Among those who call the shots, there are men and women with mythical roles, fabricating concern for the common man
Don’t call him president; call him Professor Musharraf. The general’s become an academic at lectures, and loves to hear his own voice. He thinks he’s a great deliverer of sagacity, sounding so sensible. On Pakistan Television, I watched him address foreign folks — the caged audience, you know — jetlagged from the First World. The event was sponsored by some “think-tanks” in Islamabad. Sharing the stage was our doctor, editor, scholar and ambassador H.E. Maleeha Lodhi, also flown in from London, to show the audience and long-distance TV viewers like us, in America, that the status of women in Pakistan is no less than men. Naturally, she too chewed out the West for suggesting that Islamabad was a spa for suicide bombers.
With just the right bit of temple-grey in his otherwise remarkably raven hair, Musharraf’s tirade’s are getting somewhat tiring to bear, but dare anyone stand up to square him in the eye and say, “I don’t understand what you’re saying?” The SSG brigade of commandos would make mincemeat of the questioner.
But my grumble is: why are we tolerating our rulers to continue with their cult of obscurity? Their speechwriters have a freehand at prose which is unintelligible, impenetrable and so very tangled, dished out daily to the citizens. Their scriptures rise from the same trough and produce the same fodder melded by academics and retired bureaucrats (civil and foreign) doled out to the readers of today with pedantic flourish.
The cavil at academics and “experts” in America is blunter than in Pakistan: “They are the ones nobody wanted to dance with in high school,” is the joke. I can’t say the same about our Pakistani academics and retired bureaucrats, as I am sure dating in their doggone days was not the custom, but had they asked a girl for a dance, I bet, they would have been turned down because they were ho-hums no girl would have wanted to foxtrot with.
President Musharraf needs to let in air in his mind and that of his speechwriters. These “tweedledees” and “tweedledums” show the general at times fighting the windmills and at other, speaking inert sentences, wrapped up in dull prose delivered in militaristic monotones.
Ego is, of course the key obstacle here.
Musharraf must mend his image as a callous, uncaring man, unresponsive to women raped and battered in his country. He lands at New York this week to attend the UN annual circus of world leaders who come to pay homage to the American president, even if it is just to shake his paw and grab his eye for a nanosecond. Musharraf, of course, is in a different league. Bush and the influential print and TV media here have a lot of time for our general. The Americans naively believe that he’s still the best antidote to terrorism; never mind if he cares a whit for women securing justice under his stewardship.
Seizing the opportunity to hurt Musharraf’s image where it really hurts (America), are a bunch of hardened activists who have suddenly taken a form and a nuisance value, riding rough in their chariots of fire, fuelled by Musharraf’s stubbornness to admit the existence of Mukhtaran Mai and Shazia Khalid. This pugnacious group of professional women (and one or two men), is so determined to run Pakistan down for its shameful treatment towards women, that its rallies in New York and Washington are getting noticed.
Facilitating The New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof to abuse Musharraf (literally, I mean) is the greatest coup for these women who call themselves, “Anaa”, the Asian-American Network Against Abuse of Women. They were to hold an in-your-face protest for Musharraf in front of Pakistani mission in New York, but have changed their venue, perhaps ordered by the US security to go and stage a rally 20 streets away from the mission. Pakistan People’s Party MNA Sherry Rehman, the current champion for the underprivileged women of Pakistan, is expected to enlighten the protesters of her life spent in the service of her sisters less fortunate.
If Anaa claims to speak for Asian women, surely they must know the horror stories shown on Sahara-1, a TV channel that graphically shows viewers in America, women in India, burnt to death routinely, beaten and raped daily. The proof of crimes against women lies in the pictures. Should Anaa, then, not reset Kristof’s moral compass towards India and persuade the angry young columnist to go visit some of the worst human rights violations in the world’s largest democracy? Surely there are thousands like Mukhtaran and Shazia in India.
In all fairness, Anaa must get Manmohan Singh, the Indian PM, to answer for his neglect. Why only make Musharraf appear the fall guy and make Pakistan look pathetic on foreign soil? Take a cue from the Indians, who will rarely wash their dirty linen abroad. Shabnam Hashmi was an exception. She came from India after the Gujarat genocide to tell the Americans how the Muslims had been butchered. Leaving her two children and husband’s lives in danger back in New Delhi, Shabnam stood up and demanded justice. She’s a brave woman who stuck her ground and called the BJP, Advani (Pakistan’s best friend now) and Modi “murderers and rapists”. Such women are rare in a world made up of men and women with political agendas of their own to push; their own names to stage under the spotlight of world media. If Anaa is hell-bent on blackening Pakistan’s image in America, we have on the flip side, misdirected men like Mirza Alim Beg Chagtai. A good man but a little dense in understanding English. When he read my June column on the Anaa women in America, whom I singled out by name as Musharraf-bashers, using Kristof as their handmaiden (excuse me for being sexist, but I can’t find the male equivalent for this term) to trash Pakistan, Chagtai erroneously thought I was in the Anaa camp. He was mad at me and shot off incendiary letters to all the newspapers in Pakistan. Wrote this advocate from Rawalpindi, also holding the chair of council for protection of civil rights in Pakistan (whatever that be) “If this Ms Anjum Niaz & Co. are really and sincerely against women’s abuse, not only once in a while in Pakistan (which I strongly condemn and also condemn who let such act go unpunished or do delay justice) ... Founder of Dawn The Quaid-i-Azam, must be in torture in his grave. The respected editor of Dawn must clearify as to why the newspaper founded by him is used for Pakistan bashing.”
I have reproduced the above letter of Mr Chagtai as is, only changing the upper case to lower.
When I wrote an email to the gentleman attorney pointing out that he had scored an “own goal”, he never bothered to respond.
President Bush, meanwhile, has gotten a beating by the media for vacationing while Katrina raised hell on the Gulf coast. Rape and loot; murder and starvation; death and decay, are some of the stories coming out of New Orleans daily. The victims are black and poorest of the poor. America too needs an organization like Anaa to nail Bush, where it hurts most, for letting rapists go unpunished.
Presidents Bush and Musharraf are the main players acting out their pitiful parts on the stage of life surrounded by the presidential dramatis personae — men and women with mythical roles, fabricating concern for the common man, who sadly sits on the sidelines watching the show that has no end.
Don’t call him president; call him Professor Musharraf. The general’s become an academic at lectures, and loves to hear his own voice. He thinks he’s a great deliverer of sagacity, sounding so sensible. On Pakistan Television, I watched him address foreign folks — the caged audience, you know — jetlagged from the First World. The event was sponsored by some “think-tanks” in Islamabad. Sharing the stage was our doctor, editor, scholar and ambassador H.E. Maleeha Lodhi, also flown in from London, to show the audience and long-distance TV viewers like us, in America, that the status of women in Pakistan is no less than men. Naturally, she too chewed out the West for suggesting that Islamabad was a spa for suicide bombers.
The cavil at academics and “experts” in America is blunter than in Pakistan: “They are the ones nobody wanted to dance with in high school,” is the joke. I can’t say the same about our Pakistani academics and retired bureaucrats, as I am sure dating in their doggone days was not the custom, but had they asked a girl for a dance, I bet, they would have been turned down because they were ho-hums no girl would have wanted to foxtrot with.
Musharraf must mend his image as a callous, uncaring man, unresponsive to women raped and battered in his country. He lands at New York this week to attend the UN annual circus of world leaders who come to pay homage to the American president, even if it is just to shake his paw and grab his eye for a nanosecond. Musharraf, of course, is in a different league. Bush and the influential print and TV media here have a lot of time for our general. The Americans naively believe that he’s still the best antidote to terrorism; never mind if he cares a whit for women securing justice under his stewardship.
If Anaa claims to speak for Asian women, surely they must know the horror stories shown on Sahara-1, a TV channel that graphically shows viewers in America, women in India, burnt to death routinely, beaten and raped daily. The proof of crimes against women lies in the pictures. Should Anaa, then, not reset Kristof’s moral compass towards India and persuade the angry young columnist to go visit some of the worst human rights violations in the world’s largest democracy? Surely there are thousands like Mukhtaran and Shazia in India.
When I wrote an email to the gentleman attorney pointing out that he had scored an “own goal”, he never bothered to respond.
