Imran Khan is the target of your Goebbels’ vendetta!
Apropos to the excessively grandiloquent, wastefully voluble and patently frivolous attempt The Express Tribune has been part of subjecting Imran khan as prime target of its Goebbels’ vendetta. Now, what shall I say about The Express Tribune? The blog has started to give me an impression as if its raison d’etre is to have a unifocal soliloquy on publishing literally anything against Imran Khan without realising how ludicrous the writer may sound or implausible the publisher. If I were to describe The Express Tribune in a nutshell, I think I’ll marginally settle for this definition: Camelot of an erudite savant ...
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The birth of our nationalist media
Ever since gung-ho nationalism was beamed into our living rooms (thanks to private channels) some 10 years back, a probing question stirred in my mind: what is wrong with our media? Is it normal to be in a state of continual war with every idea? Is our media a reflection of our society, or is it trying to lead a complete social transformation? It seems that the latter is true, and that the transformation is inspired by a particular mindset that perpetually defends the idea of “national security” while national welfare suffers. More importantly, is our media – especially the electronic media ...
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10 reasons why Ijaz Butt should quit
Many have come and gone trying to present reasons for him to be sacked, but to no avail. I would also like to enter and ebb in the endless list of those who believe Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) Chairman Ijaz Butt should resign or be sacked. Below are 10 reasons that I believe are enough for Mr Butt to vacate his post: 1. At 73, it’s time Mr Butt heads the PVCB (Pakistan Veterans’ Cricket Board) instead of the PCB. The manager of the PVC team can still be his long time friend from Hoshiarpur, Intikhab Alam who himself is 70 ...
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Dialogue with Pakistan: Am I next?
I was at Khadda Market in Karachi yesterday where I saw a little boy, selling flowers, wearing in a loose fitted black t-shirt. The shirt he wore had inscribed on it: Agli bari meri? (Am I next?) On the back of his t-shirt were numerical figures indicating the number of people affected by violence since 2002: 276 bomb blasts 4420 dead 9557 injured Later, when I went home, I decided to log on to the website printed on the boy’s t-shirt, www.citizensarchive.org/dialoguewithpakistan, and signed up to join the ongoing dialogue. Some key questions that were being discussed (and are still being discussed) included: • Do you think education can ...
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Media and the national interest
When talking about the role of Pakistan’s media in the aftermath of al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden’s killing in Abbottabad in a unilateral action, I recall English poet John Milton’s words: “When complaints are freely heard, deeply considered, and speedily reformed, then is the utmost bound of civil liberty attained, that wise men look for.” The role of our national media became very significant, not just after OBL’s death, but immediately after the 9/11 attacks, which changed public opinion not only in Pakistan, but also across the globe. In terms of the war on terror, the media has strengthened democratic ...
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Pakistan should mind all of its languages!
Pakistan is an unfortunate country which, instead of actually celebrating the invaluable diversity of its age-old culture and languages, has instead been suppressing every voice raised in its favor. Although it is a question of simple ‘recognition’ of cultures which actually form the ‘federation’, this issue has always been dealt with purely on political grounds, not realising that this simple act of recognition (the government has nothing to show for ‘actively’ promoting its cultures) will add to the strength of the country. It’s not diversity but uniformity which has been propagated through the state or the so-called ‘national media’ – notion of being ‘one’ nationhood has been ...
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10 troublesome traits of the average Pakistani
Every state has its own national character, for instance the French are considered great lovers of wine, art and science while the Americans follow the lesson of George Washington’s cherry tree story which basically teaches two important things – Do the right thing and take responsibility for your actions. Unfortunately, we as Pakistanis have some negative traits which are coming to define us: 1. An average Pakistani behaves as he is told to by the establishment and/or the biased media. We do not cherish golden rules like ‘do the right thing’. Instead, we follow a de-facto rule, ‘my staff, my cattle’ ...
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Attention: Sindh is up for grabs
With all the national attention focused on the political battle over Punjab, it is worth pointing out that parties across the political spectrum would do well to realise that Sindh is not as safely in the Pakistan Peoples Party’s column as might appear at first glance. Ever since the party was first launched in the late 1960s, Sindh has firmly stayed loyal to the Bhutto clan and one of the fundamental assumptions in Pakistani politics is that rural Sindh will always vote, by and large, for the PPP. In the 1980s, the MQM was able to peel away the urban ...
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Let’s go green again!
Pakistan’s national hockey team, the Green shirts, meet Australia in the Sultan Azlan Shah Hockey Cup final. Is it just me or has no one seemed to notice this – not even after Pakistan beat arch-rivals India 3-1? It is ironic that hockey, which is our national sport, does not enjoy the same stature as that enjoyed by cricket. A perfect example would be that around the same time that the Pakistan national cricket team crashed miserably against West Indies in the first Test match, the Green shirts won the qualifier against host team Malaysia 3-2 and cruised into the ...
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Looks like we’re having kangaroo for dinner
Forget the fact that exams are less than two weeks away and that we don’t even have time to sleep or eat in our minutely worked-out study plans. Just know that when we look back at this moment in our lives, we won’t remember how voltmeters should be attached in a circuit, or why Napoleon failed in Russia – all we’ll remember is changing our Facebook profile pictures to Shahid Afridi and tying the national flag to the roof because Pakistan won against Australia after 19 years. That’s a world cup achievement in itself. Yet, no matter how many times ...
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