Salman Ahmed vs Bilal Musharraf
Eight years ago PM’s son wrote an article why his father took over “he had no choice”, in November this year Mush excused his declaration of emergency and attacks on the judiciary + media again because he had no choice. I wonder why all his “no choices” seem to related to him staying in power by any means?
Cyberspace witnesses a War of Words between the President’s son and his friend-turned foe lead guitarist of rock band Junoon
http://www.weeklypulse.org/pulse/article/1023.html
On November 19, Salman Ahmad, Pakistan’s world fame rock artist, published an op-ed piece in The Washington Post, titled “A False Choice for Pakistan,” attacking Musharraf for imposing emergency rule in Pakistan. He wrote, “no amount of governmental fear-mongering can make us look the other way while he imposes emergency rule, intimidates the media, dismantles the judiciary and muzzles dissent. Without respect for civil institutions, his flawed government is doomed to fail.”
Salman was one the iconic figures for the youth of Pakistan who had publicly supported Musharraf’s “Enlightened Moderation” policy, which won him close friendship with his US-based son Bilal and audience with General Musharraf himself. Salman’s recent criticism of Musharraf has pit him against the latter’s son, and the consequent tussle between the two is filling space in numerous websites.
Both Salman and Bilal are based in the United States. Bilal completed his MBA and MA (Education) from Stanford University, and is currently working for ePlanet, a global venture fund based out of Silicon Valley. Salman is based in New York city and is a and UN goodwill ambassador on HIV-AIDS.
In his Washington Post article, Salman termed Musharraf as a dictator and Pharaoh, which provoked an angry response from Bilal. In his public email to Salman, which has now been taken off most websites, Bilal has accused the Junoon guitarist, who he says was a close friend and a spiritual guide of sorts since 1998 of indulging in venomous rhetoric against his father.
Bilal writes: “I was a bit disappointed when a picture of Salman and my father that I had taken some years back when Salman met me in Pindi appeared on Junoon’s website (http://www.junoon.com/news_archive2003.htm). Although Salman had asked for the picture, he had not indicated that it would go on the website, let alone also be credited to me publicly! In any case, I reconciled with that as no big deal.
“If Salman feels the need to neutralise the burden of prior public contact with my father with his venomous rhetoric, I find it not just unjust but truly unfair. Looking back today, I am unable to decide whether his motivation for prior public overtures towards my father were selfless or selfish in nature.”
“No one is perfect, I realise. However, to the extent one can, one must try to reduce one’s integrity gap which someone defined aptly as the difference between lived values and stated values,” Bilal further writes.
In his response to Bilal, Salman Ahmad writes that despite their close friendship, staying silent under the present conditions that Pakistan is undergoing, is no longer an option.
He writes, “I’ll respond to the public part of your criticism of my changed stance against your father’s policies. For the record, my support for your father’s vision of “enlightened moderation” was never based on any personal expectations or “marketing.”
“The picture that you took of me with your dad was taken in 2003, when I felt that the international media was cynically and wrongly depicting Pakistan as a total terrorist state being defended by “only” one pro-western moderate Pakistani, your father….
“That picture and my support for your father’s government was never meant to be taken as a blank check for the state machinery to run amok and start dismantling civil institutions, making deals with crooks and plunderers, treating civil servants like common criminals, kidnapping and killing innocent Pakistanis under the guise of the “war on terror” and illegally spying, torturing and jailing thousands of Pakistanis (which include national heroes, supreme court judges, lawyers, rights activists, house wives and students).”
The majority of responses from among internet bloggers tend to support Salman Ahmad. For instance, Nighat, at www.blog.BoltaPakistan.com, salutes Salman but castigates Bilal by asking him six questions, including: “Are we children of lesser God that your father while addressing western audience time and again declares that this country cannot have western way of democracy? What divine right he has to give himself extension after extension what agenda he has to finish or is it personal lust of power he seems to have? What personal grudge he has against civil society while fighting a war on terror against fundamentalists?
Bloggers on sites such as the official site of Imran Khan’s Tehrik-e-Insaf likewise share Salman’s criticism of Musharraf’s dictatorial conduct after the imposition of emergency, including his advise to Bilal Musharraf that he should emulate Gohar Ayub, who had advised his father and the former military dictator Ayub Khan to quit in the face of growing public opposition to his rule.