By Rabia Ahmed Pakistan Today 27 December 2011
PTI, sajada nashins and lotas
Well, what could be nicer than the news of Javed Hashmi joining the PTI? It appears to have tried, but the PML(N) leadership was unable to lure him back into a rapidly sinking ship. Yes, the PML(N) is definitely sinking, and like a couple of desperate housewives the brothers Sharif have witnessed texts in the city from the chief of the Tehreek-e-Insaaf to the cell phones of an avid electorate, inviting them to join the PTI rally in Karachi. That rally turned out to be a resounding success. Now let’s see how many of his promises Mr Khan is able to honour. If he can manage to ‘keep (even one of) the *&^%$!@# honest’, he will have earned his keep.
Years of imprisonment and a stroke could not prevent Mr Hashmi becoming a much respected “political scientist, geo-strategist and a statesman” or “one of the most vocal critics of General Pervez Musharraf's military regime (who) openly criticised General Musharraf's treatment of Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan, and his policy on the war on terror.” He will be a valuable addition and an asset to a party on the scramble for stalwarts. Mr Hashmi’s inclusion might go some way towards righting the balance for a party that is threatening, but not sure, to become another feudal enclave what with the inclusion of stray sajjada nashinsand other lotas.
The PTI is now pretty sure to be the major opposition to a government that will almost certainly still be an amalgam of the PPP and MQM, plus whoever else joins the circus – who knows, perhaps even the eternally miffed PML(N)? It will be interesting to see Imran’s choice of some of those shadowy persons in opposition parties who say “Yo!” and rise purposefully when the man calls “Minister for Defence?” or “Foreign Minister?”
On quite another positive front was news of the rescue of 45 students discovered chained in the basement of a madrassah in Karachi’s infamous Sohrab Goth. The news was lost somewhere between the Memogate and the political maneuverings that monopolise media attention in this country. The wonderful fact of these kids, most of whom aged around 20, being found and set free definitely deserves a resounding hurrah.
A police official involved in the operation said that "The madrassahofficials claim that they had chained those students because they were drug addicts and they wanted to rehabilitate them and make them better Muslims."
Yay for madrassah wisdom and logic! Way to make good Muslims and cure junkies. While you’re at it, drag them into the fold in chains, club them on their heads and get them to detox. Zia-ul-Haq did not die in an air crash; he parachuted straight into Sohrab Goth where he landed bang on top of Jimmy Hendrix and gave birth to a litter of suicide bombers to each of whom he bequeathed an exploding mango with the instructions to go forth and detonate.
Please, Pakistan Police, check all madrassahs and all remote buildings and make sure that their basements are free of our precious children. And thank you from the bottom of our hearts.
We may be happy to see the last of this government, but we’d much rather it was sent on its way under circumstances other than yet another military ouster. The mind boggles at the prospect of going through the whole coup process once more, of yet another bimbo in khaki with political aspirations hogging the airwaves again.
Definitely Imran Khan will be a welcome change with Hashmi to give him direction, if he can sort the wheat from the chaff entering his party. Here is a man with some integrity who is worried about his ‘kursi’, true, but mostly that he could have ended up paying for them all if they had been stolen in bulk by the Quaid’s children after the PTI’s rally at the Quaid’s mazaar on Sunday.
If the army is so keen to safeguard the nation and ‘support the democratic process in the country’, it should guard the chairs at such free and democratic political rallies so that politicians can indulge their penchant for making rash promises in peace. We can then hang them at leisure if they fail to keep them.
Well, what could be nicer than the news of Javed Hashmi joining the PTI? It appears to have tried, but the PML(N) leadership was unable to lure him back into a rapidly sinking ship. Yes, the PML(N) is definitely sinking, and like a couple of desperate housewives the brothers Sharif have witnessed texts in the city from the chief of the Tehreek-e-Insaaf to the cell phones of an avid electorate, inviting them to join the PTI rally in Karachi. That rally turned out to be a resounding success. Now let’s see how many of his promises Mr Khan is able to honour. If he can manage to ‘keep (even one of) the *&^%$!@# honest’, he will have earned his keep.
Years of imprisonment and a stroke could not prevent Mr Hashmi becoming a much respected “political scientist, geo-strategist and a statesman” or “one of the most vocal critics of General Pervez Musharraf's military regime (who) openly criticised General Musharraf's treatment of Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan, and his policy on the war on terror.” He will be a valuable addition and an asset to a party on the scramble for stalwarts. Mr Hashmi’s inclusion might go some way towards righting the balance for a party that is threatening, but not sure, to become another feudal enclave what with the inclusion of stray sajjada nashinsand other lotas.
The PTI is now pretty sure to be the major opposition to a government that will almost certainly still be an amalgam of the PPP and MQM, plus whoever else joins the circus – who knows, perhaps even the eternally miffed PML(N)? It will be interesting to see Imran’s choice of some of those shadowy persons in opposition parties who say “Yo!” and rise purposefully when the man calls “Minister for Defence?” or “Foreign Minister?”
| Students at a madrassah |
A police official involved in the operation said that "The madrassahofficials claim that they had chained those students because they were drug addicts and they wanted to rehabilitate them and make them better Muslims."
Yay for madrassah wisdom and logic! Way to make good Muslims and cure junkies. While you’re at it, drag them into the fold in chains, club them on their heads and get them to detox. Zia-ul-Haq did not die in an air crash; he parachuted straight into Sohrab Goth where he landed bang on top of Jimmy Hendrix and gave birth to a litter of suicide bombers to each of whom he bequeathed an exploding mango with the instructions to go forth and detonate.
Please, Pakistan Police, check all madrassahs and all remote buildings and make sure that their basements are free of our precious children. And thank you from the bottom of our hearts.
We may be happy to see the last of this government, but we’d much rather it was sent on its way under circumstances other than yet another military ouster. The mind boggles at the prospect of going through the whole coup process once more, of yet another bimbo in khaki with political aspirations hogging the airwaves again.
Definitely Imran Khan will be a welcome change with Hashmi to give him direction, if he can sort the wheat from the chaff entering his party. Here is a man with some integrity who is worried about his ‘kursi’, true, but mostly that he could have ended up paying for them all if they had been stolen in bulk by the Quaid’s children after the PTI’s rally at the Quaid’s mazaar on Sunday.
If the army is so keen to safeguard the nation and ‘support the democratic process in the country’, it should guard the chairs at such free and democratic political rallies so that politicians can indulge their penchant for making rash promises in peace. We can then hang them at leisure if they fail to keep them.
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