Good read.
Altaf Hussain: desperate times
http://www.thefridaytimes.com/beta2/tft/blog.php?blogstory=15
If someone asked me how I rated Altaf Hussain’s epic press conference on the scale of one to ten, my spontaneous answer would be, ten out of ten for entertainment value but… I think I’ll reserve my judgment on substance. His rather elongated “helllllllooooo” and throaty sounds in between which people mistook for burps - a state usually caused by having a plateful of homemade spicy haleem - was akin to a very affectionate religious teacher or a qari trying his heart out in teaching his pupils how to pronounce difficult tongue twisting words of Arabic. When a dsciple did dutifully echo what the teacher had just taught, a beaming smile would accentuate the glow already etched on the great leader’s face.
If the public expected a fitting and credible rebuttal of Dr Zulfiqar Mirza’s very serious allegations form Altaf they went to sleep sorely disappointed. The only person who must have had a tranquiliser-free night could have been Zulfiqar Mirza himself not on account of the multi-talented and immensely entertaining performance put in by Altaf bhai but due mainly to the fact that most of his Quran sworn allegations remained unrebutted. Despite the MQM boasting of having quite capable, eloquent and, dare I say, not so interesting people in its ranks like Mustafa Kamal and Haider Abbas Rizvi, their response lacked substance to the point of embarrassment. In fact it was quite painful to watch them defend their boss who had earlier “revealed” some of the worn out articles right to their ISBN! The only saving grace in their own eyes perhaps was that their leader had decided to reply himself albeit in a very unconvincing way as it transpired.
The other thing which was highlighted in the whole saga was the fact that no matter how much time and histrionics are employed the incessant gaze of the media will lay everything bare. That also means that long deliberate pauses, highs and lows in tome of voice which makes one sound like a shia zakir climaxing to the tragic end, impromptu singing while crudely mocking political rivals, alas, did not endear Altaf bhai to the wider national prime time viewership. The decision to answer Dr Mirza’s rumbustious style with similar play acting backfired badly. Mirza, despite his male hormone filled tirades sounding like an abrasive and ill-mannered feudal landlord haranguing his opponents in a punchayat , had struck a chord with his audience.
The top inner circle of the MQM leadership must have felt a wakeup call ringing inside them while answering probing and truth seeking questions from hostile and fearless media anchors in the immediate aftermath of the press conference. Suave, poetry reading, well-spoken and hard working boys from the educated middle class of Karachi like Rizvi and the former mayor Kamal looked lost for words for their standards when, unlike the Karachi crowd quite used to quietly and passively listening to such outbursts of emotion via telephonic addresses in the Soviet proletariat style, the wider audience around the country including senior journalists were more aghast than spellbound. The dramatic sacking and subsequent reinstatement of the senior journalist, Nusrat Javeed is a sign of the media asserting itself in the face of adversity. Who would have thought that a journalist would stand firm and refuse to give in to threats and will have the temerity to let off an outburst to match on air!
Ignoring for a moment the comical value in terms of sheer entertainment during the four hour marathon, Altaf Hussain unwittingly managed to usher the Pakistani society into the next level of press freedom and openness overnight. Within hours the reactions from MQM leadership became civilized and nuanced to say the least, a far cry from their rather crude, loud and anger-filled responses in the past every time their beloved leader was even fairly criticized. As they say a week is a long time in politics, Zulfiqar Mirza’s proverbial bombshell is leaving a lot of destruction in its wake and, in a strange, unintended way, creating a lot of room for introspection and reflection for the country in general and the MQM leaderhip and cadres in particular.
For starters they will have to bring their leader out of the cocoon of gratuitous veneration and into the open and begin to argue against the long held logic that when something is decreed by him every other view no matter how weighty and far-sighted has to give way. As the Dawn columnist Nadeem Paracha, known for his caustic wit and satirical pieces, wrote on twitter about MQM being a reality Altaf or no Altaf. Friend and foe in Karachi and all over Pakistan will have to swallow this reality and stop dreaming about annihilating MQM once and for all by pushing it into the Arabian Sea.
MQM, on the other hand, will have to come to terms with the bitter reality that political survival is all they will probably get in the absence of a patron like Musharraf come the next general elections. Judging by their track record especially in infrastructure development in Karachi, there is a good chance that they can stage a comeback if they have it in them to regroup and do damage limitation to fight another day. In this day and age where an independent and vibrant media has become one of the most powerful guarantors and watchdogs of democracy and rule of law, MQM will be well advised to acknowledge the winds of change and eschew the politics of coercion and violence while wrongly believing that the 20th century rhetoric will get them scot free with hardly anybody noticing.
The author can be reached at [email protected] and on twitter @tariq_Bashir
