The year 2016 will be remembered as the year when the people got even with the pundits.

It was a shocking little period for the knowledgeable amongst us who keep telling us what we are doing, what we will be doing next and the alarming results that all these doings – usually misdoings and wrongdoings – will lead to.

It was the people’s turn, even if it proves to be a cameo before the goddesses of temptation pushed the seekers of news back into the imaginary world of analysis and expert commentary.

The people did show in 2016 what they were capable of. They so deceptively allowed the experts to come up with their grand, grand castles before the motley crowd brought the edifice down with the glee of a slave who had forced his way out of captivity.

It was a year in which the Americans toyed with the highly-placed pundits, bringing in a president almost with a sense of vengeance. The citizens of the United Kingdom sided with their own selves over Brexit.

The Russians appeared to be looking inward, and with some fondness, to Vladimir Putin as he went his own wayward way even when the ‘world’ media hated him for his callousness in Syria and elsewhere.

If it was the year of the people, it was also the year to be selfish.

Away from the politics and war, even Brazil performed in contrast to all the negative publicity that had been heaped on it: not when it decided to send home its leader, but when it managed to organise the world’s biggest sporting event with some grace and a lot of typical fun and dance and against ‘expectations’.

The games might yet be remembered for the feats and falls in the sporting arena rather than for the proficiency and skill of the Brazilian thieves around the Olympic village.

That was almost as anti-climactic as Andy Murray, finally, making it to the number one slot or Muhammad Amir bowling only as a dignified shadow of his former self in his second life or Pakistan cricket team losing its test best slot in absolutely no time.

The people did falter predictably in other areas, but where they were not so much under the gaze of the media experts in the habit of covering and covering up the world as they liked.

Or it could be that these incidents failed to take the centre-stage because these proceedings didn’t provide an opportunity for the people to laugh at the pundits.

Thousands were denied, and some lost their lives, while attempting to reach safer civilisations.

They packed up ships and containers and anything else that could float just as the free world most represented by the Americans and the Brits showed signs of wilting and closing up and the third world looked for frequent moments that will throw up new heroes, such as when Angela Merkel of Germany stood up and graciously let in her ‘share’ of the hapless and panting refugees.

France was under attack and then it was under attack for its most revealing forceful grab at the burkini.

This led to a flood of ironic – images capturing the women let loose in the market which was, eventually, taken over by the pictures from the international war theatre in Aleppo.

These were despicable scenes that battle brings with it, which could, once again and unfortunately, not force everyone to not opposing the war but only to become a party to it.

But the run of the mill reactions that the opinion-making machine got here was in contrast to what happened in case of major events in the world during the year. And where did this leave the opinion- maker?

Let’s hazard some parallels to the year that was.

All of you must have heard about the gent who was so used to inventing all kinds of devastating conspiracy theories in the solitude and safety of his home until, according to reports, he passed away after falling from his easy chair.

Or you might recall just how easy it is for a merchant to surprise the buyers with the simplicity of his offering just when everyone in the bazaar is looking for complicated patters and motifs – say a filmmaker stealing the show by ingeniously coming up with a simple love story, 'Pretty Woman', for instance, in the midst of a virtual rain of all these high-volume and loud-on-technology flicks.

This was that kind of a year. A 'Pretty Woman' kind of a year where the real life Richard Geres and Julia Roberts surprised the keen audience by denying them the surprise they were habitually looking for.

This was the year when most conspiracy theories or pre-event assessments were threatened by the most nonchalant snub by the people’s jury; the jury which matters the most.

Where this jury was not invoked, there were other elements in action that ensured that the overall drift and message of the year didn’t change.

For instance, in Pakistan, there was every now and then a declaration in the media about an ‘impending’ event.

There were suspects caught, a la Saulat Mirza who spilled the beans on MQM in the past, but nothing sensational happened.

There were parties, such as MQM-Pakistan and Pak Sarzameen, which neither took over nor took off, and personalities such as Gen Pervez Musharraf who never took charge.

The biggest news that didn’t happen related to the retirement or extension in term of Gen Raheel Sharif as the army chief. The people who mattered in this case – those in the government and the army – fared remarkably like those who had prevented the secret coming out in other places.

No one could say with any confidence until the very last moment when the prime minister announced his choice as the new army chief – who was instantly adopted as a hero by many who had so valiantly fought on the side of an extension for the former chief.

Indeed, some of them were so sure that no one quite had the power and the grit to deny the general an extension in service.

The biggest simple wrong story coming good this year was of course the one that had Donald Trump upsetting everyone’s favourite, Hilary Clinton.

The pollsters, known to mindlessly blow their own little trumpets in making grand projections about future, have since taken various avatars to explain and justify the abrupt Trumpian trespassing of the American civilisation.

The least original amongst them are the ones who must go on – lamely – reminding one and all that while Trump must have won the contest, it was Hilary who got a larger portion of the votes.

Obviously Ms Clinton would have none of it after the irresponsible media made her believe that she was about to enter the White House by her own right.

She would know that the emphasis on her higher vote tally was designed not to in any way revive her public image, for the media had little inclination to waste its prime time on the also-rans and the have-beens.

The mention of the Hilary Clinton’s tally was more in aid of the media’s own need to restore its position in the public after the very disastrous run of parroting one wrong prediction after another.

The trick will work just as it has in the past. It will never be said what the basic problem with the prediction sin the US and the UK were.

It was that the people wanted to assert their right to security at home, but they were good-natured enough not to show this basic selfish human trait to those who came asking.

Simply, it was volte face. It was a case of people misinforming the experts.

Opinion

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