A recent survey conducted by Pew Research has stirred the dreaded old debate on whether internet users in Pakistan care much about internet censorship. The result from the survey reportedly reveals that people surveyed in Pakistan were least supportive of an open internet.

The media reporting of the survey has largely focused on how “Pakistanis do not care about internet rights” just as they don’t care about democracy or human rights. Coverage on the report will have you believe we are the next China as far as internet freedom is concerned.

As much as the authorities would like it to be, we are still far from completely adapting the China Model of internet censorship; but do not worry we are headed there.

To quote verbatim from the report:

“Meanwhile, support is lower than might be expected in Russia and Pakistan, given the percentage of people who use the internet in those two nations. Other Pew Research surveys have also found relatively low support for democratic rights and institutions in Russia and Pakistan. Another caveat in interpreting the results for Pakistan is that a large percentage of respondents (62%) offer no opinion on this question.”

The PEW survey is more about low access to internet in Pakistan rather than about the citizens’ opinion on increasing controls on the internet.

An exaggerated statistic informs us that 12 million out of 180 million people have access to the internet in Pakistan. It remains the only country in the world that continues to block access to Youtube in reaction to the release of movie, Innocence of Muslims.

Despite the PEW survey’s explanation on why results from Pakistan reflect low support, the results are not surprising, given the horrendously low internet access in Pakistan.

Like most other things, the internet access narrative has also been deeply politicised and the debate on open access heavily polarised.

For rights’ advocates, journalists, students, entrepreneurs, businesses and even policymakers, the mere debate on the unblocking of Youtube is riddled with fear of being too contentious. It is not just YouTube, whatever little debate exists on internet freedom is largely curbed and silenced as unwanted, ill-suited and controversial.

The Government in Pakistan does not censor the web - rather it follows a strategic covert control model, where the public stance of government officials is all for dissent but only against immorality, blasphemy, obscenity and our all time favourite, national security!

Under such a strategy, any and all opinion against the blocking of content is framed as anti-religion, blasphemous, obscene and borderline treason.

What began with the blocking of Facebook in 2010 has, in 2014, become a legitimate fear for most supporting an open internet in Pakistan.

In 2012, when the Government brazenly published advertisments calling for proposals to build a “URL filtration and blocking system” the public excuse was “getting rid of pornography”, hence, waging a war on everything immoral on the internet.

Any and all concerns of how such a system can compromise the privacy of individual users, allow for blanket surveillance, and possibly disrupt the banking system in Pakistan was overlooked.

Also read | YouTube ban: Running out of excuses

A concerted campaign that was able to reverse the Government's plans in 2012 now faces a new challenge - the concocted fight against 'immorality' now has a new more contentious front; fighting blasphemy on the web.

The result?

ISPs and regulators bending over backwards to block access to any possible content that may be upsetting, meanwhile dissent, political censorship and free speech become collateral damage.

Take for example the blocking of the movie database IMDB, while the ban was reversed shortly after receiving complaints, users are left wondering why the site was even blocked in the first place? Was it to block access to a documentary revealing military advances in Balochistan; the page to the review remains blocked.

There are no answers but more questions. Why was access to XBOX blocked? Why block access to Wikipedia and Google Scholar pages for breast, sex and child pornography?

Perhaps most importantly, why is the government so insistent on installing filters despite resistance from experts the world over?

The relatively low concern for internet censorship in Pakistan says less about the citizens desire for open access and more about limited access and the politicisation of the issue. When a stance for the opening up of a video portal is equated with blasphemy, how many can be expected to speak up? Especially, when only a handful have access in the first place.

Here’s where we stand as the world moves toward faster and widespread internet access: The promised 3G networks meant to roll out in 2008 are still in process while neighbouring Afghanistan has 3G nationwide, India is rolling out 4G in specific cities and Nepal has 3G in all major cities.

Pakistan ranked a low 105 out of 144 countries in a 2013 report by the World Economic Forums Global Information Technology, in terms of overall networked readiness, with India on 68.

For the Government, however, this seems to be a matter of little concern.

The fact that the IT industry remains one of the most profitable and fast paced in the country does nothing to influence the powers that be to focus on increasing access rather than manipulating and hence, throttling it.

The issue at hand is not about apathy towards internet freedom but hypocrisy, bigotry and most of all, the incompetence of our leadership.

On the morning of April 4, 1979, the military dictatorship of General Ziaul Haq hanged to death Pakistan’s first elected Prime Minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.

Today is the 35th anniversary of that judicial crime.

If you are as much of a maniacal reader on the political and social history histories of Pakistan as I am, then I’m sure you’ve already noticed that after Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the second most discussed Pakistani leader in such books is Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.

So much has been written about the man. His achievements and follies; his charisma and eccentricities; his accomplishments and blunders. I can’t really add more to what is already out there in the shape of whole books, papers and articles written on the man.

I was barely 6 years old when Bhutto rose to become Pakistan’s head of state (in January 1972) soon after the secession of what was once called East Pakistan.

Bhutto’s populist Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) had swept the 1970 general election in West Pakistan's two largest provinces, Punjab and Sindh, and it became the country’s majority party once East Pakistan broke away (after a violent and tragic civil war there).

I do have some memory (rather random images) of the 1971 Pakistan-India war (that followed the civil war) and of Bhutto’s first address to the nation on PTV when in early 1972 he took over the reins of a defeated and demoralised nation.

What I remember about the war are the blanket blackouts, loud sirens and terrifying sounds of artillery fire and jets zooming over our house near the coastal areas of Karachi in Clifton; and how one evening there was a huge explosion that shattered the window panes of almost every house in the vicinity after which (in the morning), the war was over (December 1971).

We trickled out of our basements and make-shift bunkers only to see a number of oil refineries visible from our house, and a series of war ships on the horizon on fire.

The flames rose so high it seemed (at least to a 6-year-old kid) that their thick black smoke was about to darken the fluffy white winter clouds hovering over Karachi.

Two peasant children stand amidst unexploded bombs in a village in former East Pakistan during the 1971 Pakistan-India war.

Then Radio Pakistan announced that the Pakistan armed forces have surrendered. But we kids were too busy collecting the smothering splinters of the bombs that had been dropped by Indian jets only miles away from our area of residence, not knowing that the country had acutely been split into two.

Bhutto was no stranger in our house. In the early 1960s my father was a Psychology major at the University of Karachi (KU) and a member of the left-wing National Students Federation (NSF).

He was also a bosom buddy of famous student radical (and future PPP minister and politician), Miraj Muhammad Khan.

Though my father came from a large, conservative business family from North Punjab, he was a rebel. He was the first in the large family to bypass studying for a business degree; the first to marry outside the family (to a ‘mohajir’ - an Economics major at KU, my mother); and the first to join journalism (instead of the widespread family business) after he graduated from the university in 1964.

Like many passionate young men and women in the late 1960s, he too became a Bhutto enthusiast and remained to be one until his death from respiratory failure in October, 2009.

When Miraj Saheb, these days himself facing health issues, called and spoke to me at length soon after my father passed away, it reminded me how in January 1972 my father returned home from the Karachi Press Club and told my mother that Miraj had told him that Bhutto would be speaking to the nation on TV.

A January 1972 edition of DAWN.

Being just 6 years old then, today I only vaguely remember my parents, cousins, younger sister, grandparents and paternal uncles gathered in front of our Russian-made ‘Mercury’ TV set listening to that address.

Bhutto addressing the nation on PTV (January 1972).

In those days we were one of the few homes in the country that actually owned a TV set, so the address was largely heard by Pakistanis on the radio, in spite of the fact that Bhutto spoke in English.

It is said that the speech remains to be one of the most widely heard addresses from a head of state and government in Pakistan.

In February 1972, my father moved our family to Kabul in Afghanistan where he agreed to heed my paternal grandfather’s advice to set up offices of the family business in that city.

Instead my father became the Afghanistan correspondent of the PPP’s newspaper, Musawat. It was a Kabul that today would seem like a totally different planet compared to what happened to this city at the end of the Soviet-Mujahideen war in the 1980s and beyond.

I remember Kabul to be a pleasant and clean city, with hordes of western tourists (mostly hippies) roaming its streets and markets.

Afghan women walk down a shopping street in Kabul in 1972 (Picture Courtesy LIFE).

My father became a regular visitor to a popular coffee house in central Kabul where the city’s most animated leftist intellectuals met for coffee, tea, beer and most importantly, to strike passionate discussions on the state of affairs in Afghanistan.

One day my father brought home an intense looking and stocky Afghan Pushtun for dinner. The Afghan was bald, had thick spectacles on him, chain-smoked and spoke both English and an accented Urdu. The gentleman was Sardar Daoud - the former Prime Minister of Afghanistan (1953-63) and the future President of that country.

Daoud, who was a cousin of Afghanistan’s monarch, Zahir Shah, had resigned as PM in 1963. He was also a passionate advocate of ‘Pushtunistan’ – a movement that wanted to merge Afghanistan with the Pushtun majority areas of Pakistan.

My father later told me that Daoud – who’d been banished by the monarchy and had become a radical pro-Soviet republican – befriended my father at the coffee house and told him about a ‘coming revolution in Afghanistan.’

‘Bhutto was not very happy with my friendship with Daoud,’ my father told me many years later. Bhutto as well as Pakistan’s military establishment were extremely anti-Daoud, especially due to his views on ‘Pushtunistan.’

Though we returned to Pakistan in mid-1973, Daoud would go on to topple the Zahir Shah monarchy in a military-backed coup and declare Afghanistan to be a republic (in 1974).

He was himself toppled in a communist coup in 1978.

Sardar Daoud

In Pakistan, my father began publishing a radical pro-PPP Urdu weekly called Al-Fatha with another journalist colleague of his, Mehmood Sham. Al-Fatha's name was inspired by Yasser Arafat’s militant left-wing Palestinian outfit.

Now back in school in Karachi I fondly remember how small kids (especially boys) loved to imitate Bhutto’s antics as a public speaker. At first I just couldn’t understand, until I rediscovered Bhutto on TV.

Afghanistan didn’t have any TV in those days, even though I remember accompanying my parents to a host of Rajesh Khanna films at Kabul cinemas.

back in Karachi, I particularly remember one Bhutto speech on PTV that he made in late 1973 that finally made the now 7-year-old me understand what all those boys at school were up to.

It was during a public gathering in Lahore. It set the nation on fire! Drunk on passion, patriotism (and his favourite brand of whisky), Bhutto was canvassing to ask his supporters to help him regenerate Pakistan’s lost pride. To my delight, a small section of this speech can now be found in cyberspace (see below):

Another memory I have of the period is watching my father discussing the passing of Pakistan’s first genuine constitution (the 1973 constitution) with his cousins and brothers.

Later on when I entered my teens in the early 1980s, I asked my father why the Bhutto regime declared the Ahmadis as non-Muslim.

His explanation was that since Bhutto wanted to bag the support of Islamic outfits like Jamat-i-Islami and others before the historic 1974 International Islamic Summit in Lahore, ‘he threw them a bone they could get busy with and get distracted by.’

I continued disagreeing with him on this issue, and he continued defending Bhutto’s action even many years later.

I remember the Islamic Summit very well. PTV ran a marathon transmission of the event and I also remember watching speeches by a number of leaders from various Muslim countries.

The Summit was explained as a global expression of Bhutto’s ‘Islamic Socialism’ and ‘vision’ of turning the Muslim world into a ‘third progressive force’ between western capitalism and Soviet communism.

Bhutto greets Syrian leader Hafizul Asad at Lahore airport during the Islamic Summit in 1974. Asad was one of the many leaders of the Muslim world who arrived to attend the historic summit.

My childhood unfolded in a very different Karachi. TV was a joy to watch (even though it was entirely one-sided); men and women were crazy about cinema as the Pakistan film industry churned out an average of 60 to 70 films a year; and people loved staying outdoors without any fear and at all hours.

A group of friends pose outside their class at the Karachi University in 1973. –Photo courtesy: Pakistan Herald

A European tourist relaxing outside a cheap food joint on Burns Road in Karachi (1973).

Bars, nightclubs, cinemas and other recreational sites were always illuminated with bright, shimmering lights. I remember accompanying my elder cousins and their friends to the edges of the Clifton area on weekends (on bicycles) where people would gather to drink, chat, take long walks on the Clifton beach and especially eat chaat and ‘gola-gupas’.

Some would order ‘special gola-gupas’ whose liquidy chatni was laced with a heavy dose of tamarind but mixed with beer.

At this edge of Clifton was a house called ‘70 Clifton.’ This was the spacious residence of Z A. Bhutto and his family.

From 1975 onwards, when I turned 9, my father began to often take me with him to this house whenever he had to meet Bhutto.

By now he had also joined the Soviet Embassy (on Bhutto’s suggestion). Bhutto had wanted him to use his position to strengthen the media and cultural ties between the Soviet Union and Pakistan.

It was, I think, in the summer of 1975 when I first met Bhutto in real life. I saw a very young Benazir Bhutto as well, lurking in the background; and I also remember a tall, lanky guy shaking my hand as my father stood talking to the lad in the garden of 70 Clifton. He was Murtaza Bhutto, then just 21 years old.

I found Bhutto’s wife, Begum Nusrat Bhutto, to be the warmest and closest towards my father. I would last meet this amazing woman in 1993 when (as a journalist) I made my last trip to 70 Clifton on the evening Murtaza returned from exile.

As a former member of the PPP's student-wing (PSF), I had sided with Benazir in her little tussle with Murtaza. And I continued siding with her. She was to my generation of young ‘radicals’ in the 1980s, what her father had been to the generations before us.

A young Benazir Bhutto at 70 Clifton (1976)

Shahnawaz, Benazir and Murtaza (1975).

But the fondest ever memory of those visits with my father to 70 Clifton was of one evening in early 1976 (I was now 10) when, as my father and I entered a spacious hall, Bhutto, smartly dressed in a suit and a tie and with a cigar in hand, approached my father and with a mischievous smile loudly asked: ‘Aur Paracha! (So, Paracha); how are the Soviets treating you?’

My father smiled back and answered something to this affect: ‘Sab sahi hai, Bhutto Sahib (All’s well, Mr. Bhutto); the Soviets are fine as long as one keeps appreciating their Vodka!’

Bhutto burst into laughter.

My saddest childhood memories of the time were not exactly the shutting down of schools and the curfews that were imposed during the right-wing Pakistan National Alliance’s protest movement against Bhutto in April 1977.

Nor do I remember what I felt when I saw this weird looking military man with a strange handlebar moustache talking on PTV (in July 1977) - A man against whom I would eventually spend all of my college years fighting as a student activist in the mid and late 1980s.

A tyrant who would retard the political and social evolution of Pakistan for years to come. A man called Ziaul Haq.

Zia announcing the imposition of Martial Law on PTV (July 1977).

My saddest memory regarding Bhutto is, of course, of April 4, 1979. I was 12 years old and now smart enough to understand what was going on.

My father had been blacklisted by the Zia regime (in 1977) and was out of a job. He still refused to join the family business.

I’d had a terrible morning at school two days before Bhutto’s hanging. My mother was summoned by my teachers and told that I would be suspended for giving a fellow student a big fat black eye! Thankfully I wasn’t.

The bugger had been waving a picture (cut out from Jang newspaper) of a cop flogging a man in public. He was mocking the flogged man, saying that all PPP supporters would be getting flogged this way.

Suddenly, bam! I smashed my fist in his face, knocking him out in 5 seconds flat. My anger was purely the result of the depression I was feeling from the economic pressures and uncertainty my family had been facing ever since the Zia regime blacklisted my father, making it impossible for him to get a job in any newspaper or magazine.

Saddest was when on the night of 4th April, some 12 hours after Bhutto’s hanging, I entered my parent’s bedroom and found my father sitting on his bed, his palms cupping his face, his head hung low, as he listened to a special programme on Bhutto on BBC Radio’s Urdu service.

I quietly sat on a chair opposite him, my knuckles still sour from punching my classmate. Then it happened. A sight I shall never forget.

My father removed his palms from his face to light a cigarette. And for the first time ever, I saw this cool, calm and stoic fellow, wiping tears from his cheeks. His eyes were swollen and red, as if he’d actually been weeping for hours.

I was stunned. I had no clue what to do. It was only then that I realised that Bhutto really was dead.

Scene after scene was related over the years in articles and books by so many people of how Bhutto’s death had actually made grown-up men and women cry.

I saw one such person do that right in front of my eyes. That evening I wanted to hug my father. But I somehow couldn’t. I just got up and left. The age of apathy had arrived in Pakistan.

My father at our house in Karachi in 1967. He passed away in 2009.

We are so used to them now, the bearded commanders of our television screens.

We know that someone important among them is called Hidayatullah, that their spokesman is Shahidullah, and that they are led by Maulana Fazlullah. We know when the weather is bad or the mood is wrong and their representatives cannot meet the other representatives of the latest negotiation of the newest committee.

Sometimes, when they do not agree, we know about that too, and in detail. When, as happened earlier this week, one faction from among the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan believes that the month-long ceasefire they had declared should be continued, we all wait with baited breath.

If the images on television screens are evidence, then the truth is clear. The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan are the current rulers of Pakistan’s television screens.

From a country that knew little about them as recently as four or five years ago, the Pakistani viewing public has become intimately acquainted with the agenda, views, threats, likes, dislikes, punishments, and statements of the group.

The pliant faces sitting before their television screens at home, poring over homework or housework, have had little choice in the matter.

The powers that be, owners of television networks and the marketing departments that sell advertising on them, seem to have decided that near constant coverage of the Tailban is a moneymaker, and morals cannot compete with money.

There are facts behind these observations.

Two weeks ago, the Tehreek-e-Taliban Afghanistan struck at the Serena Hotel in Kabul, opening gunfire on diners in a hotel restaurant. Among those killed was Ahmed Sardar, a journalist for Agence France Presse. In the aftermath of that bombing, Afghan journalists, fed up of the endless bloodletting of the group, declared a 15-day boycott of news reporting on the Taliban. It was a momentous decision; in the endless condemnations and pleas to halt the killing, the journalists on the other side of the border had realized a change in strategy was necessary.

A few days into the boycott, I wrote an editorial asking for Pakistani journalists to do the same. Hard news of attacks, etc., should be provided to insure the provision of information related to security, but the endless analysis, speculation, regurgitation of inane details of a terrorist group’s agenda, must be omitted.

The response was interesting.

Such a boycott would never happen in Pakistan, many fellow journalists told me, for the simple reason that many within the journalist community were sympathetic to the agenda of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan.

Others argued that a limited boycott would have financial consequences for those television channels that chose to participate, so strong was their belief in the viewing public’s desire for such endless dissection and popularization of the Talib’s intent and purposes.

A few were simply honest. As journalists we do not make a lot of money, they said. If we make a move like this we will lose our jobs to others waiting hungrily in the wings.

In the meantime, another journalist and author, this time a Pakistani, Raza Rumi, was attacked by gunmen in Lahore. But again, as before, few journalists had the guts to consider such action. Even if they realize that the cover of “news” is enabling a whole cabal of journalists to disguise their sympathies as news coverage, they are hesitant and disbelieving in the value of such collective action.

This lack of unity on the side of those that oppose the Taliban’s agenda, particularly the killing of journalists and innocent men, women, and children, is of course a victory for the Taliban.

The result is visible on your television screens: a group that receives free publicity, whose demands, by the very fact of their repetition, are becoming familiar and, in this sense, normalised.

Instead of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan changing or being co-opted, it is the public that is slowly being made passive and hence accepting of their barbarity.

There was, once, not too long ago, a time when floggings and beheadings, bombings and shootings would stun the public, when the massacre of minorities and the extinguishment of women from the public sphere was considered unquestionably wrong, not a point at debate.

The Pakistanis sitting in front of their television sets, watching, listening, swallowing, are also learning. It is a lesson of silence, of injustice witnessed for so long that it ceases to look like evil, and of the transformation of a group of rebels into rulers—at least of Pakistani television screens.

‘The beginning of a thing is a mirror of its end.’ –Asadullah Ghalib

“All these years, Jack, you were a prison warden, and I never really asked you about your prisoners.” He had just turned 70 and we had been talking about politics, in the way we did, never trying to reach a definite answer. We talked about the revolutions in the Middle East, about Syria, about Ukraine about why so many people were ready to die for abstract concepts like freedom and territory.

In all the years I had known him, we would talk about everything, but we would not cross that one red line. We never discussed our own working lives; we talked about others, about the world outside rather than inside. I am not sure why I decided to ask him that day and equally I am not sure why he answered. Maybe it was because he thought he was getting older, he would mutter that line from Elliot, 'I will show you fear in a handful of dust.'

Maybe it was because he was worried his own stories would be lost.

“So Jack, I have always wanted to ask you this,” I said. “What does every prisoner want?”

He brushed me off at first. “What does everyone want?” he said. “The stock answer is they want freedom.”

He hesitated, like a criminal before a confession. And then,

That is what I used to believe. I lost that faith a long time ago.

“What happened?” I asked, wondering even as I said it whether I wanted to know the answer.

“You remember I once mentioned I was worked as a nurse in the high-security prison? I was quite newly trained, and you used to mock me for working within the prison system. It was actually really interesting. All the clichés they tell you about prison being a microcosm of society are true. The first thing I noticed was the hierarchy among the prisoners. Without being told, they divided themselves into two groups.

“On one level were those with long sentences, ‘the high levels’ as they were called, they were often educated and usually polite. Then you had the ‘lower level’ criminals, the petty thieves, who you needed to explain things to again and again. They were those who had slipped through the cracks in society. They had missed out on opportunities, education and basic parenting; their fate was an unending cycle of prison-release-reoffend-prison or an early death.

“At the higher level we used to see them all, the white-collar thief, the paedophiles, rapists, killers. They would often come across as well-dressed, clean-shaven and unapologetic about what they had done. Many of them knew freedom was a remote possibility, and so they were happy to extract the best out of the prison system – whether that meant tapping into the underground smuggling network or joining prison gangs to assert their authority. That division between the ‘high levels’ and the ‘low levels’ applied to almost everyone except him, except Prisoner 4978.”

I thought to stop him there, to make him explain more. I had so many questions about how things worked in the prison and why he worked there. At the same time, I could see how uneasy he was at the mention of 4978 and I let him continue.

“Prisoner 4978 was a particularly nasty specimen. He had been in prison a few times for assault. ‘I’d had a rough life, my father wasn’t around, my Mum was a drunk and I‘ad to make do’ was his explanation. In the end he went too far and was given two life sentences without any possibility of parole. The first conviction was for killing his wife who he beat to death ‘She’d been cheating on me’ (she had not). The other was for the gardener who he hacked to pieces with an axe for sleeping with his wife (which he had not).

“Prisoner 4978 was different from those in the higher level. A mammoth of a man, he towered over me at 6 feet 2, compared to my measly 5 feet 5. While the others seemed comfortable with life in prison, he didn't feel the same. He wanted to be free and he would often vent his feelings about how he would get out and do whatever he wanted once again. Instead, he would end up being confined to his cell on a regular basis for having started another fight with a prisoner.

‘Unprovoked violence’ was the technical term for his behaviour because there was no rhyme or reason to his fights. The victims of his violence could be anyone who happened to be crossing his path. There was one exception though. He would leave the prison guards alone and would often say to them, ‘I’ll do anything to get out of this prison’. I could not understand his logic. Why would someone who knew he would never be getting out of prison, still talk about all the things he would do when he was free? But for him, freedom came above all else.

“One day, many months after I started, another guard and I were escorting Prisoner 4978 back to his cell, when the guard tripped and lost his balance. Prisoner 4978 lashed out and slammed me and the guard back against the corridor. There he stood unshackled, cell door open and prison corridor empty. He had a choice; chances were he could get out and away before the prison guard could sound the alarm. Or he could attack, but attack whom? If he attacked the well-built but off-balance guard he could easily knock him out, get his corridor keys and make an escape pretty far away. Sure, there was a good chance he would be captured but not before being free for some time. Or he could attack me. I was no match for him physically and with one punch from him I would likely be hospitalised for life. BUT attacking me was not going to benefit him in anyway, I had no corridor keys nor did I pose a threat to him.

“He paused, weighing his decision, and in that brief moment I saw in his eyes something I never want to see again in another human being. He ignored the guard, the empty corridor and the keys to his freedom, and lunged at me. I managed to duck and he lost his balance, just long enough for the guard to grab him and force him to the ground.

“I never saw him again. He was locked up in solitary and a few weeks later, I was rotated to another centre. But I have never forgotten him. For sometime after, I struggled to understand what his motivations were in that split second. Why would he choose a pointless attack over the possibility of the freedom he so craved. He was a predator who sought out the most vulnerable creature to target. That’s why he went after me. I was easy prey.

“And now you ask about freedom? That is not what he wanted at all. Or rather, he made a choice. He could have had his freedom if he had grabbed the keys and run. But it was less important than what he really wanted. Power over others.”

Later, I asked what had happened to Prisoner 4978, the man who had placed the opportunity to strike a smaller man over the chance to escape.

“He died,” said Jack. “In prison.”

Tobey Marshall (Aaron Paul of Breaking Bad) is a former racing driver turned performance mechanic, who is framed by past competitor Dino Brewster (Dominic Cooper), after he gets him to finish work on a pricey Ford Shelby Mustang – which is also one of the principal characters in the movie.

A scene from movie, "Need for Speed". – Courtesy Photo

Need for Speed is as simple as the title suggests. The cars whir, drift and go kablooey on the highway while our hero – driven by the rush of racing and his itch to get even – grinds his teeth and flexes his driving muscles.

Another adrenaline rush action movie?

Yes, but don’t hate the movie for what it is.

As much as the settings resemblances any one of Need for Speed’s engine revved brethren – including Fast and Furious, whose later parts have more brawn than cars – the screenplay by George Gatins deliberately places the automobiles in the narrative backseat.

A scene from movie, "Need for Speed". – Courtesy Photo

Instead of showing off paintjobs, skimpily dressed car-girls or custom performance tune-up – which by the way, is a part of the plot – our point of reference are Tobey, Julia (Imogen Poots) and Maverick (Scott Mescudi), as they first, speed from New York to San Francisco in forty-eight hours. Evading police capture and imminent death by racers-turned-bounty hunters, they later sprint against top-of-the-line racecars in an underground competition sponsored by an eccentric video-jockey called Monarch (Michael Keaton, cast with the idea of being over-the-top).

A scene from movie, "Need for Speed". – Courtesy Photo

Need for Speed, notwithstanding its videogame lineage, is still a nascent movie franchise; thematically though, there would be little change in formula in any action movie with shiny vehicles (be it cars or bikes). A hero would come with emotional baggage, a kind heart and stupefying driving skills. He would (of course) get the girl, settle a score – usually the central point of the storyline – and hoodwink (or in this case, outrun) authorities in the process. The formula is hiccup-free and universal to the premise.

A scene from movie, "Need for Speed". – Courtesy Photo

Steve Waugh stylistically, and intelligently, tones down digital flamboyance by settling for real cars and real crashes. Although the all-digital cinematography by Shane Hurlbut (using Canon C500’s), betrays the down-and-dirty organic look of a film negative (there is a lack of grain in the picture and the 3D is just about average), the realism of capturing live-action visuals manages to give Need for Speed the distinction that left Fast and the Furious more than a decade back.

The final word

For a movie with so much formulaic deadweight and a lack of dynamism, Need for Speed is a tastefully executed, unpretentious fodder. Aaron Paul and Imogen Poots are believable, but the cars are fantastic; and of course, they – or the Need for Speed tag – are the reason you’d go for the movie anyway.

Released by Walt Disney Studios, ‘Need for Speed’ is rated PG-13 for scenes of automobile delinquency and stunts you shouldn’t attempt with in your vehicle.

Directed by Scott Waugh, Produced by John Gatins, Patrick O'Brien, Mark Sourian; Screenplay by George Gatins, on a story by George Gatins and John Gatin (Based on the videogame Need for Speed by Electronic Arts); Cinematography by Shane Hurlbut; Editing by Paul Rubell, Scott Waugh; Music by Nathan Furst.

Starring: Aaron Paul, Dominic Cooper, Imogen Poots, Ramón Rodríguez, Rami Malek, Dakota Johnson, Harrison Gilbertson and Michael Keaton.

I’m motivated to write this blog because of a death threat that was bought to my attention, posted on to a news update on the teenage activist, Malala Yousafzai. Since web 2.0 sites have become popular with middle class Pakistanis over the last four years, the criminal Pakistani trend of making death threats has migrated online. Pakistanis who make death threats are a serious problem in this country. If there is a difference between Pakistanis and Indians that seems to have crept up, it might be the willingness of individual Pakistanis to quickly resort to violence. I think it is worth examining the sociological sources of this criminal trait.

The neo-liberal era which we have inhabited for the last three decades has become a tiresome burden on the underprivileged sections of society. This country’s gender, childhood, and labour inequities are amongst the worst in the world, so bad that they even mutate into cruel ethnic and sectarian violence. With no global power arguing forcefully against social and economic exploitation it is up to individuals, their countries and their governments to combat domestic social inequities.

When individuals who fight for rights are treated like societal pariahs, it is a tragedy.

This criminal trait, in particular, began with deranged Pakistanis on the internet who celebrated the murder of Governor Salman Taseer. When these disgusting expressions occurred on the social networking site Facebook, it became apparent that this cultural cruelty was stronger than any modern tool of communication. In its myopia, this cruel cultural feudalism only saw technology as a tool for its ideological ends rather than an available avenue in a relatively restricted world to learn new facts, explore new ideas and expand their minds. And a willingness to wish death upon those who violated their sense of Islam or Pakistani religious culture is a feature of this.

The viciousness of Pakistani middle classes’ attitude is as astounding as it is cruel, abrupt and insistent in its irrationality and fanaticism. Their words resemble the irrational deeds of the Jihadi organisations that have broken free from the control of their handlers.

Irrational displays of power were once an action limited to feudal lords in Pakistan. During periods of military rule, when an urban bureaucracy and military dominated this country, this irrational attitude was transmitted and co-opted from the junior members of those military-era power arrangements.

These rural bandits who came under the protection of feudal lords were called Dharels. Amar Jaleel was a columnist for Dawn magazine who bought attention to the topic of rural Dharels and the standing form of injustice they presented to rural society as murderers and robbers who remained unpunished.

At a time when members of the military-bureaucratic state were industrially producing Jihadist militias (as covered in Brigadier Mohammad Yousaf and Mark Adkin’s “Bear Trap”) in the 1980’s Pakistan’s middle classes were also rising up at the same time. These middle classes have turned out to be so ideologically regressive in their contempt for the lower orders that this attitude would not look out of place with the feudal lords of rural Pakistan.

The intolerance they also display is the same that was being patronised by the state at the same time the neo-liberal economy of the 1980’s was raising them up. Along with feudal-like contempt for labour the middle classes also accepted the military’s contempt for politicians and until recently, democracy as well. The result of these reactionary attitudes in this rising class was that the Zia era’s attempts at institutionalising unequal social relations were successful, and organised degradation for Pakistan’s labourers, women and minorities was embedded in the dominant economic system of Pakistan’s cities and state structure.

The questionable business ethics of many of those who employed middle class Pakistanis in the reactionary Ziaist chaotic urban environment saw criminals taken under with business, political or intelligence protection. And the rising middle class tacitly accepted these criminals as beneficiaries of the largesse they were experiencing. Rightful scorn at this economic lawlessness was diverted to feckless politicians who could not marshall the same firepower as drug smugglers, spies and terrorists. Death threats, to dissuade prosecutors, activists, reporters and policemen are one of many reprehensible criminal like actions taken by these influential post-1980’s bandit classes to protect their quasi-legitimate and deeply exploitative economic activities.

Also read: Pakistan’s fixation with feudalism

The casual way in which they threaten violence on those who interfere with their shady economic activities and dubious religious culture, echoes the threats of the feudal lords against peasants who do not toe their exploitative line. We see in this neo-liberal era that government has been reduced to making way for the practices of business, and the capacity and opportunity to successfully exploit human weakness has expanded beyond the feudal class into the Pakistani bourgeoisie.

And the persistence of thinking that treats survivors with contempt, considers women and girls property and is not only willing but well prepared, whether with a bank account, a cache of weapons or a gang of crooks to go outside the law to get whatever its greedy little heart desires.

My Facebook newsfeed is abuzz with comments and updates heralding the launch of the fourth season of HBO’s ‘Game of Thrones’. As an ex-fan, my disposition these days is of a crestfallen man watching his former lover revelling in continued success and attention.

But my obsession ended with the 'Red Wedding'.

I was barely okay with the show mainstreaming incest, infanticide, filicide, and torture based TV, as long as it all came in metered doses. But when forced to wrap my head around possibly the most depressing scene in TV history, perched atop an already bleak storyline, I publicly broke up with GoT. I went from a fan writing blogs in extolment of the series, to a person cringing at any reference to it.

Bear in mind, I’m not a happy-endings fan complaining of the show not being ‘Disney’ enough for my liking. I’ve enjoyed Breaking Bad, Dexter, and a range of slasher films with dark climaxes. But for any viewer to be entertained by the ‘Red Wedding’ -- not just endure it -- may be a red flag for sadistic tendencies.

[Warning: some spoilers ahead]

Catelyn Stark

The ‘Red Wedding’ is a scene where one of the major characters, a young revolutionary is betrayed at a wedding he attends. His pregnant wife, one of the few ‘good’ characters in the book, is stabbed in the belly and killed. All his men drinking and dining outside the palace are butchered. His pet wolf is shot with a crossbow. He himself is murdered in front of his mother as she begs for his life, and then gets her own throat sliced by the traitor. This feels exponentially more dismal knowing the traitor is working for the same family that defamed and executed the rebel’s father, and has taken his sister hostage.

Credits roll.

According to the Affective Disposition Theory, people enjoy entertainment when characters identified as "good" prevail over the bad ones. There is, however, something else in play too: 'excitation transfer theory', which states that if the negative emotion building up over time from watching a downer TV-series, can suddenly be switched to positive emotion if the series ends on a positive note.

However, the third season of GoT tops the build up of negative emotion with one super-depressing scene after another, and then rolls credits. Bye. See you next year. Hope you enjoyed us spontaneously killing all your favorite characters.

It is eudaimonia that perhaps explains the series' loyal fans who haven't washed their hands of the show in disgust yet. Eudaimonia is finding satisfaction in tormenting, negative experiences because they remind us of our own humanity, and bring us in touch with them.

Jon Snow

This is the reason I had been a great fan of the TV-series all the way from the end of the first season to the third-last episode of season 3. But beyond this, the series appears to have twisted into something worse, and the cravings for these depressing bloodbaths seem to me a sign of something deeply pathological.

It doesn’t help when fans who have read the books in advance condescendingly tell you how much you’re missing out on by not burying your face into those literary wonders, and only watching the show on TV.

“You have no idea how much uglier its going to get,” they say smugly.

Yes, what pray tell is coming up?

Do the dragons get diagnosed with breast cancer, mocked for their bald, scaleless heads and then get euthanized at age 22?

Does Lady Cersei manage to slaughter the four remaining infants in King's Landing?

Each episode is a round of musical chair for characters you’ve invested much attention and affection into, and whoever’s standing at the end gets brutally murdered without a warning.

You can berate me all you like for my opinion, but I'm not alone here. I am but a particle of the large chunk that broke off the GoT fan-base after season 3. And with a new season premiering, I stay true to the promise I made to myself about a year ago in the hostel TV-room in Istanbul: “Never again”.

I know nothing good can come out of this.

We all know that Arab General Muhammad Bin Qasim conquered Sindh in 712 AD. However, the facts surrounding this conquest, and the ill fate that followed for the conqueror is known to few among us.

According to researcher and historian Dr Mubarak Ali, the war between Muhamad Bin Qasim and Raja Dahar was never a war of faith versus infidelity. He further says that it is not correct that Muhammad Bin Qasim’s men included Hindus of scheduled castes fighting for him.

It was after Muhammad Bin Qasim had conquered Sindh and had marched further ahead that locals started joining the Arab forces due to poverty and joblessness. According to Dr Mubarak Ali, the Arabs started ruling under the umbrella of an ancient elite class, thus their behaviour towards the lower and humbler communities never changed.

As such, the taking over of the reigns of Hind and Sindh by the Arabs never changed a thing for the already oppressed and victimised classes of society, which is claimed to be the focus of Islamic governance.

So, who is to decide if Muhammad Bin Qasim was a predator or a preacher?

No glory in death

Chachnama, a Sindhi book published by the Sindhi Adabi Board in 2008, speaks of Muhammad bin Qasim's demise on page 242 to 243. I will try to summarise it for you.

After Raja Dahar was killed, two of his daughters were made captive, whom Muhammad Bin Qasim sent to the capital Baghdad. After a few days, the Caliph of the Muslims called the two young women to his court. The name of the elder daughter of Raja Dahar was Suryadevi, while the younger one’s name was Pirmaldevi.

Caliph Waleed Bin Abdul Malik fell for Suryadevi’s extraordinary beauty. He ordered for her younger sister to be taken away. The Caliph then began to take liberties with Suryadevi, pulling her to himself.

It is written that Suryadevi sprang up and said: “May the king live long: I, a humble slave, am not fit for your Majesty's bedroom, because Muhammad Bin Qasim kept both of us sisters with him for three days, and then sent us to the caliphate. Perhaps your custom is such, but this kind of disgrace should not be permitted by kings.”

Hearing this, the Caliph’s blood boiled as heat from anger and desire both compounded within him.

Blinded in the thirst of Suryadevi’s nearness and jealousy of Bin Qasim who had robbed him of the purity he would otherwise have had, the Caliph [sic] immediately sent for pen, ink and paper, and with his own hands wrote an order, directing that, “Muhammad (Bin) Qasim should, wherever he may be, put himself in raw leather and come back to the chief seat of the caliphate.”

Muhammad Bin Qasim received the Caliph’s orders in the city of Udhapur. He directed his own men to wrap him in raw leather and lock him in a trunk before taking him to Baghdad.

En route to the capital, Muhammad Bin Qasim, conqueror to some, predator to others, breathed his last and his soul departed to meet with the Creator in whose name he claimed to crusade in Sindh.

When the trunk carrying Muhammad Bin Qasim’s corpse wrapped in raw leather reached the Caliph’s court, the Caliph called upon Dahar’s daughters, asking them to bear witness to the spectacle of obedience of his men for the Caliph.

One of Dahar’s daughter’s then spoke in return and said: “The fact is that Muhammad Qasim was like a brother or a son to us; he never touched us, your slaves, and our chastity was safe with him. But in as much as he brought ruin on the king of Hind and Sind, desolated the kingdom of our fathers and grandfathers, and degraded us from princely rank to slavery, we have, with the intention of revenge and of bringing ruin and degradation to him in return, misrepresented the matter and spoken a false thing to your majesty against him.”

The author of the Chachnama then writes that had Muhammad Bin Qasim not lost his senses in the passion of obedience, he could have made the whole journey normally, while wrapping himself in raw leather and locking himself in a trunk only when a part of the journey remained to be covered.

He could have then proven himself innocent in the Caliph’s court and saved himself from such a fate.

Translated by Aadarsh Ayaz Laghari

Dhawan appears to have a clear idea as to the scope of his film: Main Tera Hero is filler entertainment – the kind that appears, then disappears in between more serious works of cinema, with a good chance of popping up on TV more often than one would hope.

One partial saving grace: while the screenplay by Milap Zaveri barely counts as a story, Dhawan still seems slightly more in control of his material this time around; he remains fixated on shooting densely lit sets with wide-open lenses and a deep focus.

A scene from movie, "Main Tera Hero". – Courtesy Photo

(Lack of) comedy

With Varun Dhawan’s nasal tone, the humor is archetypal Govinda-turf. When Dhawan isn’t channeling Govinda, or pulling off goofy-looks, one can sense a bit of recent Shahid Kapoor in him.

A scene from movie, "Main Tera Hero". – Courtesy Photo

The leading ladies – Nargis Fakhri and Ileana D’Cruz – have pint-sized personas, reflecting neither intelligence nor particularly good acting skills.

The rest of the supporting cast – including Anupam Kher, Evelyn Sharma, Saurabh Shukla, Rajpal Yadav, Manoj Pahwa and Shakti Kapoor – are underwritten caricatures of past performances, whose comedy either struggles with badly timed edits or poor cinematography.

A scene from movie, "Main Tera Hero". – Courtesy Photo

The final word

Main Tera Hero is wishy-washy entertainment that only manages to work on occasion because of Dhawan’s experienced hand as a director. The soundtrack, with Music by Sajid-Wajid, helps twice – once in “Palat”, sung by Arijit Singh and then in “Besharmi Ki Height” sung by Benny Dayal and Shalmali Kholgade.

The music's energy, however, is like the movie: think a can of soda, minus the carbonated goodness.

Released by Balaji Motion Pictures, ‘Main Tera Hero’ is rated U/A, featuring (mostly) Varun Dhawan shirtless, brief sensuality and some fake blood. Directed by David Dhawan; Produced by Shobha Kapoor, Ekta Kapoor, Alpana Mishra; Written by Milap Zaveri and Tushar Hiranandani; Cinematography by Sanjay F. Gupta; Editing by Nitin Madhukar Rokade; Music by Sajid-Wajid. Starring, Varun Dhawan, Ileana D'Cruz, Nargis Fakhri, Anupam Kher, Manoj Pahwa, Evelyn Sharma, Saurabh Shukla, Rajpal Yadav and Shakti Kapoor.

Their hands may be blessed with cure, but not with good handwriting. Prescriptions from doctors in Pakistan are often illegible, missing instructions on dosage, and list unnecessarily a large number of expensive branded drugs.

A recent study published in the Pakistan Journal of Medical Sciences reviewed 1,100 prescriptions in Peshawar. The study revealed that 59 per cent of the prescriptions were barely legible, and many others offered incomplete directions about dosage and use. More importantly, certain expensive drugs were overprescribed even when generic cheaper versions were available in the market.

While being one of the poorest countries in the world, prescription medicines are unnecessarily expensive in Pakistan. Health-related expenses consume a large portion of household budgets of the very poor in Pakistan. At the same time, illegible and incomplete prescriptions filled by unlicensed pharmacists often selling counterfeit medicines add to the burden of disease. Hospitals, pharmacies, and clinics in Pakistan need to be subjected to a stricter regulatory regime to limit the spread and prevalence of disease.

Unlike pharmacies, hospitals and clinics are staffed by trained and experienced doctors. However, this is worth little when the prescriptions they write are either not legible or are incomplete. The good doctors in Peshawar though are not the only one with sloppy handwriting. In the United States alone, more than 7,000 deaths are attributed to doctors’ sloppy handwriting. Over three billions prescriptions are written in the United States every year. Illegible handwriting, unclear abbreviations and dosage instructions are the reasons behind mistakes that prove fatal for thousands of patients.

Also read: The Medicine men and women

The Peshawar study of 1,100 prescriptions revealed some very disturbing trends. Some 89 per cent prescriptions did not bear names of the physician and 20 per cent prescriptions did not bear the physician’s signatures. In 64 per cent of the cases the physician did not mention dosage and in 55 per cent of the cases the duration of treatment was missing.

One wonders if the doctors are not outlining the dosage and the duration of treatment, who is?

The contents of prescriptions reveal two additional sources of concern. First, prescriptions on average carried 3.3 drugs, which, according to the authors, is significantly higher than the WHO recommended standard of two drugs per prescription. Of the six facilities from where these prescriptions were sourced, prescriptions from the private for-profit facilities listed higher drugs per prescription than those collected from public-sector medical facilities.

The other major concern was about the frequent dispensing of painkillers that were listed on almost 62 per cent of the prescriptions. Addiction to prescription opiates is a known problem that often leads to detrimental consequences. However, doctors in Peshawar are rather cavalier in prescribing opiates. I witnessed this first-hand in the early 90s, when I accompanied a friend to the Psychiatric Hospital, which believe it or not is located in Peshawar Jail. I wonder if there was ever an audit done of the drugs in the hospital’s internal pharmacy.

Source: http://dx.doi.org/10.12669/pjms.303.4931

Another study of prescriptions collected from patients admitted to the psychiatric ward at the Lady Reading Hospital in Peshawar revealed similar disturbing trends.* Instructions for use were mentioned only 50 per cent of the time and fewer than one in five prescriptions mentioned the total quantity to be dispensed. But more importantly, all prescriptions included only branded, and hence more expensive, drugs rather than the cheaper generic drugs.

Even when prescriptions are legible, there is still no guarantee for the patient to get the right medicine in Pakistan where fake drugs are ubiquitous. Kulsoom Parveen, who chaired a Senate health committee, claimed that “at least 30 per cent of medicines bought in the country are either counterfeits or substandard.” This trade is facilitated by the very large number of illegal pharmacies. The Pakistan Pharmacist Association claims to have only 4,000 registered pharmacists in Pakistan, but

25 times more merchants [are] dispensing medicines illegally.

Caring for disease eats into the disposable earnings of low-income households. With $2 billion in pharmaceutical sales, households in Pakistan spend an awful lot on drugs when the per capita GDP is still shy of $1,300.

It does not help when doctors prescribe expensive branded drugs as a quid pro quo for gifts and junkets made possible by the big pharma. Such practice should be discouraged, or better banned. The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario, Canada’s largest medical regulator, is set to issue a new ethics policy that will prevent doctors from accepting gifts from a pharmaceutical company. “When we talk about gifts or things of value … we’re saying ‘No, you should not accept them anymore.’ We are moving the posts here,” said Dr. Marc Gabel, president of the College. Ontario in Canada is not alone. Stanford University in 2006 instituted a similar policy that banned faculty members from accepting gift of any kind from the pharmaceutical industry.

Also read: The ‘business’ of medicine

The welfare of low-income patients will improve if doctors find ways to reduce health care costs; they can help by prescribing low-cost generic drugs. And while they are at it, they should try to write clearly. A slight improvement in doctors’ handwriting will do wonders for patients’ wellbeing.

References:

Raza UA, Khursheed T, Irfan M, Abbas M, Irfan UM. Prescription patterns of general practitioners in Peshawar, Pakistan. Pak J Med Sci 2014;30(3): doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.12669/pjms.303.4931

• Salman S, Ismail M, Awan NR, Anees M. Patterns of prescription writing in psychiatric clinics. J Postgrad Med Inst 2013; 27(3):290-6.

Men grieve the death of relatives at a hospital in Islamabad, after a bomb tore through a bustling market, killing at least 21 people. -AFP Photo

Could dialogue have saved the lives of the 21 people killed in the Islamabad blast today?

Apparently the government thought so – or perhaps still does. But then again, one may ask why should peace talks with the Taliban come under fire when the Tehreek-e-Taliban themselves have condemned today’s attack claiming, "such attacks targeting innocent people are forbidden in Sharia and they are un-Islamic."

This statement by the TTP, if true, brings us back to the mysterious hidden hands then – the entity supposedly responsible for the recent attacks.

These hidden hands do not want peace. They never have. Apparently, it is always the hidden hands, which launch such attacks when the government and the Taliban initiate dialogue. It would seem thus, the bigger and perhaps scarier enemy then, are these hidden hands – the hidden hands with no name, no face but a clear agenda – derail peace talks and keep terror alive.

The common man is reading in the newspapers and watching on television the progress, or lack of, on the peace talks. He doesn’t care when the next round of talks will be and what terms proposed by either side are – all he cares about is security, and if these talks aren’t providing that, what is the point of going ahead with them?

The government is interested in reducing the level of violence in the short term and the TTP seems to be the obvious enemy at hand and hence, the bending over backwards to accommodate their terms continues. However, not to be the eternal pessimist and critic here, but it doesn’t take a lot of deep analysis to see this effort going nowhere.

We are perhaps talking to the wrong people. We are releasing their prisoners and pondering over their intolerant ideology while the real enemy is bombing innocent people at the sabzi mandi.

Any effort to create peace will go wasted if there is a more powerful enemy out there who seems to have a free reign, as its identity remains concealed. If anything, perhaps the first point on the government and TTP’s agenda should be to identify and take action against the group committing these crimes. Not only would it bring about some security for the common man, but it may also clarify TTP’s position.

Once the hidden hands are dealt with, dialogue between the government and TTP can continue on balanced, fair terms as opposed to having the latter dictate them. There is absolutely no point in investing energy and effort on a process that is futile to begin with.

Too many times have we seen Rehman Malik and Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan stare at the cameras wearing a mask of sincerity, telling us how the “hidden hands” and “third element” are coming in the way of peace and progress. Too many times failure has stared us in the face and taken far too many innocent lives.

All effort should now be channeled towards unveiling and capturing this hidden enemy instead and if the government or military lacks the capability to do so, it should clearly be stated so that there remains no doubt in their incompetency.

Currently, it seems that peace talks and ceasefires with the TTP may be able to save the lives of our government leaders and military men but they won’t be able to save the lives of the common man out on the street.

Who does the government plan to hold talks with about those lives?

Imagine taking all the lessons we’ve received from our arduous tango with the Taliban, and applying them to another malady creeping over us; one that has carried out two deadly attacks on our civilians in two days.

The UBA, standing for United Baloch Army, is an abbreviation that I learned when I arrived at work at my hospital in Islamabad, and with a sinking heart, saw news vans lined outside the emergency department. In future, I worry, the UBA may well become part of the Pakistani vernacular just as the dreaded TTP has.

We have learned, in our lengthy communion with our oppressors, that terrorist attacks only occur because we’re ‘asking for them’, either by continually allying ourselves with the West, or by tolerating and even conducting military operations against terrorist outfits.

We have learned, that for every innocent that dies during counter-terrorist operations (or goes missing without a trace), 10 others are created.

We’ve been informed that the militants we’re fighting against are basically our own people who have come to resent us for the way we’ve been treating them, and even though their actions are condemnable, their resentment isn’t quite unreasonable.

We’re told each time, even before the smoke dissipates from the blast zone and full scale devastation looms into view, that the attack is a conspiracy to malign the terrorist organisation and hamper the peace process. ‘Malign’, as in, blemish the sterling and saintly reputation they’ve worked gruellingly to attain.

To lay out tea and biscuits at the negotiation table for one terrorist organisation, and pretend you’re not home when the other rings your doorbell, is indicative of either unequal significance, or unequal lobbying.

My assessment is that separatist outfits like the BLA, BRA and UBA will falter for multiple reasons, but notably because of an atrocious PR campaign. Without a tendril attached firmly to the political mainstream, these organisations are likely to blow away into the shadows of irrelevance where they’ve spent a greater part of their lives.

While the TTP is well on its way up from a ‘terrorist organisation’ to being legitimised as a ‘political party with controversial tactics’, the Baloch separatists have few apologists to woo the crowds for them.

One would think it’d be easier to defend the Baloch terrorist groups. For one, they are uninterested in amending the constitution of the entire country, and want to dictate their terms only over the region they’re claiming independence for.

Also read: System in disarray

I, personally, don’t believe in softening the public’s rage against either of them.

It’s high time the terrorists learn that once they kill an innocent civilian who is going about buying fruit for his family at a bazaar, they forfeit their right to tell us their heart-wrenching daastans and dismal origin stories. I have no interest in making it appear as if the terrorists had diminished responsibility to act humanely, because they themselves had been wronged at some point.

I am, however, eagerly waiting to see how the supporters of the peace process with the TTP will be responding to the UBA.

How about getting them to stop the aggression in exchange for us relinquishing control of Kalat?

How about releasing 16 Baloch separatists from imprisonment as a goodwill gesture?

How about information on missing persons to placate the UBA, and negotiate a cessation of attacks on trains and gas pipelines by them and their allied groups?

I’m sincerely hoping this is not how things play out, for I doubt we can afford to give enough away to keep two terrorist groups happy at the same time.

It won’t be an understatement to suggest that on most occasions watching Pakistani TV talk shows can be like experiencing an exhaustive roller-coaster ride.

Within a span of 50 minutes or so, the pendulum of moods, emotions and whole narratives in them, swing to and fro like a giant bell being shaken by an earthquake.

But as some viewers pick up on the resultant dichotomies that usually emerge from the many postures struck by the host and his/her guests (sometimes within a single sentence), one also realises that those spouting self-contradictory statements are doing so knowing well that what they are saying would hardly ever be challenged with facts.

Well, that’s news TV for you in the 21st century. Facts don’t matter. But rhetoric certainly does.

Take for example a popular talk show I watched last evening (April 9) on one of the largest private news channels in the country.

The host kicked of the show by rightly castigating the Interior Minister, Chaudhry Nisar, after showing a clip from the minister’s press conference held last month in which he had declared Islamabad to be a ‘safe city.’

Ever since that press conference, the safe city has witnessed two gruesome terrorist attacks that took the lives of dozens of people.

The host then turned to his first guest, a state minister in the current federal cabinet. As expected, the minister tried to defend Nisar’s claims by saying that the Interior Minister had actually said that making Islamabad safe (through security measures) would take a year; as such things usually take time and can’t be achieved with a flick of a switch.

Technically, he may be right. But one does wonder why when the PML-N was in the opposition (between 2008 and 2013), its members were not willing to give even a single second to the PPP-led coalition government to set things right regarding matters such as the law and order situation and terrorism?

No doubt the last government failed on many counts but I think it should also consider itself to be a tad unlucky because it wasn’t given the kind of a platform that the present government is being provided by the populist electronic media.

Chaudhry Nisar: Unsafe claims.

But that’s not the issue and the act of media outlets taking sides is not restricted to Pakistan alone. The problem, in this respect arises when a media outlet becomes an active party in the direct dialectics between political parties and state institutions.

For example, during the same show one of the guests was the head of an obscure religious party. I don’t even remember the party’s name, but its chief who was invited to the show had been one of the negotiators (from the state’s side) during the 2007 Lal Masjid episode.

But the show wasn’t about the Lal Masjid episode, was it? No, but the Lal Masjid episode is about Musharraf during whose regime military action against Lal Masjid clerics and their supporters was taken.

There is now ample evidence out there demonstrating that the local electronic media most certainly misreported the whole Lal Masjid fiasco.

Evidence also suggests that the fiasco was due to conflicting tendencies and views on the issue between the state and the government and how irresponsibly the electronic media tried to jump in without fully understanding the ground realities of the affair; and (more disturbingly) turning the whole matter into a cynical race for ratings. A reproachful race and sprint that was depicted as being some kind of a compassionate exhibition of journalistic bravado and bravery.

A 2008 cartoon saterising the fickle nature of Pakistani media.

But, again, the show wasn’t about Lal Masjid, was it?

Wouldn’t a person like the popularly elected MNA from Islamabad, PTI’s Asad Umar, been a more relevant choice as a guest on a show discussing the two recent attacks in the city?

But, of course, the show was not just about Islamabad being (or not being) a safe city. It eventually moved on to debate the statement of Pakistan’s military chief, General Raheel Sharif in which he (indirectly) exhibited his concern regarding the kind of language being used for General (R) Pervez Musharraf, who these days is facing multiple cases, including one for treason.

General’s Sharif’s statement in this respect has enough in it to be made into a talking item on TV talk shows.

That’s why the said show’s host also invited an experienced investigative journalist and regular TV personality who only recently exhibited his displeasure over the way the General alluded (in public and through a press release), his resentment towards those members of the government who have been castigating Musharraf at the drop of a hat.

Anyone with a democratic disposition would appreciate the investigative journalist’s appeal of not bringing rifts between the government and the armed forces out in public.

But as another experienced journalist (who had joined the show from Karachi), pointed out, how come those members of the media who are exhibiting such concern over General Sharif’s public statement, had no problem when the military (through a press release) showed its displeasure over certain clauses in the Kerry-Lugar Bill three years ago?

In fact even when the press release on the Bill (issued by the military’s media wing, the ISPR), was short, it was expanded and turned into some kind of a revolutionary, anti-imperialistic indictment against the last government by the media.

No one was asking why the ISPR was issuing press releases on political matters then. On the contrary, some very ‘democratic’ TV anchors began to explain the press release as an encouraging sign foretelling the fall of the government at the hands of the military.

Martial Law was not a concern then, but it is now?

Not Kerry and Lugar

Well, maybe those who did this have learned from their mistakes. But how can one learn from his or her mistakes, if they fail to first understand and then own up to the fact that they were mistaken?

I believe had the journalist from Karachi not been on the show, the dichotomy of supporting one ISPR press release while castigating the other would have never come up.

So when he did point this out, the pendulum of the show swung the other way and it would have swung even more had someone on the show also brought in the whole ‘Memogate’ saga.

Recently, a well-respected journalist, TV anchor and author, Sohail Waraich, claimed that he has it on good authority that the whole Memogate issue was nothing more than an elaborate farce.

Well, the truth is, one didn’t have to be a genius to see though the farce even when it was prevailing. And yet, all those concerned and bothered about General Sharif’s statement today, ran with Memogate like they had discovered Pakistan’s very own Watergate scandal!

The whole thing began with a few words spoken by PTI chief, Imran Khan, during his first large public rally in Lahore (in late 2011).

Shaken by the number of people Khan had gathered in the heart of the PML-N’s main vote bank, the PML-N leadership picked up upon Khan’s insinuation about how Pakistan’s then ambassador to the US was inviting US authorities to directly intervene in Pakistani politics. PML-N then ran towards the courts with a petition to prosecute the ambassador.

The ambassador cried foul and pleaded that he was being demonised and that he had done no such thing. But thanks to PML-N’s petition (that was gladly accepted by the courts), in came the electronic media, many of whose members wagged their fingers at the bewildered ambassador and judged him to be a traitor and guilty even before the actual trial began.

Of course, the trial went nowhere. The evidence being provided by the accusing party was always feeble.

-Illustration by Sabir Nazar

On the show I am talking about, guests lamented that it were Musharraf’s lawyers who were inciting a rift between the armed forces and the government.

Indeed, the former general’s lawyers have been rather loud and vocal, but firstly, why are they being constantly invited on TV (by the same people who think they are obnoxious); and secondly, have those lawyers hired to prosecute Musharraf, been any better?

One of the prosecuting lawyers was also prosecuting the former Pakistani ambassador to the US during the Memogate trial. He was a constant guest on various TV channels and was confident that he had enough evidence to bring the ambassador to book.

But almost comically his main witness, an obscure Pakistani-US citizen and businessman settled in the US (Mansoor Ijaz), failed to convincingly produce what he claimed he had (in the shape of text messages from the ambassador), to prove the ambassador’s ‘treachery.’ And that was that.

Lost (con)texts: Mansoor Ijaz.

The media and political parties that had made such a hue and cry about the whole thing just shrugged their shoulders and moved on.

Now we see the same lawyer locking horns with Musarraf’s lawyers on one TV channel or the other. Well, lawyers are paid to do this. It’s their job. So when and if they get an opportunity to present their points of view on TV, why would they not take such an opening?

But what does this suggest? A contradiction on the part of the electronic media. Many TV anchors are now complaining that Musharraf’s lawyers and the military’s high command are politicalising the Musharraf case.

The truth is, in this case at least, the chicken seems to have come before the egg. First of all, it has become a habit of many new-born (and sudden) democrats in the media to wag their fingers at Musharraf to prove their democratic credentials.

But I am surprised that a few senior members of the PML-N government have decided to do the same. Because they really don’t have to.

Nobody doubts the authenticity of their badges of democracy.

PML-N is a democratic political party. It came to power through an election and is ruling through an elected majority in the parliament. So, it surprises me when some of its ministers go haywire while discussing Musharraf.

General Sharif.

If the cases against the former general are in the courts, then why so much venom against him on the TV screens? Are Musharraf’s lawyers the only ones politicising these cases? Has General Sharif’s press statement been the trigger in this respect?

No. Like I said, in this case the chicken has come before the egg. I agree with the investigative journalist who, on the mentioned show, suggested that the cases should only be discussed in the courts.

But then what about things like the peace talks between the government and the militants in the north-west?

Should they also not be discussed (by the peace talkers themselves) on TV? Should they not remain a dialogue between the two peace committees without the committee members constantly being invited on talk shows?

If General Sharif’s statement should not have been made public, then how come it is okay to publically flaunt other sensitive issues in the media?

Musharraf: Pakistan’s new punching bag?

Musarraf has become a punching bag for those constantly being pressured and stressed by the worsening of whatever that is making Pakistan a country on the brink of some kind of an implosion.

He’s no hero as his lawyers would have us believe. But neither is he the kind of villain he is being imagined and portrayed to be.

Some politicians talk about solving the problem of militancy in Pakistan through dialogue and policies based on ‘truth and reconciliation.’ That’ll be great. But why not exhibit the same towards a fallen dictator who has already been dragged in and out of courts and constantly boxed in the media?

If we are to move on by reconciling and making peace with our turbulent past and by learning from our numerous mistakes, then let us do so across the board.

I read my first Archie comic when I was around 10 years old in the late 80s, and vacationing in Karachi. And I was a fan from the first comic book. It opened me up to the suburban American life, which was not as commonplace to Pakistanis as it is now (remember this is the pre-internet era). Here, I discovered Archie and his gang, which seemed an extension of all the Michael J Fox high school movies that I loved at the time.

I discovered the dilemma that every teenage boy goes through (before I was even a teenager): that of choosing between the good girl (Betty Cooper) and the spoilt, hot one (Veronica Lodge). Obviously, we all had best friends at that age, and Jughead Jones fit the bill so well that at times I wished I were him, and he was the main protagonist rather than the hero’s sidekick. Because, to be honest, Archie Andrews was, how do say it, downright dumb at times in comparison to his bestie and even his adversary, Reggie Mantle.

But then, as I grew up (and I use that term loosely), I realised that was the reason why we all loved Archie ¬– and his gang – so much. Because he was also an awkward, bumbling teenager who was looking for ways to make money to date, hanging out with his best friend, trying to scrape through his classes under the eagle eye of Mr Weatherbee and Miss Grundy, all the while falling prey to Reggie Mantle’s countless pranks. That’s why we could relate to him; because, like us, he too was far from perfect.

So imagine my surprise when I hear about Archie’s forthcoming death. How is this possible? And why on earth would anyone want to kill Archie? Those were the questions that raced through my mind. After all, Archie couldn’t die. He just couldn’t! He was just a teenager for crying out loud – despite having been created more than 70 years ago. I figured it was a hoax.

As it turned out, it wasn’t.

According to an interview with Jon Goldwater, CEO, Archie Comics, our favourite teenager is going to be killed while trying to save the life of a friend. This will happen in the Life with Archie series which centres on Archie’s adult life and shows two parallel lives – he marries Veronica in one and Betty in the other, but the ending is the same. (Just so you know, the comics in which Archie is a teenager going to High School will continue to be published. Thank God for that!). Archie will die in the second last edition of the Life with Archie series; the last one will take place a year after his death, to show how his friends dealt with it.

It is likely that Archie’s death is Goldwater’s attempt (we will find out whether it will be successful or not in July) to revive the comic, which, truth be told, has not been able to regain the popularity it commanded in the 1980s – a time when most Pakistanis discovered Archie.

Of course, over the years, Riverdale has evolved. Archie has dated an African American woman, Valerie, and a gay character, Kevin Keller was introduced, who now has his own comic book. And there are talks of a Sabrina the teenage witch movie in the works, not to mention a number of parallel Archie series including Life with Archie and Afterlife with Archie (yup, it began publishing a few years ago, and takes place post Archie’s death – a sign of times to come that we all missed?)

Also read: In 'Afterlife', Archie comics veer into horror

These changes, coupled with the fact that Lena Dunham (creator of Girls) has been signed on to write a four-part series, make it clear that the company is hoping to reinvent Archie for those pesky millennials who have short attention spans among other shortcomings.

And while this devotion to reinvention should perhaps be lauded, I cannot help but wish that Archie stayed the same; that he still lived in the Riverdale I witnessed when I was younger, where Archie and the gang hung out at the Chocklit Shoppe run by Pop Tate. That he continued to be dazed and confused when it came to choosing between Betty and Veronica. Basically, that things hadn’t changed.

To say that it was a more innocent time would be a cliché; to say that it was a time devoid of cell phones, Facebook and Twitter and their subsequent complications in our lives would perhaps be more appropriate; but to say that it was a time which I look back at fondly and long to revisit would perfectly hit the spot.

Much like a milkshake at the Chocklit Shoppe once did.

In a recent essay, “Making Martyrs”, published in Guernica magazine, author Hassan Altaf writes about Malala Yousafzai’s memoir. With the earnest dark-eyed Malala staring out from the book’s cover, Altaf says, “comes the suggestion that this is an entirely straightforward book: a courageous answer to the question posed by a gunman at the back of a school van.” What you get instead, he argues, is an “autohagiography,” the conversion of a teenager into a saint, a flattening of edges, and an erasure of details to produce an unambiguous story of triumph.

Christina Lamb, the book’s co-author, Altaf accuses, takes over the book’s narrative to produce what is required: a thrilling and uncomplicated book about “the girl who stood up for education and got shot by the Taliban.”

Altaf’s critique is apt and so is the location of its publication: beyond the fraught borders of Pakistan. In this fact, lie the other complications of Malala’s story, the ones not occasioned by the West’s appetite for Pakistan packaged in a box with instructions detailing solutions. In Pakistan itself, it is the very question of Malala’s heroism that is at issue. The outcry against the book, its banning and burning, all pointing to the dark reality that there are a number of Pakistanis, whose anti-imperialism has become so blind that they are not quite sure about the moral contours of a girl demanding an education.

In the limited local context of Pakistan, a critique of Malala is difficult to posit; the narrow straits of political choices situate critics of Malala in the subterranean anti-intellectual realm of those who imagine Islamic authenticity as an entirely illiterate female population.

Also read: Supporting the possible

However, while Malala’s story exists within this narrow space of war-weary contestation in Pakistan, the global dynamics of its construction nevertheless do require attention. While reductionism, as Altaf points out, may be the book’s first failing, unsaid power differentials can also be located in its combination of authors.

A white, female, seasoned British journalist writing in conjunction with a brown Pakistani teenager poses its own questions of feminism, the location of the subaltern, and the trope that situates white women as somehow necessary midwives to the production of this brown girl’s emancipation.

These gradations of race and feminism, where white women stand at the zenith of global opportunity, pose their own questions regarding the embrace of Malala Yousafzai. Would she be as loved, as embraced by white feminists, if she was less accommodating, if she had insisted on telling her story herself? It did not happen, so we will never know.

An older Malala perhaps may have done that; a young Malala is hence safe, brave, heroic, and courageous, but not yet sophisticated enough to question racial privilege in the global context as she did gender privilege in her local one. The global Malala has a fund, but not yet a global agenda. Education is not a contested issue in the world of award ceremonies and transnational conferences; if she chooses to remain radical within that realm, Malala must define a new agenda.

Also read: Hating Malala

Turning back inward, within Pakistan, not all of the blame for reductionism can be similarly placed on the shoulders of Christina Lamb or Western demands for easy answers to the complicated questions Pakistan poses. As Siobhan Lambert-Hurley, a scholar who studies South Asian Muslim women’s biography has pointed out, the tradition of such written accounts in the subcontinent follows patterns of highlighting the possession of positive moral qualities worth emulating.

The purpose of sharing the story (examples include for instance “Memoirs of a Rebel Princess”, the life story of Princess Abida Sultan, the last heir to the throne of Bhopal) was not the exposition of self, an embrace of imperfection as part of the process of self-realisation. Instead, the life story was quite simply an example, an unarguably good one, a story safe to tell, if lacking in depth and dimension.

It is in this last point that I see a challenge in Hassan Altaf’s questioning of “I am Malala”. If the reduction of Pakistan to a simple trope is to stop, it requires a prior or at least simultaneous commitment by Pakistani writers and artists to tell complicated stories, to risk self-exposition, and to go beyond the yearning for universal acclaim.

It is only within a future context populated by the open discussion of mistakes and meanderings, of the less than heroic but also true, that the Pakistani memoir can be resuscitated from the safe and singular, to rebellious and even radical. That undertaking requires a collective effort that cannot, by definition, belong to Malala alone.

How does one reinvent art that was perfected centuries ago? Kausar Iqbal, an artist from Lahore has exquisitely managed just that.

I had first travelled to Lahore as a child and the walled city, known for its rich cultural heritage, had fascinated me then as well. But this time, a chance encounter with Kausar opened my eyes to a whole new dimension of our preserving the dynastic Mughal legacy.

As I learnt and interacted with Kausar more I found myself drawn not just to his artistic talent but also his personality which is an equally intriguing reflection of the integrity and courage he portrays in his art.

Despite his conservative roots and strict upbringing in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Kausar pursued his love for Mughal art wholeheartedly. With a Masters in Miniature Art from National College of Arts Kausar was able to disseminate an integral part of our history through his paintings.

Kausar Iqbal at work

Miniature Art hails from Persia and Turkey during a period where Muslims were empowered and ustaads (mentor) were honoured. This form of art is extremely fine and detailed, and during the reign of Mughal Emperor, Jalaluddin Akbar, Ustaad Mir Abdusamad developed this form. In fact, in his youth Akbar studied the Miniature form under Ustaad Abdusamad himself. It was during this era that Mughal painting truly evolved; mixing Persian direction with Indian tradition.

There are four schools of Miniature Art that rose to prominence during this time. They include the Persian, the Mughal, the Pahari and the Kangra schools of art.

Miniature Art provided a transparent lens into everyday society allowing the observer to fully grasp the artist’s depiction. The work always embraced elements of naturalism and realism in Mughal art and was never restricted to any particular religion or community rather encompassed all aspects of humanity.

It was this profound and unadulterated love of humanity displayed in Miniature work that inspired Kausar Iqbal to reinvent Miniature paintings. Kausar realised that the best way to communicate his upbringing and surroundings was through art. To do so he utilises very specific techniques which preserve the integrity of Miniature Art while allowing him to paint his story.

For Miniature work he utilises watercolors, siyah qalam, gudrang, neemrang, and mix medium. The siyah qalam is a basic technique where paintings are made with black watered-down paint. This is a traditional Mughal Miniature technique where details are spread on paper using minute feather strokes known as pardakht.

Gudrang is similar to gouache but white pigment is added in order to give the work a more opaque appearance. Neemrang along with gudrang is a more advanced technique and literally means half-colour. Kausar remains extremely loyal to the preservation of these techniques.

When Kausar lost several of his family members in an earthquake he channeled his grief into a creative burst of art and painted a great and powerful series on elephants, depicting human resilience and strength.

Another series with focus on the dragon, symbolises the link between Asian and Indian spiritualism.

A gallery of Kausar's work:

Paying homage to the strength of Pakistani women, he launched the burqa series which speaks of centuries of subjugation by our patriarchal society. The fortitude of women and their indispensable role in society is apparent in his intention and his work.

Kausar is currently working on a Sufi saint series which will highlight their mysticism, religious fervour, and allure.

While Kausar’s work demonstrates a religious aspect of his life, it also incorporates dimensions that question his orthodox beliefs. To stay true to his artistic self Kausar's work proudly displays his uninhibited soul and clear disregard for any self-consciousness or barriers.

After countless conversations with him, I grew enamored with many of his ideas and thoughts. These conversations resulted in several commissioned pieces which now enchant and attract visitors at my residence. In a time where our cultural identity is continuously threatened, Kausar’s work has allowed me to retain a strong connection to our culture.

For this I am eternally grateful.

Traitors are everywhere in Pakistan - but in fashion they have found their home.

We are all aware of the plot to break Pakistan into 46 pieces to benefit the liberal, secular (read: evil) western agenda. We are all aware of who is orchestrating attacks within our borders, using HAARP to destroy our land, pretend-killing 'terrorist-number-one' to defame us and our army.

However, the most insidious part of this evil undertaking is the 'sixth generation war' aka 'war version 3.0 beta' which consists of 'soft attacks' that undermine our culture, our traditions, our very roots!

This is where our fashion industry comes in - exploited, corrupted, overtaken by foreign/paid agents who are out to destroy the country through 'experimental cuts' and 'wacky designs'.

Do not be fooled. There are millions of dollars, nay, billions being pumped into this artificial industry to destroy us, particularly our vulnerable young males.

Don't believe me? Revealed below, for the first time, is undeniable proof of the evil agenda at work. Hundreds of hours were spent by a team of 12 dedicated patriots building the mountain of evidence for you below.

Anti-Pakistan, liberal, extremist fashionistas exposed!

It is now up to all true patriots to save Pakistan by demanding a complete ban of fashion shows. If that fails, it is vital for all patriots to infiltrate the fashion world and stay two steps ahead of the anti-Pakistan agenda. If you would like to donate towards this noble venture, please contact us here.

“Send a bouquet of your face with the morning breeze,” wrote Persian poet Hafez (1320-1389), who caught the fleeting glimpse of a beautiful girl on a terrace when he was 21. That one glimpse captured his heart, and he fell madly in love. This love ultimately led him to God.

The middle aged man with graying hair looked at his audience, paused and smiled. Young men and women would gather at this place in Islamabad once a week to listen to this man, who calls himself a follower of great Sufis. They liked what they heard and shared with others what they learned in these circles.

Sometimes, they also brought their friends with them. But new recruits were only welcomed in the beginning of a session. “We want to keep it small and effective,” he later explained. “We do not want a crowd here.”

But while attending one of the sessions, I also felt that both teacher and the students wanted to keep their lessons private.

“With so much madness around, you have to be careful,” a student later explained to me. “We do not want to have suicide-bomber knocking at the door.”

“Hafez was not the first man – nor was he the last – to be led to God by a woman,” said the teacher and I had to agree with the student who said they did not want to draw unnecessary attention. Imagine telling the Taliban foot soldiers that a woman can lead you to God!

The laboured journey to God

Today’s subject was tolerance and the teacher was telling his students that the Muslims were never as intolerant as they had become now and to prove his point, he quoted from history and literature, both prose and poetry.

From the medieval ages, he moved to the British Raj in India and to the early 20th century poetry written by Indian Muslims.

“In one of his poems, Allama Iqbal says that a man with junoon (ecstasy of love) is better than an angel. And even God is within the reach of a man of courage,” he said.

“Actually, I am afraid of doing a literal translation as it may annoy some. Read the original Persian and see how open Iqbal was.”

Getting back to today’s intolerance, the teacher explained that people, like the Taliban learned about God in clerical seminaries, where children as young as 10 are forced to wake up at four in the morning and chant God's name until their minds go numb. This laboured journey to God, instills divine fear in the minds of these poor souls but does little to ignite divine love.

God is shown to them as someone who loves only those within the four walls of their own belief. All outside are enemies.

But when Hafez reached God, he declared: "I have learned so much from God, that I can no longer call myself a Christian, a Hindu, a Muslim, a Buddhist, a Jew."

“More than 600 years separate us from Hafiz. But I remember as a child listening to such poems not just at the shrines of Sufi saints but also on the national radio and television in Pakistan. In fact, such songs are still sung at these shrines,” said the teacher. "I am not a Muslim in a mosque. Nor am I an infidel, worshipping idols. Bulleh who knows who I am!"

The teacher explained: Even now people dance to this song at the shrine of the great Sufi saints. But this popular culture of tolerance and peaceful coexistence with other faiths has been taken over by a new culture, steeped in bigotry and intolerance.

How did this happen?

A cynical disillusion

Until recently, militant Islam had little support in the Islamic world but the situation began to change in the late 20th century when militant groups were armed to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan. They outlived the Soviet Union and turned their guns on those who trained and armed them and also tried to impose their beliefs on other Muslims as well.

A general disenchantment with the current political system and the ruling elite also contributed to this.

Widespread corruption and the failure of a Western-inspired democratic system to address the social and economic weaknesses of the society add to this disillusion. In most Muslim countries, people don't trust the ruling elite. There is a general perception that such people may be good at making money but they have no desire or training to help others.

Gone are the days when people looked up to the Western-educated elite and believed that with their knowledge and expertise, they could help the poor.

The militants used the US presence in Afghanistan to further increase disenchantment by depicting this as a war between Islam and the West, which it never was.

Disillusion with the Westernised elite also turns into a dislike for the West when Muslims see Western governments often supporting totally corrupt -- and morally bankrupt -- rulers in the Islamic world. This is where the militants step in and present the West as a bully bent upon maintaining its hegemony over the Islamic world with the help of these corrupt Muslim rulers.

But despite this, there is still a widespread respect for Western technology, which many believe could help them jump several generations on the development ladder. So people want Western technology but not Western culture, which is presented to them by the militants as corrupt and Godless. However, this attitude is full of contradictions.

Everybody speaks against the Western culture but people still watch Western movies and listen to Western songs. Until recently, this was confined to the upper and middle classes but now even the lower classes are developing a taste for American films and music. As soon as they get money, even Muslim clerics send their children to schools where the teaching is in English, and encourage them to speak English at home. And if they get a little more money, they start dreaming of sending their children to universities in the West. Thus, the West is revered, even if grudgingly, for its prosperity and scientific achievements.

However, the possibility of benefiting from the West or Western education is still only available to a small proportion of the population. Most people don't benefit from it. They continue to live in abject poverty. In fact, no changes have had any impact on their lives.

Ask men or women in the street about how democracy is different from dictatorship and they would laugh. For most people, both are corrupt and both have nothing to offer.

"We struggle for bread and clothes, democracy or no democracy," would be the standard answer.

Nothing seems to work in the Islamic world. Political ideas and economic theories of all ilk and brand have been tried here. And, all have failed.

The Muslim nationalists tried to create Western nation states in countries that have not one but many nations with distinct ethnic, linguistic and cultural features living within their boundaries. The socialists tried to impose a secular ideology on a people known for their devotion to Islam.

But if secular ideologies have failed, political Islam has not had a resounding success either. The Muslim radicals based their dreams of a pure and just Islamic society on people's attachment to religion. But instead of delivering any of the goods they had promised, they led their followers to a path that pitched Islam against the rest of the world.

Reforms, introduced by liberal Muslim rulers, helped improve the situation but only for some. Education was supposed to bring knowledge and prosperity to all. It did not. For most, it only increased their dreams without equipping them with the tools to make them come true.

Divided between the English (or French) schools of the elite and the ordinary schools for the rest of the country, the education system has created a large number of educated unemployed or under-employed.

Most of these unemployed or under-employed educated youths come from the schools established for the poor. Such schools keep churning out thousands of graduates every year but the establishment, dominated by the elite, has few jobs for them.

Totally disenchanted with a system, which has little to offer to them, these disenchanted people are beginning to go to Islamic militants for a solution, as some of them went to the Marxists before the collapse of the Soviet Union. They want change, any change and at any cost.

The cities are growing, slowly but steadily. Compared to the villages, the cities look very attractive. They have brick houses. They have schools and hospitals. They have tap water and, for some, even a sewage system. They have factories and offices where these millions of rural immigrants hope to find jobs.

But their dreams soon go sour. Only a few benefit from the facilities the cities offer. Most are forced to live in slums in miserable conditions. So their bitterness increases.

Although unable to provide them with the benefits of the modern life, the cities do expose the new comers to modern thoughts, courtesy of the media. They also develop, what the ruling elite calls, a disrespect for authority. They are no more subservient farmers, quietly following the plow. They are unhappy city dwellers who want their share in the system.

The cities are full of hundreds of thousands of such unhappy people who want to topple the system, peacefully and through democratic means if possible. But if not, they will use any other means that is made available to them. Hence, their attraction to militant groups.

The teacher finished his lecture. The class dispersed. I went to the teacher and asked: “How long before the militants find out?”

“Who knows,” he said and smiled.

Caught up in the frenzy of building bridges and belittling opponents, this government, like its predecessors, has failed to pay any attention to the rights of minorities in Pakistan.

As if forced conversions were not enough, the number of forced marriages of minority girls seems to be increasing too.

A report by the Movement for Solidarity and Peace in Pakistan states that every year an estimated 1,000 women belonging to minority faiths are forced to convert and marry Muslim men. The report reveals that 700 of these women are Christian and 300 are Hindu.

The current government does not need to look too far to take note of what has been happening as the majority of Pakistan’s Christian population resides in Punjab, where most of these cases have been occurring.

What is it that drives such groups of men to abduct helpless women belonging to a different faith, convert them and then marry them against their will?

Also read: Forced faith or force of faith?

It definitely can’t be love and it certainly isn’t an effort to increase interfaith harmony either. I don’t think there is a dearth of single Muslim women in Pakistan so then, why subject these girls to this brutality? Does an abductor actually believe that the forceful conversion and marriage of a minority woman is his ticket to God’s good books? Does he not realise that he is not only abusing minority rights, but also women’s rights?

Unfortunately, as pointed out in the report, the underlying issue for the minority community remains a lack of education. Not having the same access as Muslims to educational institutions, Christians and Hindus were left behind as the rest of the population succeeded and went forward. Scanty representation in political parties and the government also hampered efforts to safeguard their rights.

The report states that, “Christian groups claim that discriminatory legislation and the exclusion of non-Muslims as equal citizens have encouraged hardline militant groups to target Christian communities.” Incidents such as those in Gojra and Peshawar are still fresh in the minds of these communities, who are beginning to give up hope that things will change.

Video | From temple to shrine: Forced conversions?

Where ensuring security from terrorists may require more sophisticated effort, securing women in their own homes should not be such a hard task. Imagine living in the constant fear of being kidnapped by some disillusioned man who believes abducting, converting and marrying a woman from a different religion may win him rewards in the afterlife.

If it’s not religious disillusionment then it’s simply an abuse of power. Knowing you can subject someone to this and get away with it is also a driving force for some men. Even if the families of these girls file reports, it is very seldom that the police will do anything about it. Even if the case goes to court, a woman in the captivity of her abductor will be too scared to admit she was forcibly kidnapped or married.

The legal system is thus failing the minorities every single day. The report appeals to the government to ensure adequate law enforcement and provision of security for the minorities.

But before security is provided and law is enforced, it may be useful to perhaps investigate the groups and individuals who are brainwashing others to believe there is nothing wrong in such actions.

If the police started reprimanding culprits in even a few such cases, it could lead to someone thinking twice before subjecting a woman through such pain. But until that doesn’t happen, belligerent men will continue destroying the fabric of this country in their own destructive ways.

Kabuli Pulao is considered an ancestor of the Yakhi Pulao and is best described by Arminius Vambery, a Hungarian Professor of oriental languages. Vambury widely traveled central Asia, Afghanistan and the subcontinent in the 19th century learning and researching his study of oriental languages and observing the lifestyle and eating habits of the people of the region.

A few teaspoons of fat are melted (…the fat of the tail is usually taken) in a vessel, and as soon as it is quite hot, the meat, cut up into small pieces, is thrown in. When these are in part fried, water is poured upon it to the depth of about three fingers, and it is left slowly boiling until the meat is soft; pepper and thinly sliced carrots are then added, and on top of these ingredients is put a layer of rice, after it has been freed from its mucilaginous parts. Some more water is added, and as soon as it has been absorbed by the rice, the fire is lessened, and the pot, well closed, is left over the red hot coals until the rice, meat, carrots and sweet dry fruit are thoroughly cooked in the steam.

After half an hour, the lid is opened, and the food served in such a way that the different layers lie separately in the dish, first the rice, floating in the fat then the carrots and the meat and the raisins at the top with which the meal is begun.

Vambery having tasted this delight with an Afridi tribe on several occasions deemed it flavourful and highly aromatic.

In central Asia and Afghanistan meat was thought to enhance the essence of a man, his valour, strength and virility; hence it was considered the most potent of foods. Hunting was a way of keeping fit, agile and an effective way of training for battle, therefore rice cooked in meat stock promised a very agreeable mental and physical constitution to the warriors of the region.

The Moghul emperor Babur, a connoisseur of pulao and kababs, on his arrival in the subcontinent complained about the cuisine of the locals and famously wrote, `there is no good meat, grapes, melons, good food in the market.’ People from the Khyber and the mountain people of central Asia were used to eating, what was considered superior food; meats, grapes and melons was thought to be the food of kings, dry fruits and flavoured exotic rice too.

Interestingly Kabuli Pulao is a delicious blend of savoury and sweet, the subtle sweetness and crunchiness of fried carrots and raisins adds an oomph to the mild saltiness of the rice and meat, while the texture of almonds, pistachios and cashews bring a richness to the flavor that is unique in taste and texture.

Research leads us to believe that carrots were indigenous to Afghanistan for almost 5000 years, as were grapes, raisins and other kinds of dry fruits; therefore, the chefs of the times and the region may have used these particular ingredients in the Kabuli Pulao because they were the perfect combination of easy availability and sophisticated taste, laden with what was thought to be superior food.

When it came time for me to make it, I turned to my dear Auntie Shahnaz who happens to hail from the region and makes the meal to an ultimate perfection. Her recipe is quick and easy; and authentically Afghani. Here it is from my kitchen to yours.

Ingredients (serves 4 to 6)

2 ½ lbs chicken or goat meat
2 small onions
1 tsp ginger
1 tsp garlic
2 tsp black cumin
½ cup oil
Salt to taste
1 tsp garam masala
2 mugs rice
½ cup raisins
½ cup cashews
½ cup almonds
3 grated carrots
½ tsp sugur

Method

Heat oil adding meat, ginger and garlic and fry for a few minutes. Add sliced onions and stir until meat changes colour, then add black cumin, garam masala powder and salt.

Fry for a few minutes adding 7 to 8 mugs of water, reducing to half the quantity or until the meat is tender. Add ¼ cup raisins, cashews and almonds to the stock. Once the meat is tender, add pre washed rice to the cooking broth. Maintain high heat until rice fluffs and the stock is a thin layer on the top.

Transfer to an oven resistant dish, seal dish and put into preheated oven (medium to low heat) for 20-30 minutes.

In a frying pan, heat two to three tablespoons of oil, pour sugar, grated carrots, and remaining raisins, cashews and almonds, stir fry for a minute and use as garnish on top of the pulao. Your Kabuli Pulao is ready to be served.

-Photos by Fawad Ahmed