala’s many frauds, but it also puts in a considerable intellectual effort in detailing the geopolitical effects and impact (in Pakistan) of the on-going Cola Wars between Coke and Pepsi.

On the show, Mrs. Beena and Mr. Hamid, endorsed Dr. Daantist’s claim that the PSL was being funded by the CIA, FBI and the Pope through an organisation formed by Malala’s father who has become a multi-zillionnaire!

Dr. Daantist said that 3 years ago it was already proven (in an exclusive Dawn.com report) that Malala was a Polish woman masquerading as a Pakhtun schoolgirl who had staged an assassination attempt on herself in Swat to discredit pious freedom fighters and Peshawar’s famous chapli kebab outlets.

But he added that recent evidence unearthed by the @#%&$%&! think-tank suggests that the main mastermind behind the PSL, Najam Sethi, is a former Iraqi Kurdish militant masquerading as a journalist in Pakistan to malign the country’s image that is being passionately and patriotically built by TV anchors like him (Dr. Daantist).

On the show Ms. Bina read a portion from her think-tank’s next book, I Hate, Therefore I Am, in which there is a mention about how she permanently injured one of her toenails while researching Sethi’s background but was not sent abroad for treatment.

She told Dr. Daantist: ‘I broke my toenail while trying to unearth the truth about a dangerous fellow. But no TV channel, NGO or liberal was willing to talk about my plight. No one offered to take me to England for treatment. And yet, a conniving schoolgirl who was shot in the face by foreign agents, was flown to the UK, treated there and then given a Nobel Prize? At least they could have given me a position in the PCB.’

Mrs. Bina’s ordeal brought tears to Dr. Daantist’s eyes and he began to hurl curses at PSL, PCB, Najam Sethi, Malala, Malala’s father, Misbahul Haq, and, for some odd reason, Leonardo DiCaprio.

‘I have never heard a more tragic story than this,’ Dr. Daantist told the viewers. ‘I hope Malala gets punched in the face, even though we all know she staged her own assassination attempt with fake bullets and foreign agents who are actually pious warriors but funded by our enemies but we need to talk to them and also have a military operation against them because they are agents but pious but terrorists but our brothers but our enemies but you know what I mean …?’

At this point a caller phoned in to say, ‘no, I don’t what you mean.’ This brought tears to Mr. Hamid’s eyes who began to hurl abuses at the caller, PCB, PSL, Malala, Malala’s father, grandfather, great-grandfather, great-great grandfather and a paternal uncle.

He told Dr. Daantist: ‘You know Hakeem Sahib, I was having chicken tikka the other day when I overheard a young schoolgirl in jeans ki pant telling another indecently dressed schoolgirl that she hadn’t read our book because she was busy watching the PSL matches. I was so shocked that I bit too hard on my tikka and a piece of bone got painfully lodged in one of my teeth. I howled in pain and pleaded that I be taken to a dentist in the UK. But no one listened. The government ignored my pleas, so did the Western and local media, and here I am today, in front of you in great pain. At least they could have given me a playing contract in a PSL team, no?’

The most invigorating and heartwarming part of the show was when Dr. Daantist performed an intricate root-canal job on Mr. Hamid’s tragically infected tooth right there on live television.

This brought tears to everyone’s eyes who all began to curse the jeans ki pant waali girl, her friend, PSL, PCB, Malala, Malala’s father, Najam Sethi, Misbahul Haq, and, for some odd reason, Tom (of the Tom & Jerry fame).

This episode of Dr. Daantist’s show was one of the most watched all over the world. It was also picked up by the BBC, CNN, FOX News, Zee News and many other international news channels.

It brought tears to the eyes of approximately 77 billion viewers around the world who began to curse PCB, PSL and Malala and urged Donald Trump to get Malala strung up by the Klu Klux Klan on the banks of the Mississippi River.

But this time, for real.

Disclaimer: This article is categorised as satire

Source: The greatest show on earth: A report
Published in Dawn, February 12th, 2016
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  #134  
Old Sunday, February 14, 2016
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Indo-Pak relations: A brief ‘history’


India and Pakistan have had a complex history. Their Facebook status in this regard explains their relationship as "it’s complicated."

When India became independent from Scottish rule, it was divided into two parts. Muslim-majority areas became Pakistan. But for quite some time there were as many Muslims in the Indian territory as there were in Pakistan; until the Indian government banned beef and the Pakistani government debarred vegetarians. That settled things.

The Maharaja of the Muslim-majority region of Kashmir, Adinath Chandan Currynath, decided to preserve the state of Kashmir as an independent entity, so he decided to neither join India nor Pakistan.

Instead, he decided to join Ireland.

Pakistan sent peaceful Pakhtun tribesmen to talk to the Kashmiri government to persuade it to join Pakistan.

It’s amazing that such a meeting even took place because the tribesmen only spoke Pashto and the Maharaja spoke Hindi, Kashmiri and a bit of Thai.

The Indian government saw Pakistan’s action as an incursion and sent troops to Kashmir.

The result of the first war between India and Pakistan over Kashmir was Pakistan controlling 37pc of the area while India controlled 63pc. The Kashmiris controlled 0pc. Zilch. Nil. Zip. Zippo.

The Maharaja decided to word a protest in Thai — so much so that at one point even Thailand began claiming sovereignty over Kashmir.

Three more wars were fought between Pakistan and India. One was in 1965 AD, when fighting broke out in the Rann of Kach, a sparingly inhabited area along the Pak-India border.

The Scottish colonialists had called this area Leg of Lamb.

Fighting spread from the Leg of Lamb to Kashmir to the Punjab and then all the way to Kingston, Jamaica.

Then Pakistani and Indian troops crossed the partition line between the two countries called the Line of Control (LoC) or Laal Patti. Both launched air assaults on each other’s heads.

Pigeons were used for this purpose.

After threats of intervention by Thailand, Pakistan and India agreed to an UN-sponsored cease-fire and withdrew their pigeons from the sky.

Indian Prime Minister, Shri Lal Bahadur Single Paslee Shastri, and President Field Air Water Marshal Kublai Khan of Pakistan, met in Bangkok in January 1966.

But Indo-Pakistan relations deteriorated once again when in 1971 BC civil war erupted in Pakistan, pitting the beef-munching West Pakistanis against the fish-eating East Pakistanis who were demanding greater autonomy and more gravy.

Bengal nationalists were being backed by the Indians, so when Pakistan attacked Indian airfields (and Thai restaurants) in Kashmir, India attacked both East and West Pakistan (after it could not figure out where on earth North and South Pakistan were).

Under pressure from the US, the USSR and Rajesh Khanna, a UN ceasefire was arranged in mid-December.

Many believed it was a Zino-Zoroastrian conspiracy plotted by a diabolic Soviet agent, Malala Petrov, with whose DNA, Polish agent, Malala Yousafzai, will be spawned 25 years later to discredit pious men.

Zulfikar Ali Toto emerged as the new leader of Pakistan. And he got kind of overexcited about it.

Anyway, tensions between India and Pakistan were eased by the historic Mexican Accord of 1974 and after Pakistan recognised Bangladesh (and Thai food) in 1974.

In 1987, threat of yet another war between the two countries began looming when India (now called the Republic of Indira) accused Pakistan of funding a Buddhist insurgency in Indian Punjab.

To defuse the tension, Pakistan’s greatest leader ever and forever, General Saladin 2.2, indulged in some ‘cricket diplomacy’ by sending Indian prime minister, Rajiv Gandhi — son of Indira Gandhi, daughter of Jawarlal Nehru, grandson of Mogambo — a gift of some of the finest crickets found in the bushes of Islamabad.

Rajiv reciprocated the gesture by sending General Saladin 2.2 — who was a ferocious beef-eater and fast-bowling enthusiast — a video of cows roaming aimlessly on the streets of Delhi.

Tensions between the two countries remained defused throughout the 1990s even when both the poverty-stricken countries tested their nuclear devices in 1998.

Pakistani prime minster, Al-Nawaz Bin Saud, invited his Indian counterpart, Utter Bihari Bajpayee, to visit Lahore for breakfast.

But the peace initiative turned out to be brief. In 1999, Pakistan and India went to war again.

This one was called the Kargil War (aka Star Wars: The Force Awakens). A ceasefire was agreed upon due to pressure from the United States, Britain and especially Somalian sea pirates who threatened to ban the smuggling of illegal rhino tusks into both India and Pakistan.

The world suddenly came to realise the possibility of two poverty-stricken nuclear nations going to war: Eeeeeek … ! Scandinavian countries suggested to the UN that both India and Pakistan be shifted to the North Pole. Even Mars. Somalia approved.

But the nature of Indo-Pak relations has changed ever since the 9/11 episode in which the CIA agents staged a devastating attack on the Twin Towers in New York and blamed it on a couple of pious men learning to fly.

Experts suggest that India does not pose a threat to Pakistan anymore, nor does Pakistan pose a threat to India. However, many believe India poses a threat to itself and Pakistan poses a threat to itself as well.

That sounded grammatically awkward.

Anyway, Nobel-Prize winning Pakistani dentist and talk show host, Dr Daantist, believes that those preaching peace between India and Pakistan are trying to sell-out the Kashmir cause and dissuade Pakistani fast bowlers from eating beef. Somalia approved.

Meanwhile, perturbed by the peace processes; the dangerous anti-India musings of Aamir Khan; and Naxalite sympathies of authors such as Reena Roy, India elected a pious man, Narendra Mojo Modi, as India’s new Prime Minister.

He reprimanded the former Indian PM, Om Puri, for accepting boring peace overtures of the Pakistanis and not being paranoid enough.

He promised his generals at least three more wars against Pakistan, two against China, and one each against Sri Lanka, the Maldives and Rwanda.

To demonstrate this, he arrested a dangerous Pakistani spy (a pigeon) and handed it over to the head of the Indian intelligence agency (a parrot).

Relations have once again deteriorated between the two countries. Somalia feels kind of left out.

Source: Indo-Pak relations: A brief ‘history’
Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine, February 14th, 2016
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  #135  
Old Sunday, February 21, 2016
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War on the sidelines: Does Pakistan cricket mirror the country's political turmoil?


One keeps hearing about how the state of Pakistan’s cricket reflects the state of the country. According to this theory, the condition of cricket in the country and its team mirrors the economic and political situation in Pakistan.

This theory is popular in other countries as well. For example, Brazil’s dismal performance in 2014’s Football World Cup impelled many Brazilians to propose that the economic woes being faced by the country and the rise of corruption in Brazil’s political institutions were reflected in the way the Brazilian football team performed in the mega event.

Also read: Pakistan cricket — A class, ethnic and sectarian history

In 1974, when the Indian cricket team was battered by England (3-0) in a Test series, some Indian commentators suggested that the political upheaval being faced at the time by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had left the Indian society feeling agitated and cynical.

They suggested that it was this mind-set that was then also exhibited by the lethargic performance of the Indian cricket team on its tour of England that year.
There are numerous such examples involving various countries. But in the last decade or so, the way Pakistan’s economy and politics have suffered due to the rise of religious and sectarian violence, economic mismanagement, and a startling rise in crime, the Pakistan cricket team’s wildly unpredictable performances have often been described by many to be reflective of whatever bad that is going on in the country.

I am sure a lot of what goes wrong does rub off on how a country’s sporting culture takes its contemporary shape, but there is no hard and fast rule that this is always the case.

For example, in 1971, when Pakistan was being ripped apart by a vicious civil war in its eastern wing, the Pakistan hockey team actually went on to win hockey’s first ever World Cup (held in Barcelona, Spain).

Then, when Pakistan was being harshly criticised for employing violent methods against separatists in East Pakistan, its hockey squad was pushed to play out of its skin to produce results that would contradict the negative perception of a country on the brink of a political and economic collapse.

The team was expected to work as a balm for the people caught in the depression and agony of civil strife.

In the context of cricket, two most vivid examples come to mind in which teams from countries caught in political, social and economic strife, actually used the predicament to inspire themselves to achieve something on the cricket field that was in stark contrast to what was happening in their respective countries.

In the 1970s, almost all of the island-states in the Caribbean that make up the West Indies (WI) cricket team, were in the grip of radical political upheaval, so much so that some of the larger Islands were even on the brink of a revolution, as supporters of political parties often fought running battles against each other and the police.

The economy was suffering, the politics was shaky and society often faced rising incidents of crime and violence. This is when a batsman from Guyana, Clive Lloyd, was made the captain of the West Indies cricket team (1975).
But compared to what was going on in the Island states, Lloyd’s team reacted in an opposite manner.

The team negated the political disunity and turmoil on the Islands and replaced it with cricketing unity and a determination to change (through cricket) the perception of the Islands being shaky banana republics.

Turmoil on the Islands remained till the early 1980s, but from 1975 onward, the West Indies cricket team began its climb to eventually become the number one Test and ODI side in the world, a status it would continue to enjoy throughout the decade.

And the irony is, the team’s performances actually began to decline when (in the 1990s), political stability began to return to the Islands and the economy started to exhibit signs of improvement!

It was as if the WI team lost its purpose to display extraordinary feats of cricketing talent and achievements to the world once stability returned back home.
Another cricket side saw itself rising as a cricketing power in the late 1970s. England had been a strong Test side but it had fallen on the wayside in the mid-1970s.

However, between 1977 and 1979, England toppled, the time’s, top two teams, WI and Australia (under the captaincy of Mike Brearley who was considered to be more of an intellectual than a batsman!).

This happened when England was facing some of its worst post-War economic and political crises and race riots between West Indian and South Asian immigrants on the one side and White supremacists on the other.

As unemployment, strikes and riots were bringing England to a halt, the England cricket squad was emerging to become the world’s leading team.
This supremacy was lost after 1979, but when even worse race riots erupted again in 1981, Brearley (now in his 40s) was reappointed as captain after England lost the first Test of the 1981 Ashes series against Australia.

Brearley came in after the second Test of the six-Test-series, and as various cities in England (and Northern Ireland) burned, England went on to defeat a strong Australian side 3-1 (after being 1-0 down).

Like the WI, England’s captain had turned political and economic turmoil into an inspiration to do (on the cricket field) the opposite of what was happening on the streets.
In Pakistan, it is only now that men such as Misbah-ul-Haq have begun to receive acclaim and appreciation for captaining the Pakistan cricket team to success in an era when the country was being ripped apart by extremists and (ever since 2009), no Test playing side was willing to tour Pakistan.
The country was falling apart, but did Pakistan cricket?
Not quite. On the contrary, in the year international cricket came to a halt in Pakistan (2009), the team won that year’s T20 World Cup in England.

And, when three Pakistani cricketers were caught spot-fixing during a Test match in England in 2010; and consequently, the Pakistan cricket team became the scene of a vicious power struggle between opposing groups of players, many observers stated that the team was reflecting the state of the country, which at the time, was in shambles.

Such a state would continue to haunt Pakistan till the launch of the military operation against extreme militants in 2014.
But ironically, under Misbah (who was appointed captain in 2011), the Pakistan cricket team performed quite brilliantly. Especially considering the fact that all Pakistan matches were now being played abroad and in foreign conditions.

Also, Misbah had been given a team suffering from severe infighting and of a country in the grip of a grave existentialist crisis.
This year’s inauguration of the ambitious Pakistan Super League (PSL), masterminded by Pakistan Cricket Board’s Najam Sethi, is yet another example negating the theory that a country’s political and social health is always reflected in the way its sporting entities perform.

There are no such hard and fast rules.

Source: War on the sidelines
Published in Dawn, February 19th, 2016
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Old Sunday, February 28, 2016
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Default Feb 23, 2016

Why did the chicken cross the road?
























Source: Why did the chicken cross the road?
Published in Dawn, February 23, 2016
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From legend to science: The crocodiles of Manghopir


Manghopir is one of the oldest areas of Karachi. Situated in the north of this bustling, chaotic and sprawling city, it is most famous for the shrine of Sufi saint, Pir Mangho.

The unique bit about this centuries-old shrine is a vast pond and a sulphur spring. The pond is populated by dozens of crocodiles who are regularly fed by visitors to the shrine.

They believe the crocodiles are manifestations of the Sufi saint.

The shrine is mentioned in ancient texts from the area and also in the writings of 19th century British colonialists. According to some historians, the crocodiles have been here for centuries.

Some archaeologists have claimed to have found fossilised remains of crocodiles here that are thousands of years old and some British colonial writers also suggested that they have been here for ‘thousands of years.’

Manghopir is also the patron saint of Karachi's boisterous Makrani/Sheedi community.

They are mostly the descendants of African slaves who were brought here by Arabs, Persians, Turks and the European invaders between 10th and 17th centuries. They are mostly Balochi-speaking Muslim working-class men and women with a passion for football, boxing, donkey-racing and dancing.

Every year the Sheedi celebrate their African roots at an annual festival at the shrine.

However, the festival hasn't taken place for the last couple of years, mainly due to the rise of street gang warfare in Karachi’s Lyari area (which is mostly populated by the Sheedi); and due to the creeping presence of religious extremist groups and militant outfits holed up in Manghopir.

A concentrated operation by the Rangers and the police in the city recently has, however, managed to largely clear the area of militant groups and the festival is expected to resume from this year onward.

The saint Mangho arrived here from Iraq in the 13th century when Iraq was being attacked by the Mongols. Mangho travelled from South Punjab and across the Sindh province and settled here (in present-day Karachi).

At the time Karachi just had a sprinkling of small fishing villages and the area in which Mangho settled to meditate was desolate. It was upon a hill and surrounded by palm trees.

He soon began to attract followers from the fishing villages. When he died, the locals constructed a small shrine of him at the spot.

Since the saint decided to live alongside the crocodiles, and maybe even shared his food with them, the locals weaved a fantastic legend that the crocodiles were actually lice which were turned into crocodiles by the miraculous powers of the Sufi saint.

Scientists and archeologists, however, believe that the area already had a lake/pond that held hundreds of crocodiles.

They suggest that the lake was formed due to an ancient flood and that the crocodiles were washed here with that flood.

Carbon-dating methods have placed the bones to belong to the Bronze age (3300-1200 BC). Archeologists have also discovered some copper artifacts with designs suggesting that a small Bronze Age village stood here thousands of years ago where people worshipped the crocodile.

The area was surrounded by heavy vegetation when the saint is said to have settled and died here in the 13th century.
Scientists also believe that by then the crocodiles had been ‘tamed’ and become dependent on the food fed to them by the saint’s followers.

There has never been a crocodile attack reported here and the crocodiles remain to be largely docile. But keepers of the shrine always advise caution.

Generation after generation of crocodiles have lived, died, procreated and are born here and all of them are the direct decedents of that group of crocodile which was washed here by the flood centuries ago.

Unlike crocodiles elsewhere, the crocodiles at the shrine eat almost everything. From meat to sweetmeat!

Scientists attribute this to the kind of food they have been fed for generations by the followers.

Source: From legend to science: The crocodiles of Manghopir
Published in Dawn, February 26, 2016
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Reporting on the future

Much has been written and debated about the 1954 ‘Munir-Kayani Report’. The hefty report was based on an exhaustive inquiry conducted by the Chief Justice of Pakistan, Mohammad Munir, and a Punjab High Court judge, Rustam Kayani.

The inquiry was first demanded by Shaukat Hayat Khan, a veteran politician and colleague of Pakistan’s founder, Mohammad Ali Jinnah. Hayat had had a falling out with his former associate and Chief Minister of Punjab, Mian Mumtaz Daultana, when, in 1953, violent riots erupted in the Punjab against the Ahmadi community. The riots were largely perpetrated by a group of religious parties demanding the excommunication of the Ahmadis from the fold of mainstream Islam.

Martial Law was proclaimed in the province and the riots were ultimately crushed by the army. The commotion badly shook the centrist Muslim League government.

More than half a decade has gone by, yet the relevance of the 1954 report on anti-Ahmadi riots in Punjab is debatable
Hayat accused the Punjab CM, Mumtaz Daultana, of ‘engineering’ the turmoil in the Punjab to dethrone the then sitting prime minister, Khwaja Nazimuddin. He claimed that Daultana had given the rioters his ‘tacit support.’

Two government ordinances were issued a few months later, ordering a full inquiry into the causes of the disturbances.

Over the decades, the Munir-Kayani Inquiry Report has often been quoted in the on-going debate between the country’s ‘modernist Muslims’ and conservatives. The modernists specifically mention that section of the report which suggests that no two Muslim scholars agree upon even a single aspect of the faith. Each had their own interpretations which they believed were the correct ones.

This finding was penned by the judges after they had interviewed 117 Islamic scholars from all Muslim sects and sub-sects in the country. The conservatives, however, are critical of the report, claiming that it was biased against them and that both the judges had preconceived notions about the ulema and the clergy.

In his book, Religious Exclusion in Pakistan, professor of history and author, Ali Usman Qasmi, writes that more than being just an inquiry into the 1953 disturbances, the extensive report actually took the shape of becoming an elaborate mediation on the evolution of Muslim nationalism and ‘modernist Islam’ in South Asia.

The report remarked that Muslim nationalism (upon which Jinnah’s Pakistan came into being) was a moderate and modern entity which was being challenged by those trying to raise a ‘religious Leviathan’ (totalitarian state) based on an intransigent and rigid understanding of the faith.

Twenty-five years later, Justice Munir, in his 1979 book, From Jinnah to Zia, wrote that his (and Kayani’s) report had predicted a situation such as the one Pakistan faced when a general pulled off a military coup in July 1977 (Zia), and began to shape a more rigid and myopic regime and society.

Opponents of the report claim that, in 1953, the judges were influenced by the government to ‘implicate the ulema’ by already ‘painting them in a bad light’ before the inquiry.

By this the critics of the report mean an incident which Ali Usman also details in his book: Right after the military crushed the rioting, famous Islamic scholar, Khalifa Abdul Hakim, penned a pamphlet titled, Iqbal & Mullahism.

An authority on Islamic texts and also on the writings of South Asian poet-philosopher, Mohammad Iqbal (d. 1938), Khalifa used verses from some of Iqbal’s poems and quoted Iqbal’s scholarly opinions on the clergy to suggest that the views of the clergy and many of the ulema were contrary to the understanding of the faith of Pakistan’s founders.

The government published 5,000 copies of the pamphlet and then another 4,500, including an Urdu translation of the text. It then distributed them free of cost across the Punjab.

Justice Munir was born into an affluent family in Hoshiarpur. After bagging a degree in Economics from college, he passed the bar exam and became a successful lawyer. In 1943, he became a judge of the Lahore High Court. He was well liked by Jinnah.

In 1954 he was elevated to the position of chief justice of Pakistan. Munir was a sophisticated, well-read and calm man. In 1958, he went on to back the military coup of Ayub Khan and partially influenced Ayub’s public disposition as a ‘moderate and modernist Muslim’.

Justice Kayani on the other hand, was born in a village near Kohat. After his initial schooling at a village school, he was sent to Lahore by his father to further his studies at a college. He did well there and got accepted into the civil service. He then won a scholarship to study at the prestigious Cambridge University in the UK. On his return, he joined law and became part of the judiciary.

Kayani was well-versed in English, Persian, Pashto, Punjabi and Urdu, and was a practicing Muslim. Ali Usman informs that though he was regular in his prayers and read the holy book every morning before going to court, he was vehemently against the mixing of religion with politics. In the 1960s, Kayani and Munir drifted apart when, unlike Munir, Kayani opposed the Ayub dictatorship.

Their report’s relevance went beyond Pakistan. For example, in an era when Muslim nationalists in most Muslim-majority countries were aggressively trying to merge the concept of their respective nationalisms with modernity, the Munir-Kayani Report was requested by and ended up (to be studied) in Iran (during the Shah regime), Turkey and Egypt (during the Arab nationalist government of Gamal Abdel Nasser).

Many of its exponents today believe that in this day and age when Pakistan is embroiled in an ‘existentialist battle’ against extremism, the report is now even more relevant than ever. Its critics continue to disagree.

Source: Reporting on the future
Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine, February 28th, 2016
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Pakistan at the Asia Cup: A fly-on-the-wall look


The captain and coach discuss tactics:


Pepsi fans react to another Afridi debacle:




Another Pakistani batsman learns from his mistakes:



Sami bowled two no-balls in a crucial over against Bangladesh. Here he demonstrates how playing football actually lengthened his legs by at least 3.5 inches. Wasn’t his fault:



Former Test batsman, Khurram Manzoor, reacts after being told that he’s been selected in the Pakistan T20 squad:



Hafeez in deep thought after failing with the bat again:



The manager found a new way to discipline the batsmen — Good old-fashioned spanking:



Wahab after being dropped …



Meanwhile, in a reality far, far away …



Source: Pakistan at the Asia Cup: A fly-on-the-wall look
Published in Dawn, March 4, 2016
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Default March 6, 2016

Smokers’ Corner: The acid test


According to a report by Dawn reporter, Kalbe Ali (March 1, 2016), the limited coverage that was given by the country’s private TV news channels to the hanging of Mumtaz Qadri, contributed to creating a ‘sense of calm’ in the country.

Qadri was apprehended in 2011 for murdering the former governor of Punjab, Salmaan Taseer, for allegedly denouncing Pakistan’s blasphemy laws.

Qadri was sentenced to death by anti-terrorism court and its decision was upheld by the country’s superior courts. After an appeal for clemency filed by Qadri’s lawyers was rejected by the state and government of Pakistan, he was sent to the gallows on Feb 29.

The government’s decision to go ahead with the execution took many by surprise, despite the fact that in the past year or so, the state and government of Pakistan have exhibited a rather unprecedented attitude towards cases of religiously, socially and politically motivated terrorism.

The stance of the state and government on religiously, socially and politically motivated terrorism seems to have matured
Though a number of hardened militants belonging to various religious and political groups have recently been hanged, and the military has been conducting widespread operations against organised extremist outfits in the north-west of Pakistan, Qadri’s case stood out.

Treated as an outright murder and an act of individual terrorism by the courts, the case was a lot more complex compared to those associated with extreme militant and sectarian groups.

Qadri’s lawyers tried to argue that their client had acted according to his (religious) convictions and / or a conviction which is manifested as law in the Constitution. The courts understandably maintained that the law did not give an individual the right to judge and punish a person he believed had broken this law.

On the surface, it was an open and shut case because Qadri had confessed to murdering Taseer. But, as many judicial and political commentators have continued to warn, this law has been conveniently exploited on numerous occasions especially by those wanting to attain certain theological, political and even economic goals.

This has happened because ever since the 1980s (when this law was first introduced), society as a whole was consciously radicalised by the state and its religious allies for political purposes.

Consequently, some have gone on to believe that the law actually emboldens vigilante actions driven by a particular understanding of the faith.

The changing nature of the state and government of Pakistan today is seeing them trying to come to grips with the many fall-outs of the state’s myopic policies of the past; one of these fall-outs has been about some sections of society who simply refuse to see certain anti-state activities (related to so-called religious outfits) or religiously-motivated vigilante action as punishable crimes.

For example, when Qadri was arrested and for the first time taken to a court, a group of lawyers threw rose petals on him and hailed him as a hero. Some religious parties, too, saw him as a champion.

The truth is, such acts are almost entirely in line with how folks loitering on the fringes of society behave. But what happens when those lingering on such a fringe begin to appear on prime time news channels? Or worse, what happens when some of them actually get their own shows on TV?

This is not such a far-fetched hypothesis. In fact, on many Pakistani private TV channels, it is quite the reality. In the past decade or so, TV audiences have seen sofa-set-demagogues of all shapes and sizes being invited to TV talk shows to rather rabidly and almost entirely irrationally comment on politics, faith, culture, morality, et al. The audiences have also seen the spectacle of some TV talk show hosts and anchors become almost as rabid and irrational.

More disconcerting is how often TV shows in this context become awkwardly anarchic and completely irresponsible.

For example, in 2005, a show ended up apparently inspiring some men to murder four members of a minority community; in 2007, the way the Lal Masjid operation was covered by the channels, many media experts have suggested that the hyper, irresponsible and even reactionary coverage of the event was at least one of the reasons which triggered the formation of the TTP; some have even pointed towards the way Taseer’s statements (about a Christian woman arrested on sacrilege charges) were commented upon by some TV hosts that, supposedly, went on to ‘inspire’ Qadri!

These are but just a few incidents narrating the irresponsible nature of the country’s private electronic media. And the thing is, those often accused of such exhibitions of utter irresponsibility largely do so for almost entirely cynical gains. Caution is thrown to the wind in pursuit of the almighty ratings.

However, statistics show that TV news channels have been steadily losing their ratings over the past six months. There is talk of a paradigm shift taking place in the narrative emitting from the current government and the military establishment. Perhaps the same is happening within the society?

But decades of indoctrination of a particular brand of narrative by the state means that society will be (and is) slow to fully gauge the shift and can still be vulnerable to reactive bouts of feedback regarding certain ‘sensitive issues’.

Amir Rana, the director of Pakistan Institute of Peace Studies, told Dawn that the way the TV channels underplayed Qadri’s execution, and the protests which followed, may be due to ‘directives from powerful quarters’.

By this, he may be alluding to the military-establishment. But Kable Ali quoted a military officer in his report who suggested that there were just a ‘limited number of protests’ which, in turn, were due to the public’s support for the National Action Plan and the state’s changing stance towards extremism.

Whatever the case, it was quite apparent (at least on the day of the execution), that responsible TV coverage of sensitive events can go a long way in making sure that the situation remains immune to becoming the kind of mob-oriented, anarchic free-for-all spectacles of which Pakistan has often been a victim of lately. Spectacles which this country’s economy, politics, polity and existentialist disposition just can’t afford anymore.

Source: Smokers’ Corner: The acid test
Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine, March 6th, 2016
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