My piece that appeared in the ‘political economy’ section of The NEWS on Sunday.

The elites drunk on the status quo have expressed two major reactions to the proposal of creating another province within the mighty Punjab. First that this is akin to opening a Pandora’s box when we are at war against terrorism. Second, that this is a planted controversy whereby the ruling PPP wants to harm the house of Raiwind; or a conspiracy by those who want to destabilise Pakistan’s political system.

Both these arguments are spurious for nothing is more important for Pakistan than to make the federation work. The argument that the British drawn provincial boundaries are sacrosanct is as nonsensical as the reality of the Durand Line or for that matter the line of control itself. If anything, South Asia has experienced territorial and demographic shifts through the centuries. When resisted, the sweep of history has blown away the resistant elements and when carefully manoeuvred such shifts have resulted in commonsensical political and administrative solutions. (more…)

I was quoted in this piece posted below

The same dark forces that appear to have killed Ms. Bhutto on this day last year – Islamic extremist groups based in Pakistan – seem to be behind the carnage in Mumbai last month, an event that pushed Pakistan into an even deeper crisis. (more…)

by Raza Rumi

Little did we know that the imminence of war between India and Pakistan would once again become a possibility, howsoever faint or misguided? The ruling political junta in India is talking war following the media frenzy over Mumbai carnage. Once again it is time to be ‘tough’ with Pakistan. This is a surprise given that the interlude of peace under General Musharraf and all the offers of conflict resolution were either stalled by the red-tapism of Indian bureaucracy or a victim of political inaction. At home, we have the air-force planes hovering the wintry skies of Lahore causing consternation not only to the peaceniks, shrinking each day, but to the overwhelming majority of the common citizens. After all what have they got to do with the power game in Islamabad and Delhi, the media hysteria or even the terror cartels?

True that circumstantial evidence points to the fact that the metaphor of our times, Ajmal Kasai socially upgraded as the Urduised Kasab, is linked to the little Faridkot in the Pakistani Punjab. However, much of the international community has reminded India that there is little or no evidence of any direct involvement of the Pakistani state let alone its fragile civilian government. Yet, the rhetoric of unilateral strikes by the Indian foreign minister and now the venerable Sonia Gandhi is having the right effect here. Of war mongering, preparedness assessments and the much trumpeted security strategy through the nuclear option. (more…)

Pakistani cable operators, following the cyclical escalation of imagined hatreds, discontinued the transmission of Indian satellite channels in 2002. The absence of Indian TV soaps, fodder for an entertainment hungry populace, was widely mourned. Once, not long ago, the axiomatic edge of Pakistan’s TV serials was widely acknowledged both in Pakistan and in India. No longer. This is the age of the market, of selling dreams and drama, of converting the stereotype into a saleable commodity and citing it on the cultural stock exchange.

The popularity of Hindi language soaps is not limited to Pakistan. I have seen squatters in Dhaka’s decrepit Bihari camp, Bangladesh’s largest no man’s land, glued to their colour TV sets. Here, Biharis lack citizenship; they are technically Pakistani, having opted for the Land of the Pure at the cessation of Bangladesh in 1971. But Pakistan doesn’t want them and so they continue to live in limbo. Yet, Star Plus is still beamed 24/7 into their tiny, cramped, leaking shacks. Indian soaps have made inroads even into Afghanistan, that newly liberated project of global corporate interests. They were wildly popular until the Afghan government banned them as inimical to Afghani values.

The soaring audience of Star Plus and Zee TV serials, with their in-your-face parivar mantras, is known all too well. The hype is also a constructed story of success and market acquisition. On the face of it, the commodification of entertainment is a global phenomenon. So what’s the problem, one might ask, given that most of us post-colonial wannabes in South Asia want to integrate into the global economy and its uniform cultural variants? Junk food, designer brands, pop music and the corporate media ethos are all “signs of progress.” (more…)

by Raza Rumi ( published in the NEWS)

By all statistical estimates and anecdotal evidence, Pakistan’s middleclass has grown during the last decade. The visible manifestation of this historically significant trend was the spontaneous outrage at the dismissal of the chief justice in 2007 and the robust movement that followed. However, the other side of this sociological transformation has been the capture of the “opinion” in Pakistan by the overdriven urban middleclass segment now backed and voiced through a powerful and not always responsible electronic media.

Amid the torrential attacks and doomsday predictions on Asif Zardari’s candidature for presidency, a few reasoned voices have attempted to remind the country that fortification of a fractured democratic process requires civilian ascendancy. No, say our wise ones. They are enraged at the corruption tales, and media and real trials. There is a deafening silence over the fact that without a single conviction an accused has spent 11-and-a-half years in jails and suffered solitary imprisonment, torture and pressure that could have easily broken a common back. Admittedly, our president-to-be is hardly an angel. But this is not about morality or middleclass affront or even a thousand stories of international media that have suddenly become so credible. Not long ago, the vanguard of middleclass morality were telling us how biased the international media is about Musharraf and how twisted its reporting was on the US-led war on terror. All of a sudden Zardari tales have become legit, true and worrying. (more…)

NYT report on Long March highlights the electrifying atmosphere in Islamabad yesterday:

The crowd, including an unusual number of women for this Muslim country, along with families and members of small political parties, continued to swell after midnight, waiting in a festive atmosphere for the main speakers to arrive by bus and plane from around the country.

Mr. Sharif showed solidarity with the lawyers, appearing on the stage with by his party’s activists at 2:30 a.m. Saturday to address the demonstrators. Mr. Sharif said there should be a process of public accountability for Mr. Musharraf, and he should not be granted a safe exit. In recent weeks, Mr. Sharif has repeatedly called for the impeachment of Mr. Musharraf.

Aitzaz Ahsan, the leader of the lawyers’ movement, who drove in a caravan of cars for three days from Lahore, also arrived after midnight as local television channels continued to show the event. At an earlier stop, 60 miles outside the capital, Mr. Ahsan said: “We are out in the streets to save Pakistan. We want social justice; we want political justice and constitutional justice.”

An activist from Islamabad writes:

We are today passing through blurred times. Imagine the perplexity of the situation. The former military hawks (like Hamid Gul, Aslam Baig, and countless others) are now speaking the tongue of democrates. Jamaat Islami is struggling for the rule of law. The groups who boycoted the last election have monoplized the interpretation of the election mandate and will of the people.
 
The last day Long March was one of its vivid manifestations. As I live in Islamabad, I got the opportunity to observe the March. It was predominantly Jamaat Islami show. After a long time, I heard slogans and (military) songs which I was used to listen in my youth in Zia’s era. Correct, this aspect of March was not much highlighted in the mainstream (free,corporate) media. … So we need to think twice and thrice before forming any rigid position on the issues we are today encountered. 

Daily Times rather dispassioantely looks into the Long March:

Despite Aitzaz Ahsan’s histrionics, one shouldn’t carry the analogy of Mao Tse Tung’s Long March too far because in it only a fraction of the marchers managed to survive. But the lawyers’ growing political baggage is making the original “legalistic” camel lurch a little. Some observers of the lawyers’ passage in Lahore say the Long March was “hijacked” by the PMLN and its leader Mr Nawaz Sharif who used the occasion at Azadi Chowk at the Minar-e Pakistan in Lahore to whip up his by-election campaign too. The public meeting was a PMLN success. (more…)

My piece published in The Friday Times last week

I am not concerned with the technicalities of Shoaib Akhtar’s sentence, which have been the subject of much debate across Pakistan and indeed wherever cricket is played and followed. There have been some avoidable outbursts by both Akhtar and his disciplinarians. Akhtar has a chequered past in the conventional sense; and perhaps his tragic flaw is the cavalier attitude that is now a hallmark of his persona. But he is a star whose talent has done cricket, Pakistan, and Pakistanis proud. The quantum of punishment given to him has therefore been viewed as some sort of betrayal, and many have termed it unfair. But this is now a sub judice matter and so cannot be commented upon any further.

However, what lies underneath the narrative of Shoaib Akhtar’s plight relates to the sociological and attitudinal trends that have now engulfed Pakistan, like a poisonous creeper that consumes even the best kept plants in a garden.

Shoaib Akhtar is self-made, rising from humble origins into the global limelight. Born at Morgah, a small town near Rawalpindi, on August 13 1975, he is the youngest of four sons (he also has a younger sister) of an oil refinery worker. Far from following in his father’s footsteps, however, Akhtar began to show cricketing talent while still at school. It was at Asghar Mall College, during his twenties, that his extraordinary skill at the game was recognised; he played at increasingly high levels (including a spell for the English team Worcestershire), culminating in his selection for the national team in 1997. He then shot to international fame during the 1999 World Cup. Stunning spectators with his bowling ability, he went on to set the world record for bowling speed at 100.2 mph, where it still stands. (more…)

Found this brilliant piece by Slavoj  ek writing for the London Review of Books

The media imposes certain stories on us, and the one about Tibet goes like this. The People’s Republic of China, which, back in 1949, illegally occupied Tibet, has for decades engaged in the brutal and systematic destruction not only of the Tibetan religion, but of the Tibetans themselves. Recently, the Tibetans protests against Chinese occupation were again crushed by military force. Since China is hosting the 2008 Olympics, it is the duty of all of us who love democracy and freedom to put pressure on China to give back to the Tibetans what it stole from them. A country with such a dismal human rights record cannot be allowed to use the noble Olympic spectacle to whitewash its image. What will our governments do? Will they, as usual, cede to economic pragmatism, or will they summon the strength to put ethical and political values above short-term economic interests?

There are complications in this story of  good guys versus bad guys. It is not the case that Tibet was an independent country until 1949, when it was suddenly occupied by China. The history of relations between Tibet and China is a long and complex one, in which China has often played the role of a protective overlord: the anti-Communist Kuomintang also insisted on Chinese sovereignty over Tibet. Before 1949, Tibet was no Shangri-la, but an extremely harsh feudal society, poor (life expectancy was barely over 30), corrupt and fractured by civil wars (the most recent one, between two monastic factions, took place in 1948, when the Red Army was already knocking at the door). Fearing social unrest and disintegration, the ruling elite prohibited industrial development, so that metal, for example, had to be imported from India. (more…)

David Walsh writes at WSWS

On April 20, the New York Times published a lengthy article by investigative reporter David Barstow detailing the US Defense Department’s extensive and ongoing program of manipulating news coverage of the Iraq war. The article provides a glimpse into the intimate connections between the government, military and mass media and the means by which they have attempted to package and sell a neo-colonial war to the US population.

Barstow writes that the record indicates a symbiotic relationship where the usual dividing lines between government and journalism have been obliterated. Essentially, the US mass media has allowed itself to become little more than a propaganda instrument of American militarism.

According to the April 20 piece, more than 75 retired officers have been coached by government and military officials to spin the news about Iraq or simply lieon countless network and cable channel news programs and talk shows over the course of the past five years or more. Fox News has led the way in presenting these individuals to the public, but NBC, CNN, CBS and ABC have followed suit. (more…)

On the flourishing ‘column’ industry despite the slow growth of readership

What is so peculiar about the Pakistani media opinion factories churning out problems and solutions products day after day? Frankly, they are self perpetuating oligarchies and boring at best. The slightly discerning mortals who browse the daily newspapers in English and vernacular languages or bother to engage with the electronic media discussions are struck by certain repetitive trends. Let me map them out before rambling any further. On a note of caution, there is no intention of making generalisations here. Exceptions, they say, prove the rule!

The curse of self-importance

Nowhere else would you find brazen references to the importance of a writers’ opinion particularly among the Urdu language newspaper columnists. Despite the slow growth of readership, the ‘kalam-navees’ industry is flourishing. A few years ago, a new Urdu newspaper with a hefty advertising budget, ensured that a few big names in the column industry were under its wings. (more…)

My piece that was published earlier this week:

IT is a truism that media freedom in Pakistan today has been earned after a long struggle which will perhaps continue in the years to come.

Deepening of democratic traditions and their permeation in society are sine qua non for a free media. Whilst there can be no two opinions on the independence of the media, the need for greater responsibility and professionalism has to be articulated in no uncertain terms. Such is the confusion and chaos triggered by an overgrown executive that the issue of responsibility has been sidelined by the overwhelming noises for media freedom especially since the tinkering with the text and application of Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) Ordinance.

We are now getting used to a television culture that imitates the life of Pakistani tharras, chai-khanas and drawing-rooms where politics is discussed ad nauseum. Rare exceptions include issue oriented talk-shows but they appear bland unless their all knowing hosts inject some political spice into them. Expertise is taken for granted; new-age generalists judge every subject under the sun and occasionally take themselves a bit too seriously. Yes, the commercial imperative of the media dictates programming patterns. But there has to be a method to this disorderliness.

Read the full post and comments here

Three quotes from this story covering the Project for Excellence in Journalism’s annual State of the News Media report struck me:

It was believed at one point that the Net would democratize the media, offering many new voices, stories and perspectives. Yet the news agenda actually seems to be narrowing, with many Web sites primarily packaging news that is produced elsewhere…., Two stories – the war in Iraq and the 2008 presidential election campaign – represented more than a quarter of the stories in newspapers, on television and online last year, the project found. (more…)

Turkey is working on a revolutionary new interpretation of the Prophet Mohammed’s reputed sayings, known as the Hadith.

The project is aimed at allowing millions of Muslims to re-evaluate their religious obligations in the light of modern ways of living.

Full article here

It was in the dargah compound of Ajmer when our phones started buzzing with friends and relatives wanting to share grief on the loss of a woman who was both loved and hated but never ignored. This was the typical winter dusk and we were returning from a soulful traditional dua-i-roshnayee (pre-sunset prayer) where candles are lit in remembrance of the much revered Khawaja. Amidst frantic phone calls from grieving friends, the shock was cushioned in the mystical atmosphere as one reaffirmed that God’s will was above everything. But the aching sense of loss for Pakistan haunted us despite the calming effect of Ajmer. (more…)

The suggestion of violent disputes between a 16-year-old girl in Mississauga and her father over her desire to show her hair and live a “normal” lifestyle raises questions about tensions between parents and children in the Muslim community…But members of the community particularly young Muslim women  say the tension can exist both ways.

…research into the readership of her publication shows that the decision to wear the hijab, the traditional Muslim headscarf is almost always a choice the girl makes on her own.

Text from here

Complex, sordid and tragic. And, I wonder what would the head honcho of Al-Huda (these days based in Canada) has to say on the sad story of a  girl who died at 16? What is this obsession with the Hijab when you live in a non-Islamic country. There is no consensus on this within Islamic jurisprudence. As my friend Asma (who sent this story) said: “Is this more important than hayya – the inner modesty; and the ability to discern the right from the wrong?”